The Way and the Truth

“It is amazing how much information we absorb and retain as we develop and experience life – often listening to lectures or informative television programmes. It could be attending classes of subject interest, taking exams and more. Vocabulary expands all the time and what a place technology now has. People throughout history have been so clever and talented, inventive and artistically creative. I do hope these poems, based on the Bible, will be of help and interest, and food for thought for many, many people.”
– Jayne Marilyn Johns-Davies

The Wet Patch

You can read into the title of this book anything you wish. Some of my coastal friends on Magnetic Island, North Queensland, and some folks in our little town of Ravenshoe in far North Queensland—anything north of Townsville is far—have, without reading my poetic yarns, jumped to their own conclusions.

Some say, “You’ve written about our wet tropics and rainforest. Others say it’s about our ‘Big Wet’, a nice mild term for our cyclone season. Yet others have truly mucky minds.
What I will say, is that The Wet Patch along with all of the other humorous poems in this little book are true stories.

The book is scattered with North Queensland colloquialisms. The characters, even those with silly names, are real people. Dave, who features in my poems, is my husband, David.

Hope you enjoy the book as much as I did living it.

The White Bookshelf

The White Bookshelf is in the study of an Oxford Professor of Anthropology. It plays a significant role in the life of the whole family, but especially for his daughter Alice. The family is loving and supportive through all the trials of life. Alice moves with her husband, another anthropologist, to Australia. They enjoy great happiness as their family grows, and they learn to adjust to living in both Oxford and Queensland. They meet many interesting people and form close and lifelong friendships with their foreign colleagues. They travel to Canada, Australia, and England together and suffer illnesses and tragedies. Her friendships offer support throughout all the difficulties. The children of the three families are dubbed the ‘anthropological cousins’. They intermarry and live on three different continents. The final part of the book deals with Alice as a widow and tells how, unexpectedly, she meets a man through her university colleagues who offers her another chance of happiness and a new life following her father’s example of running charities.

The Widowers

Paul has been a widower for three years and he would be the first to admit that he feels lost in the seaside town that was to be the retirement home for him and his late wife. Only Paul’s faithful dog, Zeno, gives him comfort. Through a chance encounter, Paul meets Geoff, another widower and dog-owner, in the same boat as Paul. As he reflects on his marriage and his experiences, exchanging thoughts with Geoff, Paul begins to form a new perspective on his life, exploring his sense of loss but beginning to glimpse the possibility of a life after the death of a partner. He is not so old. He’s not too old to change. Each sunrise in the bay brings a new day. There are still journeys to be made before the sun sets at last.

The Wild Boy of Van Dieman's Land

What do you think could be the worst thing that could happen to you if you were so hungry you stole a bun?

In Victorian England, any theft at all could see you hung or sent to the other side of the world to a penal colony where you would be taught a lesson you would never forget. Your wickedness must be punished.

Davy’s father dies and he and his family are destitute. In a moment of weakness, ten-year-old Davy steals a bun. Now his troubles really start. He is brutalized and bullied in the prison until his wild behaviour ensures that he is transported to the notorious Van Dieman’s Land. Once he is there, life just gets harder and he begins to earn his name of ‘The Wild Boy.’

Meanwhile, his sister, twelve-year-old Hannah has been left to find work and fend for the family. She takes work in service to the prison chaplain’s family where her ingenuity and courage ensure that she is on the same transportation ship as Davy. Can she save him from life as a convict in the harshest colony of all? Can she ever reunite their shattered family?

The Willows

An early life of neglect and pain doesn’t deter Jack from being determined to be accepted and then later to realise his endeavours. The journey is fraught with failures, dangers and disappointments. His friendship with the children of an eccentric family who have rented ‘The Willows’, a large but run-down house in the beach resort where Tom is living, proves to be not only a turning point but also the scene of great tragedy. His experience is widened when he goes to university and becomes involved with many different groups of students. Although popular, Tom is unable to form any permanent relationship for some time. He comes to realise what this impediment is but cannot bring himself to tell anyone. Thirty-five years later, when he has retired from work, the tragedy that had happened at The Willows comes to haunt him and he realises he could be a suspect in a murder.

