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NEW! NEWW! NEWWW! NEWWWW! —

19 Sep

———‘When the Years Have Flown’

A historical novel set in British East Africa during the Mau Mau Uprising.

E-Format – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FRM1KYQ7

Paperback – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FRR9CKTC

Safiya came into British East Africa as part of a deal with two hundred head of Somalian Boran cattle. Barely two years old, an irresistible imp who couldn’t sit still. Mother unknown! Father unknown! A better life? Maybe? Niel, Sandra and her big brother Joe of Aintree Farm in the white highlands of Aberdare adored her. She grew up on the highveld, free, happy and loved.

Sandra’s early death, Niel’s failing health, foot and mouth, armyworms and then the terror of the Mau Mau changed her happiness forever. Joe took care of it, but he wasn’t safe, marrying John was the best option but Robert stole her heart!

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The Saigon Connection – A WW11 Spy thriller of OSS agents, SOE Secrets and Corsican Resistance.

16 Sep

E-Format https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B2P9RWXJ

Paperback – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B2J26JWG

You speak French, Uncle Sam needs people like you! Ludovic Connod wasn’t ready to fall in love, but he did. Corsica and it’s mysteries. France and it’s secret resistance. The Vichy, the Occupied Zone where mother lived in her elegant apartment using her ‘green joy’ to remain in her past. The OSS. The CIA and it’s shady psychotic substance activities. Berlin, it’s grey cold rain and world of deceptions. Saigon, the ‘Paris of the East’, captivating and fascinating, dragging in people who changed the world. Not because they planned to but because they followed their feelings, good and bad. Silvester the dog and Dennis the Donkey! His father would have loved them. But now he’d had enough!

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Pictures and Poems 5! – Home is a blue dot amongst the stars!

31 Aug

When you wish upon a star!

Put your arm ’round a friend

Hold them close, not far.

To light up your life

and brighten your day,

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To make all your worries

Go away!

Believe in yourself.

Believe in the the truth!

It’s hard to find these days

Fake news has us screwed!

Nice guys don’t win, or so they say

I’m OK with losing!

Have a nice day!

Pictures and Poems (4)

26 Aug

Why do sunsets make you think?

of life, of loss, of love and times,

when wrong roads were taken and bad choices made, when we were young and emotions ran high.

No time for failure, or poor peoples lives, we were the boys , the lads , the guys.

We did not notice. Did not see, what life had in store for you and for me.

Fighting is fun, it doesn’t really hurt, till a bullet hits home or you’ve worn the wrong shirt.

She’s all grown up now, I want her to be,— happy, safe and sensible!

Nothing like me!

Pictures and Poems (3)

14 Aug
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A new dawn on a new day, perhaps a little better than yesterday.

But it’s summer, young men want to fight, anything, anywhere to show they’re right!

I’ve got muscles and even a tattoo ‘d’yu see that copper – I hit him too’

You can’t arrest me! I’ve got to go home! Mum says dinner at six! She’ll be on my phone!

Spoke to an immigrant once, he seemed a nice chap, said they’d raped his sister and killed his dad.

But Jim sais they’re bad, taking our money so we gotta protest, sais it ain’t funny.

They’re in a hotel whilst Danny’s sleeping rough, he nicked money from his folks, for a dig, it’s tough!

Job Centre today, they knows I can’t work, bad back, stress and me dog to walk.

Perhaps tomorrow will be better, better than today, but really, deep down I believe in yesterday!

Pictures and Poems (2)

8 Aug

Don’t take this stuff too seriously, it’s just the ramblings of an old bloke! (only for viewers of a certain age)

Yu gotta be young to clean yu bike! To stoop, to squat, to brush, to wipe!

Can’t wait to be older and buy a car

To wash and polish and admire from afar

She’s just had a de-coke, runs just fine, I’ve adjusted the tappets and re-set the time. Lie on the floor and look at the sills, check the exhaust, there’s no hole to fill. New points, new plugs, what more can I say. five hundred quid to drive away!

I’d keep her forever but time moves on! It’s a journey, a hike but yu gotta be young to clean yu bike

“As Time Goes By” (1) Pictures and Poems.

4 Aug
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I have stolen this place, for now it has gone, once it was cute, but people moved on. The rickety chairs and sloping wood tables, all fine by me, with my meandering thoughts, but not for you and your Trip-Advisor noughts.

Why do you come here and glance at the view, for a moment, a second, a minute or two. Before it calls like an admonishing mum. look at me! Stare at me, give me your thumb. To scroll to, to touch, to boast, to cry, feed me your energy but please keep me dry.

I’m your weapon, your shield, I am what you are. I’m busy, go away, I’m important, I’m loved, can’t you see! Can’t you see.

Oh yes! How lovely, wait just a mo! Take my picture so that I can show. To the world, to my world but especially to Jane. Her husbands a loser, they live down the lane.

Can we go now, I’m bored, there’s only one waiter and he’s got a hair lip. the eggs were overdone, darling don’t give a tip.

Those dogs are a nuisance, begging for scraps licking and sniffing, the wi-fi is rubbish, no google maps.

