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Liverpool Kids of WWII - Part 1
The Liverpool Blitz is over…
The seven-year-old boy who was evacuated in The Green Gates Story, comes home after many months away, and is faced with changes to his life: house moves, new districts, new faces…
No sweets, because Mum’s used the coupons for sugar.
What are bananas?
What’s ice-cream?
White bread?
Upon his return to his home city and with his evacuation experience behind him, he views his life ahead as a series of hurdles, but the War is ongoing…
Toys? – Pretend games and a good healthy imagination.
Free-time? – Fun of collecting waste paper, scrap metal, bones and rags, in support of the war effort.
His first trip into town, shopping with Mum, and the surprising sight of big blackened shells, once shops, now dark spaces between buildings, which had suffered direct hits, torn apart innards and burnt deposits.
Blast waves obliterating shop windows and doors of adjacent buildings, displaying:
Heaps of broken bricks
Shattered concrete supports
Splintered wood floors hanging drunkenly, with massive heaps of dust and debris deposited on the piled remains, awaiting attention and clearance.
How to cope with the unnecessary death of a classmate, killed at play, after accidentally falling through the blitzed roof of an unsafe bomb-damaged house?
When the supply and demands of shortages cause the theft of a family bicycle.
Kids discovering the incomprehensible: German POWs sitting smoking, chatting and laughing, employed in collecting and stacking usable bricks from a bomb site, watched by a grey-haired bespectacled British soldier sat in his parked army lorry when he was not reading a dog-eared copy of Lilliput magazine.
Same kids, frowning and mindful of captured British soldiers packed into overcrowded huts inside barbed-wire enclosures, overlooked by machine-gun towers, in the Fatherland!£9.99 -
Let’s Go Sit Under the Mango Tree
Singapore in 1942 saw the greatest defeat of the British and Allied forces of WW2. Much has been written about the terrible time endured by the 85,000 troops who surrendered to the Japanese forces on 15 February 1942. Much less has been written about the circumstances surrounding the many civilians caught up in the fighting and subsequently interned or forced to endure occupation.
Such was the speed with which the Japanese captured the Island that little time was given to removing resources that may assist them in furthering their aim of creating an Asian empire. One example is the fact that the island had become the centre for all the gold reserves of the Malay States and Singapore. The Japanese knew this and for nearly four years searched the island for the gold. To this day some of this gold may still be at large as no one ever kept a record of what gold was on the island and how much was consumed in paying the cost of the subsequent guerrilla warfare.
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Letters to Doberitz
This unique and compelling story has laid dormant for a 100 years. Inspired by real events and based on my own family during the First World War, Letters to Doberitz is set between a German prison-of-war camp, the battlefields of France and family back in Bristol, as father and son endure very different wars. These were real people. They are my ancestors and family who left an extraordinary tale to be told. A lie is made in the name of love, with letters written compounding the deceit for years, all to protect the man that they loved. This is their truly unique story.
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La Palabra De Dios
La Palabra De Dios is the story of a Spanish priest sent on an errand in 1665, from Spain to Mexico to retrieve the religious artifact, La Cruz de Chiapas, to have it interred with its beneficiary, Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas, in Madrid, Spain. Along his journey he uncovers a plot to overthrow Charles II, the King of Spain, as well as being visited by Blessed Mother Mary, and given a special task by Jesus Christ to build a church in present-day Florida. Working with newfound friends, the priest helps temporarily thwart some of the actors in the plot to overthrow the king in the Caribbean while completing his assigned task and growing deeper in faith.
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Kingscourt
Kingscourt had been their home since the 16th century, a rambling country estate with immaculate gardens and rolling Devonshire hills. But one weekend leads to a misunderstanding which changes everyone’s lives.
Julian was a golden boy used to having his own way and whatever he wanted. He was in the throes of a passionate love affair, and that the lady was married did not trouble him at all, until his father’s discovery forced him to make a choice.
Billy was his carefree younger brother used to taking the blame for all his bad behaviour. Joining the Army had been his one ambition and leaving home matured him, but an untimely death and a decade of drifting ended with the Great War.
Simon was a career soldier who suddenly found the Army did not want a man with a broken knee. An unlikely friendship led him to a life he could never have imagined.
Grace loved her home and wanted everything to stay the same, but she knew marriage would mean leaving it forever. An unexpected death and a new arrival turned her life upside down, and the home she loved so much tested her in ways she could never have imagined.
War tested them all as casualty lists lengthened and staff shortages changed their leisured way of life. And one member of the family threatened to bring shame on them all with one wild escapade after another.
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Keeper of the Red Shawl: The Secret Shadows
Embark on a captivating journey through the canals in Keeper of the Red Shawl: The Secret Shadows, the enchanting sequel to the novel Keeper of the Red Shawl. Set in the vibrant 1920s, this riveting tale follows narrowboat owner Frances as she navigates life’s changes.
Amidst the challenges of a growing family, Frances finds herself swept away by love once again, this time with a younger hired hand from a neighbouring narrowboat family. However, their happiness is short-lived, as the harsh reality sets in that they must keep their love hidden from prying eyes. In stolen moments of passion, they cling to each other, longing for the next clandestine rendezvous.
