Shirley Tries a New Diet

It seems easy to understand. Just don’t eat anything made by animals. That’s easy to do, right? Shirley feels she needs to do this to attract the best-looking ram on the field. We are all sheep any way, moving around in herds, whether physically or in thought patterns. Could a change in widely accepted diets be undertaken by the herd?

The Book of Shenanigans

Geoff is having a biblically bad day. For a start, his car gets written off and he loses his job at a call centre in Manchester. Then the Devil tells him he’s the Anti-Christ and unless he delivers the apocalypse, he’ll be tortured for eternity at a call centre in Hell. With the help of the Devil, his best friend, Rob, who turns out to be an infamous duke of Hell, and Mr Sox, a Hell hound trapped in a cat’s body, they are chased by the forces of good and that’s when all the fun starts…

The Book of Shenanigans is the word of God that is full of:

MORE Nuns with Guns                        MORE Talking Animals

MORE Decapitations                            MORE Cute Musical Satanists

MORE Cordless Drills                          MORE Evil Nazis

MORE Tea Drinking                             MORE Scary Stuff

IMPORTANT READING GUIDANCE

The following groups are strictly prohibited from reading The Book of Shenanigans:

British Royal Family               Cancel Culture                             Cartel Members

Catholic Church                      Cats                                               Folk Bands

Mexicans                                 Norwegian Blue Nose Rabbits     Nuns

Penguins                                  Satanists                                        Scots

Seal Pups                                 Serial Killers                                 Snowflakes

Swedes                                    Unicorns                                        Witches

Steeple City

Steeple City is set in Cork City, Ireland and is a humorous story of how selfishness and loneliness can consume a family whose mother dies giving birth. We get to see life through the eyes of the main character Fin, a funny, lying, stealing fourteen-year-old bastard who despises his older gay brother and womanising father. The only rock in his life is his granny “The Mad Mullah”. The more hardship Fin inflicts or is inflicted upon him the more relatable he becomes. His toxic humour helps him and the reader navigate a year in his life. Fin’s immediate and extended family experience a year of love, laughter and death where an array of characters enter Steeple City with their own unique self-destructive story.

Senior Singles

Tom Hartley retires and soon afterwards his wife dies. After years of happy marriage, he is left alone in the large family home. Realising that he has to build himself a new life, he moves into a smaller house, tries new activities and makes new friends amongst other lonely senior singles. He takes Spanish lessons, tries yoga, singles holidays, dancing, tennis and crosses America along Route 66, all with hilarious consequences as he throws himself into his new lifestyle. After gaining and losing one love, he finds another very unexpectedly.

Senior Pleasures

Overnight Tom Hartley became a grieving widower after years of happy marriage and rebuilt his life by making new friends and taking up new interests. He moved house and set up a gardening club which also helped elderly residents and arranged walks and other social activities. After a number of close friendships with lonely ladies, he fell in love with neighbour Helen who had been working with him on the gardening club. Concerned about Tom’s over-friendly nature, Helen insisted on a one-year engagement and that they should continue to live in separate homes for Tom to prove that he could resist temptation. All went well until a glamorous widow moved in next door and began making advances.

An unexpected event brought about a change in plans and Tom and Helen had to sell their homes and move to a rundown property requiring months of hard work and expense to restore. Despite their problems the couple have fun together and their love blossoms. 

Pets Aplenty

Join novice vet, Paul Mitchell, in a further six months of hilarious escapades he experiences while working at Prospect House Veterinary Hospital. He's confronted by a ravenous pig while sunbathing naked in a cornfield. He locks jaws with a caiman with scale rot and battles with Doug, a vicious miniature donkey that's always sinking his teeth into him. It ends with a Christmas pet blessing which erupts into pandemonium as frightened pets and owners scatter through the pews. Throughout his adventures, Paul is loyally supported by the team at the hospital - in particular Beryl, the elderly one-eyed receptionist, and, Lucy the junior nurse - together with whom he shares this merry-go-round of mayhem. It's a gripping, fast page-turner that's guaranteed to keep animal lovers entranced.

Praise for Malcolm Welshman

‘... paints a vivid picture of many fascinating characters.'
Jim Wight, son of James Herriot

‘... brings a smile to your face.'
Sir Terry Wogan

‘Your story is a corker.'
Richard Madeley

‘... hilarious stories straight from a vet's pen will keep you chuckling.'
Stella Whitelaw

Love? In A Cottage

Love? In a Cottage is the story of two middle-aged people from very different backgrounds who meet as the result of an advertisement placed in the lonely hearts section of a national newspaper. Marlene Sugden is a secretary working in London whose life has changed very much for the worse in a few months. Firstly her father, who she has loved and cared for over many years, dies then her best friend marries and immediately emigrates to Australia and, as a final straw, Marlene’s boss retires and her new boss is a snappy and difficult man. Marlene dearly wants a husband and a home to care for and in her desperation, she places an advertisement in the Evening Standard. “Lonely unmarried woman, good cook and homemaker seeks kind-hearted, single middle-aged man with view to matrimony if suited”. Deep in the Herefordshire countryside, Donald Evans sits reading a two-day-old newspaper as he eats his meal of baked beans straight from the tin. His eye is caught by Marlene’s advertisement. He is single, mid-40s and kind-hearted if it does not cost him anything. Donald hunts out a piece of notepaper, sharpens his pencil and replies to Marlene’s advertisement.

Class Act

Biggsy is an idealistic 50-year-old English teacher in a West London boys’ secondary school. A maverick head of department who battled against the educational establishment for twenty-five years, he’s beginning to crack. His departmental colleagues love him, but he suspects that the school’s management team is out to get rid of him.

His wife, Myra, a medical secretary, is his mainstay. She patiently endures his total commitment to his calling without complaint. However, when she realises that his work is taking an inordinate emotional toll on his personality, her patience wears thin.

Through his exchanges with teenage Ella, their only child, Biggsy reveals his beliefs about the connections between literary theory and the lives we all lead. But a violent assault on one of his students, an unexpected sexual encounter and professional betrayal expose the flaws in his philosophy. He discovers that trying to think one’s way through life is all very well, but the time comes when one has to act.