Mike's view of the new book so far

Sybil’s new book about a family in the Second World War is coming on a treat. As is her usual way she portrays the good and bad in both sides in the establishment and the domestic strata. We found when we lived in Germany and it was not long after the war had finished that some of the German citizens feared their own establishment more than the official enemy. We also knew that in England that during the air raid when we were in shelters there were those who would burgle the empty houses.

There were rules that prevented married couples in the forces living together, in certain circumstances understandable (as in the new book) but never the less difficult. It really makes you wonder how divided couples succeeded when the war was over and they were reunited, maybe some of them never understood each other again. A life apart allows the opportunity to form new relationships and  endure different life changing experiences that makes a formally happy relationship impossible.

Pigs of World War 2

This was the official way to feed a pig!!

Rationing was pretty dire during  and for a time after the war, as a youngster I was unaware of a lot of it. Though I do remember that 64 Smarties was a weeks sweet ration but Horlicks and Ovaltine tablets weren’t subject to rationing so I always had a packet handy. The amount of butter I put on a slice of toast now a days would have been a weeks ration back then but I believe it is a fact that we were a lot healthier in those days.

Naturally as a family we had to eeck out our rations in any way we could and there was a strong black market for ration coupons for everything. One of the legal ways neighbours could help out the meat ration was to club together and buy a pig give it to a friendly farmer to look after and send all the scraps of food you had to feed it. Then in due course it would be slaughtered and divided up amongest all the contributors.

One of the good things about the war was it brought communities together, people were less selfish and helped each other. Sadly that state of affairs only lasted until Margret Thatcher brought in the monetarism.

Mike's wartime shelters

Apart from the strengthened cellar I mentioned earlier there were three other shelters I got to know well during and after the war.

The first was an Anderson shelter made out of corrugated iron and buried in the garden to about half its depth with an open doorway and a blast wall in front of it. As a young boy it was a great thing to play round, we made cardboard wings which strapped to our arms and tried to fly from the top of it. The only other thing I remember of it is that on the first raid we had after it was built my mother refused to enter it as there was a frog in it. While we kept the frog company Mum sat outside the entrance for the whole of the raid.

The second shelter was at Granny’s in Hastings it was known as a Morrison shelter and was inside the house consisting for all the world like a sheet steel dining table with strong wire netting on three sides. When the siren went off the family would climb into it. Granny’s maid and I would go up to a observation area she had on her roof and watch the flying bombs coming over mainly they flew past us on their way to London but occasionally when we heard a motor stop we would dash down stairs and dive in on top of the family.

Just after the war a few public shelters remained one I remember was in a park on my way home from school a heavy brick built affair that would have only protected you from a light attack. However it was open and it is where I learnt to smoke and at 9 years old I told my Mum I’d given up smoking!

Air Raid Precautions

 This week we bought four DVD’s of World War Two not news reels or documentaries  but film for the theatre made just after the war and based on war books written by or about RAF personnel to give me a flavour of the times. The films were the Battle of Britain, Dam Busters, 633 Squadron and Reach for the Sky. Together they give a very favourable picture of the war if you’re British however we know from our time in Germany the general population there had their troubles too. I hope to pick this up in the chapter I’m researching now as one of my characters has the miss fortune to be shot down. But I want to try to give both sides a fair showing, it wasn’t particularly easy for the average man and woman in the street to avoid being caught up in some of the desperate plans of the Nazi party not as participants but even as bystanders.

The research I have done so far has been fascinating in itself, war is a terrible thing for the people of all the involved countries and the way they faced it, to the solutions they found. The other night we watched Battle of Britain and in it the air raid siren gave the warning of attack, both Mike and I felt a cold deep disturbance in our stomachs it’s amazing after so many years it still haunts you.

Mightier yet

Mike and I were fortunate during the war as our fathers were at home with us. As we lived on the South Coast my Dad was in the Civil Defence preparing the coast for the expected invasion which caused much concern at the beginning of the war. Later on he had the joyous job of undoing it all after we won the Battle of Britain and the enemy threat was reduced. Mikes Dad was rejected for the services as he had very poor eyesight so joined the Home Guard were he eventually became a Captain in charge of armaments. Naturally both Dads had duties when we had air raids and were away from home during and after the raid.

