Me and My Shadow

Me and My Shadow – Memoirs of a Cancer Survivor is a brutally honest account of one teenager’s struggle to understand and deal with the most feared diagnosis known to society: cancer.

At 18 years of age, John Walker Pattison was thrust onto a roller coaster ride of emotional turbulence – his innocence cruelly stripped from him; his fate woven into the tapestry of life.

After years of failed chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments that ravaged his physical frame and almost destroyed his psychological stability – his parents were told that he would not survive. Yet, today, he is one of the longest surviving cancer patients in the UK.

Eight years after his unexpected recovery, the news that all parents fear, his daughter is diagnosed with terminal leukaemia. Yet like her father, she too would defy the odds and go on to become an international swimmer.

Pattison turned his life full circle and became a cancer nurse specialist at the same hospital that made his diagnosis decades earlier. He prescribes chemotherapy and cares for individuals with the same cancers experienced by both him and his daughter.

Throughout his journey, Pattison’s inspirations were the space rock legends, Hawkwind. He would get to play on stage with his heroes at the Donnington Festival in 2007.

More significantly, he found solace throughout his cancer journey in the history and spirituality of the Lakota Sioux Nation. In 2018, he would spend time on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation with the indigenous people of South Dakota. The same people who, unknowingly, supported him through life's greatest challenge: cancer.

Midlife Crisis

After 20 plus years of marriage you would think that we would have settled into a nice rhythm of life and that big life changes were all past us now! But no. The ride of our lives was unfolding before our eyes, from sports cars and Harley Davidsons to strippers in New Orleans, from shady goings-on within the workplace to a homeless pregnant girl. How can a marriage survive such things? The affair with the Thai massage therapist was a catalyst. All these things changed the course of our lives. What would you have done?

Monster in My Mind

Prepare to be captivated by Monster in My Mind, an enthralling journey into the world of a tormented child. Alison’s harrowing truth unfolds within the pages, exposing the depths of her troubled upbringing. Step into her shoes as she navigates a harsh reality, locked away within her own mind. Through resilience and determination, she eventually finds the strength to break free from her confines and soar to new heights. This poignant tale will leave you spellbound, shedding light on the indomitable spirit that can emerge from even the darkest of circumstances.

On the Eighth Day

Hi, browser! Welcome to the Pacific Northwest of Canada. If you buy this collection of an old man’s memories, you will not be purchasing a history book, or a novel, or even a biography. The old man once taught English at a small University in the hinterland mountains of British Columbia, the Kootenays. The old man has Parkinson’s, a disease with a sense of humour. Parkinson’s patients suffer hallucinations. Our sleep is tormented by pieces of memory that flash like bolts of lightning on a hot summer night. The book is a collection of twenty-six vignettes, numbered, mostly untitled, so you never know if the vignette will be funny, or sad, or shocking, or nostalgic. The old man is watching the last of his life crumble away.

One-Way Ticket to Honolulu

Should you follow your intuition in your darkest hour?

Anette is 32 and living an expat life in Hong Kong with her husband, Phil. The world seems to lie at her feet. But when Phil dies tragically, her world stops.

Sitting on the floor at their Hong Kong apartment, surrounded by all their stuff, Anette is asked by his company where to send all her belongings. And the only thought she has is that they should send it all to Honolulu.

Part of the Family

An inspiring story of one family’s journey through the British care system, from the point of view of a foster carer. It tells of the funny, challenging, and often harrowing times of living life in an ever-changing household of temporary children.

Steering a course through the muddy waters of the care system has provided many obstacles but has overall proved to be a rewarding and heart-warming experience for the author.

Children who find themselves removed from their birth families are thrust into a system which, although trying its best, is so often lacking in the love and good quality nurturing they deserve.

As a society, we need to look at the way we deal with vulnerable children.

Post Traumatic Stress And Disorderly

Post Traumatic Stress and Disorderly is one man’s story growing up in Liverpool UK and his fight with the mental health condition PTSD, manifested by multiple horrific ordeals.

Symptoms first surfaced as a young teenager after being targeted by the notorious Liverpool Bogeyman during the eighties, stalked and bullied until a violent confrontation was the only way out of the harrowing situation, thus becoming the catalyst for the debilitating mental state.

His ordeal included witnessing three murders (including two in a double gangland execution of friends in his family run health club in the nineties) the investigation, the suspicion of his involvement by the police, the court cases as a pivotal witness, the wearing of a bullet proof vest and self-prescribed remedies of cocaine and alcohol to escape the torturing images embedded into his now fragile mindset. These remedies were just as destructive, helping the demise to an already crumbling psyche. This book is a brutally honest account of one man’s failings to some degree successes in his elusive search for a more stable peace of mind.

But it didn’t stop there. Bolstering the attacks of PTSD, he experienced a car bomb attack to kill and destroy, a near psychotic encounter with a global superstar, incarceration to HMP Liverpool, a near fatal stabbing on a family holiday, right up to the experiences of losing both parents within fifteen months of each other, one to the pandemic in 2020, and the tragic premature loss of his oldest brother shortly after.