The Wind in the Grass

Life in the village of Hammerwell, situated in a remote part of Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, would appear, on the surface, to be a peaceful rural existence. Set in the period between the two world wars, the order of things is still very much as it has been for hundreds of years. But for Arthur Lever, life suddenly takes a dramatic turn. Set against a background of rural life, seed time, harvest, ploughing and lambing, The Wind in the Grass has lust, romance, cruelty, violence and sudden death. But worst is yet to come for the inhabitants of Hammerwell, insulated from the outside world by the grandeur of The Plain, they are unaware that their lives are about to be devastatingly changed forever.

The Wind That Blows

Parul Das is an Indian woman doctor that has had a failed affair in England. She is going back to India hoping to find herself. In doing so, she finds love, a family and peace of mind. Dennis Galvin, an Anglo-Indian, happily married to Susan, lives in Swindon, England, with his twins, Donald and Michael, and wife. However, his happy life is thrown upside down when his wife leaves him for another man. He then takes a ship back to India to meet the love of his life, Parul. Dennis takes his twins to see his parents in Goa. Then, he and his twins visit Parul at the tea plantation just outside Darjeeling, where he meets Sutra, Parul’s aunty. The twins are taught cooking by Sutra. Parul announces that she is emigrating to New Zealand. Sutra, Dennis and the twins go too. They board the cruise ship, Electra, in Calcutta, which is bound for Australia and New Zealand. Whilst onboard the Electra, there are two murders which the three detectives, Parul, Sutra and Dennis, try to solve. The twins meet three young girls on board; Tilly, Bella and Badger. Bella gets jealous and pushes Don into the swimming pool on board. After he is rescued, he reveals the murderers. Once the murderers are caught, everyone looks forward to their new lives in a new land. But still, there lurks hate and murder.

The Wolves of the Radfan

War is not a pleasant business. People die, cut to ribbons by bullets, limbs blown off by mines and roadside bombs. Not just the soldiers, but the non-combatants: young women, the elderly and children. 1963 to 1967 saw Britain fighting in a hostile and arid country, trying to stem the expansion of communism in the Middle East. On the ground, the ordinary soldiers, infantry, gunners, engineers and armoured regiments did what the British soldier always does – getting on with the job come hell or high water! Bomber’s story is written from real-life experience. Although Bomber, the main character, is fictitious, he is based on a combination of many soldiers. Many of the events took place as described but with the storyteller’s licence when melting them together. The Wolves of the Radfan, the largest tribe that straddled the then-border between North and South Yemen, started the war and the British soldiers put paid to the Wolves in 1964, but then came the push by the communists from North Yemen and it was then the contest started in all the brutality that war produces. Many acts of great courage have not been mentioned in the book, especially in the period from 1963 to the end of 1964, perhaps someone else will write about that. Fact and fiction, fiction or fact? This is a story of a normal British infantryman who faced combat and it was nothing like he had ever imagined.

The Woman from the Other Side

This collection of short stories focuses on the lives of ordinary working-class people from Northern Ireland. It is set against the backdrop of the ‘Troubles’ and the province’s more recent history. Strong female characters often carry the narrative, and the story which gives its title to the collection is that of a Catholic woman from the South who marries a staunch Northern Protestant, and they settle in Belfast. The strife which ensues reflects the divided communities which the rest of the book can testify to.

In their depiction of everyday violence and intimidation, the stories bring to light more latent themes of homosexuality, sexism, and prejudice. A strong focus on family bonds means that the collection provokes a profound resonance with a large number of us who have grown up in tight family circles. In many ways, the ‘Troubles’ serve to underline the tensions inherent in these bonds.

The World Behind Glass

The World Behind Glass is a collection of short stories that try to depict a world that every human being creates in their subconscious and lives in fear of. A world that is bigger than they imagined and beyond the world in which they live. Every moment they try to know themselves in the world of their imagination, but every moment they find themselves in a labyrinth that brings them back to the beginning of the road, creating eerie and frightening conditions for them. Frustration and fear pervade their whole being, and every moment, this person shows a different reaction from what is their character.

The Yellow Field

Love, lust, passion, and deceit culminate in the ultimate price being paid for revenge.

It is a hot, steamy summer and the Blonde is bored with her marriage to Phillip, a successful designer. When she meets the Hollywood actor, Black Lomax, they are instantly attracted to each other. In an old hotel at the edge of the yellow field, she embarks on an affair, unaware that Black’s past is lurking in the background, intent on exacting revenge. This leads to devastating consequences for everyone involved.

An unhinged heiress, a suicidal sister, and a relationship which has gone sour, all add to the havoc unleashed.