But for many the family was broken up the men, and sometimes the women, were in the forces away from home, coming home occasionally on leave and in some places giving a hand with the devastation caused by enemy action while they were there. Of course many went off to war and those left behind never saw them again. It was a sad fact but for those in the forces there was an excitement which could never be experienced in civilian life.

Such is the background to the book I am currently writing.

Let us go forward together

Sybil - carrying on from the last blog and about the Second World War. Born in 1940 I had little knowledge of the war but my mother told me of my first war time experience. I was about two or so. It was a fine day and Mum sat me outside on the lawn at the back of our house. A little while later a German fighter started to strafe the gardens of the houses were we lived. Mum panicked picked me up and rushed into the house, a bullet crashed through the kitchen window and lodged deeply in the opposite wall. It was a near thing but that was about my only real wartime experience, Mike had one or two.

Mike – we lived in a semidetached house, at the start of the war Mum and Dad strengthened the cellar where, when the air raid siren went we used to go, in fact I had a bed and slept down there with my cousins most nights. During the Manchester blitz a bomb fell at the end of our road which prompted my parents to move to a house at the edge of and outlying town. We had just moved there and had not yet built a shelter when a single German bomber (lost we presumed) dropped a bomb. I was in bed with my mother as we heard the whistle of it dropping. I was terrified and was sure it was going to land on us. When it hit the ground the house rocked all the windows blew in but apart from the blast we were safe. The following morning I with one or two local kids went over to the crater it caused hunting for shrapnel. We all came away with a souvenir funny how resilient kids are. I was older than Sybil so had more experiences later in the war but these memories are all useful for her to draw on for her new book.

Evacuate your children

I intend to write ten books, at the moment I have just started number nine. All are different except the Evergreen Series and this one will be different again. It concerns a service family in the Second World War and the predicaments faced because of the war. During the war itself I was too young to know what was going on but within twenty years of it I was married to a serviceman and living in Germany. We loved it and found that the ordinary German people friendly, welcoming not as we were led to believe during the hostilities.

 In fact we made many friends by the simple expedient of walking into a shop and asking in our English German what an item was called. If they replied in English and lots of them spoke it we would say “How about coming round to our house and teach us German?” This way we found out a lot about how they suffered from their own side and what it was like to live under Hitler’s regime.  Of course it helps enormously in writing this book as I am able to give life to both sides of the war. I have only just started and have much research to do to get it right but I will keep you posted as it develops.

A dog's plea

The other day while searching for a lost receipt I came across this and I thought I would share it with you.

A Dogs Plea

Treat me kindly dear friend for no heart in all the world is more grateful for kindness than the loving heart of mine. Do not break my spirit with a stick, for though I should lick you between blows, your patience and understanding will more quickly teach me the things you would have me learn. Speak to me often for your voice is the world’s sweetest music, as you know by the fierce wagging of my tail when your foot steps fall upon my waiting ears.

Please take me inside when it is wet for I am a domesticated animal, no longer accustomed to the bitter elements. I ask no greater glory than the privilege of sitting at your feet beside the hearth. Keep my dish filled with fresh water, for I cannot tell you when I suffer thirst. Feed me with fresh food that I may stay well to romp and play and do your bidding, to walk by your side and stand ready to protect you with my life should your life be in danger. When I am old and no longer enjoy good health, hearing and sight, do not make heroic efforts to keep me going, I shall not enjoy myself. Please see that my life is taken gently.

I shall leave this earth knowing with the last breath, that my life was safest in your hands.

We're out (and down)

So we’ve had our referendum and voted to come out. Not by a convincing majority to my mind, in fact expressed as percentages too close to make that sort of decision, a simple majority is not always the wisest choice. Especially as the arguments for Brexit were rather nebulas and dubious but we're out now and have to work with it, at least our new Prime Minister seems the best person selected from the poor quality of stock we had. I have every confidence she will prove to be a great one at least she is leading; “come the hour” they say.

On the other hand our opposition party is tearing itself to pieces, it seems the ones in parliament don’t represent the people they serve, if serve is the right word. It seems that they serve themselves first, then the New Labour line, then their party members if they don’t have any divergent views.

It would appear that there only purpose in life is to unseat the Conservatives not the good of the country. A country that at this moment in time, that could well do with us pulling together for our future. We’ve made a collective mistake now it is time to make the best of what we’ve got, but then we are Brits and history is not on our side.