Shall we move on dear? I don’t feel at ease. My money, the passports, my jewelry ‘et al’

Let’s try The Hilton! Please Darling Please!

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“The Window.” – Latest novel by John Arthur Cooper.

12 Jul

The Window.

Readers may be advised to obtain a cursory knowledge from a source such as Wikipedia of the lives of T. E. Lawrence and G M L Bell. C.H. M. Doughty-Wylie VC. and Mrs. L. O. Doughty-Wylie

Evelyn Smith was trapped. Her prison was a Victorian terraced house in a Brewery Town married to Stan, a petty thief who was too smart to get caught. He thought more of his pigeons than her, but required her to starch, his shirts, clean his shoes and be available every night he wasn’t drunk. He didn’t really care about Primrose, or Sally, he wasn’t a ‘family man’.

The manuscript lived in the pantry, it took her to other worlds, made her realise there were men who dreamed, ‘all men dream, but not equally’. Made her want to look upon a land, a vista where there was nothing of mankind. He had, she wanted to.

She joined the library, it was a road to dreams, to a different life, after Dad had died Mom had pulled her out of school to help at home with the washing. She’d loved school, was always top of the class, she never forgave Mom but now she had another chance. London, Constantinople, Anatolia, Iraq and the deserts but there was a price. Sally!

Amazon Kindle Paperback –https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FGVM4PZZ

E-Format –https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FGTPB4XZ

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Black Nothing – Sequel to Subject To Status.

10 Jun

E-Format – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007Q92ESY

Paperback –https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1790741319

Synopsis – Black Nothing.(Sequel to ‘Subject to Status’ Kindle ref B004JHYMOU) A murder at sea. A witness no one believes. A man trapped in a conspiracy that could destroy him. 1966, South China Sea. A Royal Navy sailor vanishes during the night watch. Officially, it’s ruled an accident. But one man swears he saw the truth — and it was murder. Decades later, that buried secret resurfaces when Thomas “Taffy” Underhill, a homeless drunk and former sailor, blurts out his story to the police. His testimony drags Leonard Joel, a quiet Welsh farmer with a hidden past in the Navy, into a nightmare of wrongful imprisonment, government cover-ups, and MI5 manipulation. Behind the prison walls, Joel struggles to survive while shadowy forces pull him deeper into a web of espionage, Cold War secrets, and covert missions stretching from Britain to Vietnam and Nepal. Caught between his love for Janey, the only woman who believes in him, and the ruthless demands of intelligence handlers, Joel must face the question: how far will a man go when his freedom, his family, and his very identity are on the line? Black Nothing 3 is a gritty British crime thriller that blends murder mystery, police procedural detail, and Cold War espionage into a tense, unflinching story of loyalty, betrayal, and survival. Fans of John le Carré, Ian Rankin, and Mick Herron will feel right at home.

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Subject To Status – Royal Navy coming of age novel.

31 May

E-Format – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004JHYMOU

Paperback – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1790739144

A fictional novel set against the juxtaposed backgrounds of life on the lower deck of British aircraft carrier in the 1960’s and the emerging new age eco minded pot smoking hippy culture. The galvanizing catalyst is the UK defense establishment. At that time, ruthlessly creating people with no recorded identity to carry out their bidding. Deliberately targeting the vulnerable vacuum of the ‘flower power’ era. Ambitious ruthless patriotic ‘Civil Servants’ eagerly exceed the boundaries of state involvement. Using the police and the Criminal Justice System as a tool of coercion they create expendable people. Persons with no recorded identity who could be threatened and forced to carry out illegal government tasks under the shadow of their own unnoticed disappearance should they refuse. Leonard Flower Welham a young sailor drawn by the glamour and adventure of the Fleet Air Arm. Roaring powerful dangerous flying machines. Alien and foreign places and cultures. Grey unstoppable warships that policed the world’s oceans and offered a safe home. A voyage of discovery as he changed from a boy to a man. In the mid sixties he is drafted to join HMS Bulwark. The ship is undergoing a refit in Plymouth dockyard. He is confronted with its sheer magnitude and majestic presence. Climbing aboard up the steep gangway he enters a special world of smells, sensations, sights, sounds and the beginning of the trip of his life. Joel. Born in a damp Yurt in a green wet valley in Mid-Wales to a thin depressed hippy eternally searching for her own happiness. Her low self esteem restricting her to abusive relationships leading to her coerced insemination and a boy child. He was to grow to be the only thing of true value in her life. Joel spends his happy free childhood unfettered by the expectations of school and conventional society. Accepting his alternative life as nothing unusual he is taught by his own curiosity and associations with people who knew the answers to his questions and who could teach him what he needed to know. The lives of the two young men come together. Life becomes familiar and normal. Friendships develop, fun is shared and enjoyed. The eastern world is paraded before them to be dipped into and experienced whilst having the safety of a floating ‘England’ to run back to. All this time Joel cannot escape the lurking incredible officialdom. Their awful instruction and the dislike for himself and his own weak compliance.

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