But fate has even more obstacles in store. As war engulfs the world, Frances and her beloved family are thrust into a maelstrom of uncertainty and sacrifice.
Prepare to be captivated by this tale of forbidden love, as secrets unravel and hearts are tested in the face of adversity. Against the backdrop of a vibrant era and the haunting beauty of the canals, Keeper of the Red Shawl: The Secret Shadows is a poignant exploration of love’s resilience and the enduring power of the human spirit.
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James Grant
This story of James Grant, his family and the class they belong to is not of our time. That class still exists and its prosperity is unabated. But its position in the American national psyche is greatly diminished, its glitter dulled by the passage of time – and a change in the mores of society as a whole. But I have written it because I believe the foibles of the human heart and its redeeming strengths possess a universality which overcomes the angst of changing times. I have set the stage in an unfamiliar time to mine. Whether my characters that stride upon that cluttered stage would remain credible in a stark, modern setting, I cannot judge. I had no one in particular in mind in devising them. They are as the ghosts that populate our dreams – a compendium of hints and reflections of those who have crossed our consciousness in the ill-remembered past.
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Jack Wolf
You will be brothers, you will see death and destruction, you will be expected to run into fire when every other living thing runs away, you will work long shifts, days, nights, Saturdays, Sundays, high days and holidays, Christmas days and your birthdays. You will be injured and burned, and don’t kid yourself it won’t happen to you, it will. And consider this: On average two firemen are killed each year in service. You are expected to do this job for thirty years. Nobody wants to pay you decent wages, they will tell you that you sit around all day, play snooker and squirt water for a living. You will be like Cinderella… you will live, eat and sleep behind the red engine house doors and when called to serve, when the fire bell rings you will answer their call, their fear and their alarm. You will risk your life for a stranger, someone you never knew or will ever know and when the alarm has passed, when you are exhausted and done, you will return to the fire station, close those red engine house doors behind you and lick your wounds.
We are their insurance; they never want us, until they want us, then briefly, briefly, we are heroes.
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Ivanhoe Mill
Ivanhoe Mill is from a long ago period, it has characters of mixed interest, each section of the book has love, tragedy, plots of cruelty and devious problems that affect many of the community.
The Manor House, Cawston Hall, is the hub that controls the everyday life of the surrounding villages. The lord of the Manor is devious and cruel in his manipulation which is his quest to satisfy his selfishness.
There is a wide range of domestic and social activity that I hope gives you a great deal of interest to compliment the characters in the book. The writing and some of the flavour of the slang, I hope fits my interpretation that brings to life my portrayal of the people in the book.
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It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken
Life in the 1950s and 60s sometimes appears to have been lived by people from another planet. Such is the difference in lifestyle between now and then. Computers, social media, and all the problems that come with living in the 21st century were a distant dream (or nightmare). Life was lived at a slower pace, and people had more time for one another. This is not to say that times couldn't be hard, and life certainly wasn’t always a ‘bed of roses’.
Through it all, there was always a shoulder to lean on, or a nice cup of tea made by a friend or neighbour, who would listen patiently to your troubles or triumphs (counsellors extraordinaire!)
There appeared to be no shortage of characters, and everyone had a tale to tell. ‘A peck of dirt won’t kill you,’ was a well-used adage, and from childhood to old age, people were less fearful than today, thus allowing them to live their lives to the full.
This book is about the people who lived through those times, their quirks and habits, their generosity and good humour. Humour plays a big part in this book, with a sprinkling of every other human emotion.
The author sincerely hopes that young and old will enjoy looking back at a bygone time which was only 60 short years ago.
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Isolde Daughter of the Priest
Set in the 14th Century in the dramatic landscape of Holy Island and North Northumberland, the novel is based on a real historic person.
Isolde, daughter of the priest, is excommunicated from the church with other members of her community of Lowyk for not paying the corn tithes to the monastery on Holy Island in 1353.
The novel brings to life a girl who stands out from this distant time and deserves to be remembered.
As a small child she crosses the dangerous sands at night that separate Holy Island from the mainland and somehow survives the incoming tide.
Is this survival, as the church believes, ‘miraculous’, a sign Isolde is being protected for a special reason?
It is a question of miracles.
Cover design ©️Abigail Edgar. Image of Isolde inspired by an angel in a stained glass window in the church of St John, Lowick.
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Isabella
Isabella is a novel of its time when life was hard and intimidating, often short and frequently brutal in the cause of making many rich men even richer on both sides of the Atlantic. Even so, there were more people willing to stand up to legislate for the cause in America just as happened in Great Britain 50 years earlier to help the oppressed escape to live a better life.
It is a story of love during the Civil War when unlikely people made individual efforts to play a part in overcoming slavery. The story alternates between gunrunning on the Eastern Seaboard, a rescued slave’s efforts to repay society in Boston and Canada and a wealthy young lady’s adventure up the Mississippi taking a young girl to Canada for safety and her involvement with the underground railway.
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