Inshallah the book - free copies from Kindle 1-5th July 2016

The story - Jinnya a wilful but otherwise a conventional Saudi girl had her life turned upside down at Abba airport when she admired an English expatriate, Mark Maxwell. Through a series of fateful situations they meet and fall in love, breaking the civil and religious laws of the country.  Fighting against all the difficulties they plan their future together, only to be discovered by her brother. He has the agonising task of choosing between his religion and his sister and to a faceoff with Mark his English friend eventually deciding for his sister, saving her life. He is now set against his father who is of an older generation with strongly held religious views.

Originally written in 1978 it is of that time when Saudi Arabia had recently become a united country but a country of contrasts, between the more and less religious elements, between the rich and the poor, between a desire to modernise and a desire to maintain the discipline of the old. This forms the background to the novel and highlights the challenges facing the young couple.

The end leaves the reader to make up their own mind as to rights and wrongs of the tale.

 amazon.com/dp/B007OIX3XM   

Post referendum

A picture from South Sudan

Well now it’s over and we have to pick up the pieces, we voted to leave the EU on a pack of I won’t say lies but distortions and the people who sold us them are back tracking. I heard the theory that the out campaign wanted a tight vote in favor of remain so the Prime Minister would have to resign and Boris would achieve his ambition of taking his place but it didn’t work like that.

The TV shows little old ladies saying “It’ll be like the old days”, really don’t they remember the rationing and strikes, the three day week the lousy cars we used to make. The youngster’s saying “They’ve taken our future away” for heaven’s sake get a grip, you’re too used to being spoon fed do something for yourself. We talk about immigrants coming and taking our jobs, well it’s a good job they do because we have forgotten how to work. There is a lot of good in this country and a lot of bad and I don’t think the referendum aftermath will put it right though the opportunity is there.

Mike - What the hell

The decision on the referendum for me seems as far away as ever. Last week I was more or less persuaded by Jeremy Corbyn that to stay in was the best option. But politics has become a personality thing and if I vote in then it looks as though I’m backing David Cameron and if I vote out then I’m voting for Boris Johnson. Nothing could be further from the truth it’s the media that has done this to me and no doubt many other folks. Sometimes I think abstaining is the only option but to abstain would mean I didn’t have a say in the outcome. No I think I’ll go with Jeremy and vote in on the other hand I don’t really like the way Europe treats us but then again we’ve got UKIP representing us there.

Trying to reach a decision

The other day I switched on the TV just to see what was on and it was Jeremy Corbyn giving a speech to I think it was members of the trade unions. Now he has never impressed me before but it was the first time I have heard a reasonable argument for staying in the EU, it was positive, no claims of dire results if we leave. Better than anything I have heard from any politician before I won’t say it made up my mind but it did set me thinking as for the first time I had something to think about. Not only that, it upped Corbyn’s standing in my mind.

Immediately following this broadcast was a speech given by Boris Johnson and the comparison was astounding, there were no real reasons for leaving and it was totally the reverse of Corbyn’s logically developed reasoning. It is obvious Boris Johnson has aspirations of becoming Prime Minister if we leave the EU, God help us if it happens.

Mike's How to foul up the future

So we just received a booklet through the post called “Why the Government believes that voting to remain in the European Union is the best decision for the UK” a nice neat title. There then followed an equally wordy list of statements without anything that really persuaded me. I am what they call a floating voter i.e. someone who can’t make up his mind. I find that dear old David Cameron and Boris (is he for real?) Johnson seem have lost me somewhere along the way. The trouble is I just don’t believe politicians it seems to me that although they say they wanted to become an MP to serve the public they really became an MP to serve themselves, perhaps I do some a disservice but not more than I have fingers. One thing I do realise that after the referendum the country will never be the same no matter who wins, if we stay, in there has been so much in fighting in both parties that the government will have to change as new scores will have to be avenged and the leadership will have been weakened; and if we come out, do we have a leader capable of steering us through the rough waters that will follow? In America if you vote for Trump you don’t know what you’ll get it seems to me we’re in the same boat.