This is an account of creating antidotes for better mental health, finally accumulating into a formula of stability that the mental health professionals failed to provide. Like the ups and downs of a vast mountain range Post Traumatic Stress and Disorderly will take you down to the caverns of despair, soaring to the peaks of personal achievement, in a war the author has had with himself.

Reeling Back the Years

Bound by a shared love for the outdoors and fishing, this book is a testament to enduring friendships and the countless laughs that come with them. Dive into a world where the weight of everyday anxieties lifts and is replaced by light-hearted tales and memories.

While the backdrop might often be fishing, this narrative isn’t about the catch. It’s about how shared passions shape bonds and how humour becomes life’s most treasured anchor. It’s a reminder to find joy in the little things and never let life weigh too heavily on your shoulders.

Whether you’re tickled by quirky tales, or find mirth in the mundane, this collection of escapades – from Irish adventures to misadventures on boat trips – is bound to resonate. Settle in with a warm drink and let these stories reel you into a world of laughter and camaraderie.

Rotting Man Goes to Town

Rotting Man Goes to Town deals with an adult relationship; which is in deep trauma from the outset of the story. Its technique is predominately dual narration, going from him to her vantage points. There are two sides to every story. Some of the language is hard-hitting, with angry scenes or mindsets, including some swearing. Political incorrectness exists in parts. The emotions are raw. It is a compelling and authentic read. It begins badly. How will it end?

The initial setting is in America, with flashbacks to Britain, meant to counter the: hurt, sadness and anger, by the use of the device of injecting past comedic episodes. Levity and tragedy are seen in animal antics. Thus, the humorous scenes are meant to bring a balance to the novel overall.

With the exception of the animals’ names, which remain true, all human names have been changed.

Spoz and friends: Tales of a London medical student

These delightful stories chart the stuttering and at times quite hapless progress of ‘the Spoz', (so named by his brother ‘the Woog') from Norwich schooldays through his time as a student at a prestigious London medical school in the 1970s. From his initial interview at St Thomas' Hospital - an institution he chose because he had never heard of it and on that rather dubious basis thought he was more likely to be accepted - to his final exams, the book documents the author's painful progress as an immature seventeen-year-old away from home for the first time. Sexually naïve, he devotes much of his time attempting to lose his virginity, while his excessive beer-drinking hampers his success and results in several awkward brushes with the London constabulary. Chronically impecunious and homeless for several months, Spoz devises various hair-brained money-making schemes and ultimately has to take extensive time out of his studies to work on a nearby building site. From there he witnesses the bombing of Westminster Palace by the IRA, while his absenteeism from classes almost results in a premature end to his already unpromising career. While always infused with the author's characteristic humour, the Tales of Spoz offer the reader a more serious yet unobtrusive social commentary on the problems of being a student in that era, charting the often tortuous transition of a group of young men from immature schoolboys to responsible young doctors.

Take Them or I Will Kill Them

Diane then said to her aunt and uncle, “Benny told us we are staying with you for a holiday.” Bet looked at Benny, who signalled for the girls to come to him. Looking at the two small girls, he swallowed hard. 

When he had their attention, he said grimly, “No girls, I have brought you here to live with Auntie Bet and Uncle Bertie, because if I had not taken you away, then they would have killed you.”

Diane frowned, “They? Who are they?”

Benny replied, “Your mum and dad.”

Benny explained that when he came to collect them, their mother said, “Take them, or I will kill them. I’ve had enough; I don’t want them in my sight.” Diane gasped and grabbed Jo’s hand.

This is the true story about two small girls who suffered neglect and appalling abuse at the hands of the people who should have been caring for them; their parents.

Tears of No One

This is the true story of an elite Navy medical team in a secret mission to save an isolated tribe from extinction. During the year of 2008, the Brazilian Government sent the Navy hospital ship Oswaldo Cruz to the heart of the Amazonian forest, the intent was to locate and make contact with the female leader of the Korubo tribe, and discover the reason for the massive numbers of deaths of those individuals, who were possibly infected by an unknown disease.

This book will take you into a real heart of darkness adventure, through this history, which is narrated from the standpoint of Chief Medical Officer Lieutenant Callia. You will travel aboard a Brazilian warship into uncharted rivers, will make the first contact with unknown tribes, fight river pirates and tropical diseases, survive the sinking of your boat and finally meet the mythic Korubo tribe, led by the fearless female warrior Maya, and her three husbands.

In a world deeply shaken by Covid and at the edge of a global war, this narrative takes us to a situation which proves that centenary conflicts may be solved through humanity, that science can defeat diseases, and that the love for the next one may change the world. And perhaps, at the end of this book, you may find yourself repeating the endless mantra of the Oswaldo Cruz crew members: Health wherever there is life!