Hello, and thank you for visiting my site. I hope that you'll return often and always find something of interest about my world and what inspires me to pick up a pen. (This is a figure of speech, unfortunately. My handwriting is terrible!) Here's what I've been up to recently...
Ripon Poetry Festival 2018
The organisers of last year’s inaugural Ripon Poetry Festival hoped that this one would be able to build on its success and it certainly did. There was a full programme of events spread over four days and surely something for everyone.
My own contribution was a modest one, but I was very pleased to have a WW1 themed poem of mine included in the Festival Competition Anthology, which was launched on the Saturday evening in the undercroft of Holy Trinity Church. The following day, I read it again, together with a parody partly inspired by memories of a misspent youth. That was as part of Ripon Writers’ Group’s showcase at Thorpe Prebend House on High St Agnesgate.
You can read both these poems, Noblesse Oblige and The Hippy’s Lament in the Stories and Poems section of this website. I hope you enjoy them.
18 October, 2018 - Make the first comment on this story
News flash!
‘Workhouse Orphan’ is now available from Amazon in paperback or as a download. I have a small stock, so please let me know if you would like a signed copy. I’m also more than happy to give an author talk to any interested group. Although the book is aimed at the younger reader, a great deal of research has gone into it and the subject matter makes it appropriate for any age group.
23 July, 2018 - Make the first comment on this story
Workhouse Orphan
Will toiling underground in a Yorkshire coal mine be even worse than life in a London workhouse? Young David Dawson is given no choice in the matter and can only hope for the best, but what of the younger brothers and sister he has been forced to leave behind? Trying to think up a plan to rescue them is at the forefront of his mind as he gets to grips with backbreaking work and the almost incomprehensible speech of his new co-workers.
While this is a work of fiction and has a positive resolution, I hope that it may serve as a reminder of the inhumane treatment doled out to ‘paupers’ all over our country until well into the 20th century. Once inside the grim walls of a workhouse, families were split up and given no say in their daily lives. Outside, they might well starve or freeze to death. Orphan children were particularly powerless, their fate at the whim of the Board of Guardians.
This novel is set in an era when thirteen is considered high time for a child to earn his or her own living. Things have moved on since the days of Oliver Twist, but conditions are still harsh. His education cut short, young David faces a future of exhausting manual work in an industry known to be the most dangerous in the UK.
My inspiration has come from the cherished memory of David Robert Davidson, a workhouse boy from London who was briefly married to one of my great-aunts. Ten years younger than she, he was her second husband, the first having already perished in the Great War. In the photograph above, I believe David to be the young man posing with the Lewis gun.
He had been sent up to Hartshead, a small mining village in the former West Riding of Yorkshire, to work as a ‘hurrier’, pushing along heavy carts full of coal. As far as I have been able to ascertain, his reason for marrying was to take care of his friend’s widow and children until he was called up and to ensure their entitlement to a pension should the worst happen. Unfortunately, it did. David’s name is included on a memorial plaque in St Peter’s, Hartshead and honoured each Remembrance Day.
I should stress that ‘Workhouse Orphan’ is NOT a biography. The details of David’s short life that have passed down the family are too scanty for that. All I do know for sure is that his widow and stepdaughters thought the world of him. When they emigrated to the USA in 1919, they took with them his regimental photograph, from which the detail above is taken, and the certificate issued in recognition of his sacrifice for King and Country. Both were cherished until the last stepdaughter died, at which point they were sent over to me. A younger cousin now has charge of them.
23 July, 2018 - Make the first comment on this story
Death and the Maiden
Not having seen Ariel Dorfman’s challenging psychological drama ‘Death and the Maiden’ before, I really had to do my homework in order to do this performance justice. I was very glad that I had. The Harrogate Dramatic Society may be an amateur group, but there was nothing amateurish about the production. The three actors were word perfect and very convincing in their roles. The set was excellent and the scene changes well organised and slick.
The only sour note came when my review appeared in the press. Although the original I submitted was comfortably inside the prescribed word limit, someone had taken it upon him/herself to cut it, thus removing some well deserved praise. There has since been an apology and the promise of the review appearing in toto next week. If it does, I shall reproduce it below.
News flash! It did and here is the much improved version.
29 June, 2018 - Make the first comment on this story
Published Down Under!
Submitting stories overseas is a new departure for me and I’m thrilled to report that one of my murder mysteries has just appeared in a magazine only available in Australia and New Zealand.
That’s Life Fast Fiction is glossy, bright and pays well. What’s not to like!
11 June, 2018 - Make the first comment on this story
A chance for authors to strut our stuff at York Theatre Royal!
18 March, 2018 - Make the first comment on this story
1st session with the Squigglers
Well, that was fun! I showed some photographs about a turn of the (19th/20th) century workhouse and mining village, outlined my story, read some extracts and then let the Squigglers loose on the art materials provided. Very promising start. Thanks due to Shaun Doyle from Ripon Library (who also took the photo) and Vicki Lever from North Yorkshire Youth for their support and enthusiastic participation.
26 February, 2018 - Make the first comment on this story
Working with Squigglers
This should be fun. My ‘work in progress’ is a story about a boy sent up from a London workhouse to toil in the Yorkshire coal mines. It seems very appropriate that the Squigglers sometimes meet in the Ripon Workhouse Museum.
6 February, 2018 - There is one comment on this story
The President’s Cup
I’ve always been very grateful for the support of Ripon Writers’ Group and was delighted last night to receive the President’s Cup.
The Cup is awarded each year to the member with the most points in our rolling programme of internal competitions.
24 January, 2018 - Make the first comment on this story
Check Out My eBooks