Tee for Two a satisfying start

Well we launched “Tee for Two” a couple of weeks ago and I’m happy to say in that short time it’s sales have exceeded our expectation. I must admit we were a bit worried as it is a rather unusual approach to romance but it seems to have caught on. I keep saying we as Mike inspired the science fiction bit which is the basis of the second half of the book but it seemed to fit and allowed me to develop the two main characters that had been at odds with each other in the first half. I enjoy it when I have people who in some ways develop themselves by just throwing situations at them and letting then deal with them. In fact Gemma and Dave had become my best friends by the end of the book but it is knowing when to end the story and I left them in France reminiscing over the full life they had enjoyed.

It really is here "Tee for Two"

It’s out “Tee for Two” published a few days ago, the private life and loves of a professional lady golfer, Gemma. She certainly had a rough ride and witnessed some events that greatly up set her. How she dealt with them is the theme of the book, there is also a little science fiction which placed her in a position that lead to her career being in question and was another problem she had to solve. Early in the book she met a man who was to help her throughout her life and it is the relation between these two that provides the spine of the story.

I enjoyed writing this book and it did lead to a lot of research which I found fascinating but this is not a golf book in the normal sense of things but about the challenges Gemma finds off the course and her relationship she has with her male caddies and house hold staff.

My new book Tee for two nearly here

Picture for the cover

My new book is nearly ready for publication despite my struggles with the computer and I thought you might like to hear a little more about it, so here is the preface.

Gemma Stanford professionally was a leading woman golfer consistently in the top ten and admired by an enthusiastic following. Behind the public image was a girl becoming increasingly unsure of herself, buffeted by misfortune and in need of a strong male guidance. Having parted with her long time caddy who had fulfilled the role until he became too demanding of matters outside golf.

Finding a new caddy, dealing with her sponsors, writing articles, attending photo shoots, giving interviews and a million other things pressured Gemma to take a holiday with an old girlfriend in her cottage in Wales. During her stay an attractive male forced himself upon her, not immediately welcome he gradually seduced her into a short relationship. Her need to return to London broke up the affair as his lack of understanding of her busy life lead to a jealous parting.

Eventually Gemma found a suitable handsome male caddy to work with on a continuing basis. Their partnership was so successful both professionally and personally that they became lovers and decide to marry. All was well for several month when Craig was killed leaving Gemma distraught. Dave her male from Wales still dreaming of their relationship and deeply attached to her had found out of Craig’s demise and helped her through this dramatic aftermath.

After a considerable time of creating confidence deepening their love, Gemma came to rely wholly on Dave and eventually asked him to become her manager and caddy, and this is where the story really starts.

Mike Scared to death

The other night I watched a program on Donald Trump and it frightened me to death, it seems to me that if he succeeds in becoming president America will become as unstable as the Middle East is at present. Whilst he appeals to the wilder side of his followers, he lowers the regard for the USA in the rest of the world. How can a man who is aggressive as he is negotiate with Iran, or any of the Muslim world or anybody? He may have a lot of money and no doubt he is clever in certain fields but if what we see on our television screens is anything to go by he doesn’t have a hope in hell internationally. 

Mike's Just different

When I first went to Saudi Arabia I smoked like pretty much everyone else at the time (1974). When I first met the Saudis I was to work with I found them polite but a little arrogant one of the first shocks I experience was when one of my trainees said “Give me a cigarette” just like that. I know it annoyed many of the expatriates as it was not an uncommon way of addressing us but I soon realised they spoke to each other in the same way. After that I accepted it as their manner but many of my fellow expatriates insisted on them saying please and thank you. A mental hark back to the empire maybe but then later I found that the American expatriate reacted in the same way. It seems that we must alter even ancient cultures to our way instead of learning from them not of course in the way of asking for a cigarette but look at any of the countries we have been too we have left our mark not always for the good but to create a new market or to exploit their resources. Sad that we have learned so little from them as civilisations when we could have started with individual relationships, no we are not better just different.

Mike's memories - The tale of two bombs

I don’t know what made me start thinking of my young life in the Second World War.  I was six at the time when we lived in a little house on an avenue in Manchester. My parents had strengthened the cellar to act as an air raid shelter and each night my mother and her family and her sister’s family used to troop down into the shelter to sleep. One night during the blitz a bomb landed at the end of our road, it broke every window in our house shook it badly so the dust caused a thick fog in our little bolthole. As the fog cleared my little cousin was stood at the end of his cot with one finger raise and said “Hark” I can’t remember what the parental reaction was but I imagine it was something that released the tension.

