In the year 2000, when this book was first published, I wanted to create a book which could be given to a child who was starting school at the age of 5 years and which could be read by them progressively until the age of 13 years when they either moved up to 'Middle or High School.' I also wanted to mark their memory of the New Millennium with their own special book.Because the reading age between all children of between 5 years of age and 13 is so vast, this project naturally invol...

The social cohesion of any civilised society cannot be achieved without the eradication of high unemployment, mass homelessness and class division. While ever this triple scourge plagues our country, Britain will remain a divided nation, unable to harness the full potential of its human resources.The provision of adequate shelter, to act as a base from which meaningful tasks can be performed, alongside the rightful expectation to be treated equally, are the basic rights of every ci...

I was born in Portlaw and when my time comes to lie at the other side of the green sod, it is my wish that half my ashes shall be placed upon my grandparents' grave, William and Mary Fanning, along with my uncles, Willie Fanning and Johnnie Fanning who are also buried there. The remaining half of my ashes will be placed at a spot on the Haworth Moor.Apart from writing two musical plays between 2005 and 2009, I'd stopped writing for a number of years. It was only after I had met my ...

Ronnie is the younger of two children, neither of whom ever knew their father. Her brother Peter is six years older than she is. Both children live with mum who is a drunken, lustful, emotional wreck; a woman who is guilt ridden by her past and unable to sustain healthy relationships with the opposite sex or her children. Mum provides Ronnie and Peter with a succession of stepfather figures; using the men in her life as a meal ticket and passport to a good time until she tires of them and ...

King Lucre and Queen Avarice ruled the Kingdom of Cameo with hearts of stone. They were cruel, greedy and the most selfish of people. However much they had, they never seemed to have enough. The more they had, the more they wanted. Their appetites appeared insatiable. Upon their wedding day, the greedy King and Queen decided that they could never be truly happy until they had become the most powerful King and Queen the world had ever known and their Kingdom stretched beyond the border of a...

When good people fail to stand up for what they believe to be right, bad behaviour is provided with a golden opportunity to triumph! Into such environments, bullying is born and permitted to flourish.Maw is born exceptionally small and enters secondary school life to face the school bully. He confronts the bully and challenges him to a boxing match. On the very start of his fourteenth year of life, Maw makes a wish upon a shooting star and from that moment, his life changes. He awa...

This is a love story is about a travelling Romany who visits the home of Lizzy Lanigan in Portlaw during the year of 1955. Lizzy is a newly-wed, who was married a mere three months earlier. The peg-selling gypsy persuades Lizzy to have her palm read for the cost of two shillings.The Romany fortune teller then informs Lizzy that she will give birth to a girl child within the year who will be named 'Mary'. Lizzy is informed that she will give birth to a total of seven children during...

In 'Four Crude Dudes and the Land of Hope', the story is set in the days of the Californian Gold Rush. It tells how the lives of five characters who are strangers, impact upon the lives of each other and how the thief, cheat, liar and bully get their comeuppance and how the honest and God-fearing farmer of selfless disposition is rewarded.The story is set against the backcloth of a mining town in California and it provides a good taste of what the prospectors of the time would have experie...

Horace Catchpole is an only son who was brought up in a single-parent family in Wigan. He is 28-years-old and still lives in the same house as he has always lived with his mother, Melissa. Melissa is a woman who dislikes her son intensely and is cruel and greedy in disposition. She has always ill-treated Horace and has reared and treated him far worse than any other Cinderella ever experienced at the hands of a tyrannical mother-figure. While the frugal Melissa lives well herself, she does...

'Tales from the Allotments' is my favourite story that I have ever written from the 50+ books I've had published. It is suitable reading for any teenager and adult. Although set in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it is a timeless story that is just as relevant today as it was 150 years ago.It tells the story of a mining village where the local pit is the sole employer. The pit is closed down and the miners are made redundant. Many of the villagers move in search of new homes and...

I grew up on my mother's stories. Although an Irish woman of small stature and imaginative mind, stories didn't come any 'taller' than those tales told by my mother. They would stretch the bounds of one's credulity beyond the realms of possibility, and yet, she always made me 'want to believe them'. I have taken the germ of her fact and added a bit of my fiction with a dash of author licence.I was born in Portlaw and when my time comes to lie at the other side of the green sod, it ...

Christmas has always held a special place in my heart and my home. It is that time of year when friendship is allowed to come in from the cold and be renewed in the warmth of forgiveness. It is that occasion where the harshest of hearts soften and neighbour who stopped speaking to neighbour begins to wish each other good tidings once more. There is no other place to be that is as solemn or as peaceful and reflective as is Midnight Mass; particularly as 'Silent Night' is being sweetly sung ...