Because of this near miss we moved to the country, we had no time to build a shelter there when a lone German bomber dropped a bomb on us. I believe it was a lost aircraft dumping it’s cargo, I sat with my mother in her bed while we heard the whistling of the falling bomb. I was convinced it was about to fall on us and I must admit to being frightened into a blind panic when there was a loud explosion and once again we lost all our windows. The next morning I had recovered enough to go looking for the crater which was about half a mile away, naturally there were several people about looking at the hole but much to my joy I found a piece of metal which I believed came from the bomb. This treasure stayed with me for the rest of the war and beyond. 

Mike's Memories - How things change

I loved my time in Saudi I was living there for ten years coming home in late 1983. I had many friends amongst the locals and so did Syb but over the period we were there things changed in a slight but noticeable way. The Quran encourages Muslims to venerate teachers and as I was responsible for teaching them so it was easy to gain their respect if you tried. This made it simple to be friends with them and in turn they were proud to be friends with their teacher, this of course was when I first went out in the mid 70s.

By the time I left the younger Saudis had become more self confident without much to support it and somewhere along the line they seemed to have been warned that friendship with expatriates was not to be encouraged. This showed itself in less socialising amongst the men outside work and a more formal atmosphere at work. When we left things had just started to cool down.

I hate to think what it’s like for the expatriate community now when anti lobby in this country is trying to stop the sale of arms to the Saudis. Do they really think that the Saudis will stop buying arms if they don’t get them from us there are very many countries where they can get them. What is more we would lose what little influence we have. Check how many jobs will be lost in this country and over there. Also these lobbies never seem to consider the effect they have on the relationship between  the people of the countries they criticise and the treatment of expatriate working there. I much prefer the Saudi Arabia I knew as described in Syb’s book Inshallah.

Mike's view - Only confusion

I am so worried about this referendum coming up in June. I am not particularly keen on the way Europe is going nor am I too enthusiastic about the way this countries going. I have two main worries I can’t believe politicians and if we leave I can’t see anyone capable of running the country for the good of the population. In my view Margret Thatcher was a leader not that she did this country much good but at least you knew where you and the country stood like it or not. But since her demise there has not been a leader amongst any of the past prime ministers, Tony Blair seemed okay at the start but when he ignored his country in favour of George Bush and cocked up the Middle East for an unknown period of trouble he lost totally my belief in him. So if we vote to stay we continue to kowtow to that ever closer band partners all following their own agenda or leave them behind and become like a rudderless ship. Not much of a choice is it?

Coming soon 'Tee for two'

Well the new book is nearing completion and will be going out to my beta reader for their opinions in a couple of weeks. It actually started as a short story and like Topsy just grew. It now runs to about 70,000 words and tells the tale of the private life of a professional lady golfer. No it’s not a golfing book Gemma just happens to play golf for a living and like many ladies has an interesting and challenging life on and mainly off the golf course. Caddies can be both a hindrance and a help, demanding and long suffering especially if they’re male which Gemma’s are. It’s funny how they can affect a girls game no matter where it happens but you do need to be close to them.

Mike's They're dead so what

There are times when I look at a blank page and think I’ve got to write a blog, as I like to write one once a week, and nothing comes to mind. Then you look around for a hook to start you off, I’ve just been reading a most interesting book, no it’s not one of Syb’s excellent publications, it’s a biography of Lawrence of Arabia but more precisely it’s a history of the first world war in the Middle East. It left me thinking nothing’s changed our leaders are still keen to follow their own agendas seemingly without thought to the common man, in WW1 the leaders of both sides threw men into battle saying we didn’t do badly we only lost 10,00 men to day still we’ll do the same tomorrow. During one advance the British army lost a man for every 2 inches of ground gained and now each year we remember dead. It seems that society is becoming immune to other peoples suffering. To bring it up to date how many digital games employ the murder/killing of others to gain ground and win. I saw my grandson playing a game involving a swimmer, he was called for a meal and instead of just ending the game he drowned the swimmer, a shock to me as the drowning was realistic, a way of ending the game to him. What does it do to their minds? What if they become the leaders in future and some of them will.

Mike's Infinity

You may have guessed that I am fascinated by such imponderable things as nothing, infinity, eternity, timeless and the like. They are things we never come across in our daily lives and exist only in theory. There is we are told by people of a far greater mental facility than I have, that the implosion of a star collapses into an infinitely small point of infinite power. If the point is infinitely small then it can only have position and no body, it is so difficult  to imagine; and what of nothing it can have no boarders and its totally empty, is it only a theory but did it ever exist? Eternity can have no time as it has no beginning or end and tomorrow and today are the same, a circumstance that is beyond our experience and understanding. These are really words we use without thought and most probably inappropriately, to think about them deeply I have found is an interesting mental exercise.

I often wonder why we as humans accept things we cannot visualise and yet understand their meaning, I find it just as mystifying that atheists cannot accept the existence of God. Are our expectations too high and our ability to belief too little?

Mike's - This says it all

It’s odd that since humans have been on this planet they have more often than not acknowledged that there is a power outside their understanding. Throughout history it seems that a god or gods are appreciated and in the main glorified and even thought to be demanding human sacrifices. Many religions accept that there is one God and even religions where there are many gods it is usual for there to be a chief god, even in Christianity the one God is divided into three. Often atheists when faced with a life or death situation will pray to a God they don’t believe in. It seems to me that the spiritual is so ingrained in the human consciousness that it is a powerful indication that there is one.

If we accept that there is a power beyond our understanding and that from time to time a messenger (Moses, Buda, Christ, Mohammed to name but a few) has tried to guide us into the ways of a better life and yet we as humans constantly change their teachings into a contorted and twisted religion to suit our own agenda. A Rabi who I greatly admire Lionel Blue in his book tells us of a voice which he feels maybe divine from whom he seeks advice. At one time he thought of turning Catholic and asks the voice for its advice to which it replied “I’m not interested in labels.” To me that says it all. 

Sybil's Turn - Why it ended like that.

My turn this week, a number of readers of Inshallah have commented on the ending of the story, I have always felt that to not understand the end is to miss the point of the book. It was written while I was living in Saudi Arabia in the late 1970s and early 80s specifically to address the miss understanding by the expatriate of the local culture at that time in contrasting the beliefs of the West and Islam. To show through the medium of a romantic story how the Arab felt about us and how we understood (sometimes misunderstood) the Arabs and their religion. The story leads at the end to a situation where to be true to Islam or Christianity has to be decided, but I was in no way about say which was correct and so left the story in a conclusion where the reader had to decide the outcome.

King Faisal who was King then had to bring his nation up to speed in the modern world and judging from the internet his leadership has been followed. Now the Khamis (the setting for Inshallah) I knew as a village appears to have become a large modern town. My story was a tale of the time and I dare say expatriates and Saudis have moved on, in that way it becomes more of a historical theme but will, hopefully, still be useful to those travelling to Saudi with a western background.

Mike's - I got to thinking....

The other day I got to thinking about the big bang, the start of everything they say, the formation of the universe. My thoughts took me to consider what was there before the big bang? There are those who believe that there have been many big bangs and that after a given expansion the universe implodes and starts again, but what before the first one, what was there? Nothing? To my mind nothing is the most stable state, if there is nothing then nothing can occur. But it did happen and the universe was formed or should I say it is still being formed so there must have been something way back then which means that it must have been there forever, which is odd as there is no time in nothing and then and now are the same, so forever doesn’t exist. But whatever it was that started it all must have been there. Could it been God? They say He passes all understanding and I believe he does.

Mike's memories - What are we doing here?

A storm from space - frightening.

England in 1950, Germany in 1960 and Saudi in 1970 were places that no longer exist, I feel very fortunate to have experienced life in those places and times. To go to any of them now and you would have no idea how they were, very simple, uncomplicated, less greedy and self indulgence, somehow safer. No my memory is not playing games with me it was great time to live. The times before and after include the crusades where Christians slaughtered thousands of Moslems whole cities of them on the instructions of the Pope, Hitler and the Jews, the Jews and Arabs and now when IS slaughter anyone that does not hold with their beliefs; there are many more instances and all because religion is bent to satisfy man’s lust. It’s a great shame that we can’t live together on this planet and work for its welfare not its destruction by division and self interest. How can people be so short sighted to put their own interests before the common good, the future of the world? Did God really create human beings to self destruct?