Salad Days
SWANS will be hosting an event at The Forum, Southend on 28th March between 10 and 4pm. Here’s your chance to find out more about Southend’s local authors; see us at work (well I’ll be using the day to do some editing) and buy any of our books that take your fancy. Click here for more details.
Share this:
Dear Future Godchild
Dear Future Godchild,
I was pleased to make your acquaintance today when your Mum sent a picture of your 12 week scan. I look forward to meeting you properly later this year and getting to know you over the years.
Today, I would like to promise you several things. Firstly I would like to promise you my love. You have that unconditionally and for as long as I am on this planet with you.
I promise you that I will do my utmost to be as good a godparent to you as my Mum and Dad have been to my god-brother Anthony, his wife Kate and their son Vaughn. You see the responsibility your Mum is giving me (whether she has you christened or not) doesn’t end with you. I will remember birthdays, Christmas, Easter (and a couple of un-birthdays in between); laugh with you; wish you good luck; fight in your corner …and be a shoulder for you to cry on.
I promise you that I will do my best to help you identify and deal with injustice, intolerance and inequality. I hope I will enable you to deal with each of these thing appropriately and where possible with humour. I also hope that while I teach you the ways in which the pen is mightier than the sword, that I will also help you know that there are times when you need to stand up and be counted. That sometimes you will need to throw stones at dictators and man the barricades and say: “Not in my Name.”
Whilst I will rely on your Uncle Ollie to teach you the finer points of baking and the right way to complain to big business: know now, that I will see to it that you understand the importance of watching Doctor Who from behind the Sofa. You will affirm that Tom Baker is the greatest of all the Doctors and the Brigadier the greatest of all companions.
I hope I will give you a love of reading and history. I aim to give you a love of learning that will last you throughout your life. And I promise you that you will be able to wield a sword with the best of them and know truly why the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.
Above all, I will be in your corner, from the moment you breathe your first to the moment I breath my last.
Share this:
Title Change:
Book three was always going to be difficult to find a title for…
I wanted to use the phrase my Nan had for Whitechapel: Cut Throat Alley. But it just wasn’t working. Sorry Nan: Whitechapel Affair it is
Share this:
Annual wash your Cuddly Toy Dog Day
In our house, it’s annual wash your cuddly toy dog day. The toy dog in question is Lankey. He’s 45. Some would say we should let it be. He’s made of fabric; his ears need changing. And despite a restuffing earlier in the year, another one is required – post haste.
This is why he needed a wash
Dirty… wasn’t he?
We couldn’t “LET IT BE.”
Action was required. A brief dip in soapy water, a couple of rinses.
Then drip dry time. Up on a high shelf and – as you can see – we wait.
He may be drip-drying some time…
Share this:
Book Fair – photo spread from the Echo
Not been able to scan this page; this was a picture a friend took of the spread of last Saturday’s Book Fair
Share this:
Book Fair @Southend Forum
Saturday saw me at the 1st anniversary of the Forum in Southend selling the first two books and making contacts with the artistic world out there.
Share this:
more more more
This came up on Amazon today from one Holly J Sanderson.
I thought I’d put it on here for you to have a look 🙂
Latest 5* review from Amazon
Another exciting trip through history that had a couple of “huh???” Moments in their too, bonus points for local references that were bang up to date and easily recognisable (I’m 99.9% sure I recognised a couple of the present day character references too!!) A real page Turner that ended on a hell of a cliff hanger …..
A personal note to the wonderful author: you can’t leave it like that!!! We demand another!
Everyone else: get reading, it’s fabulous! (And watch out for flapjacks)
Share this:
Lucy’s Admiral
To coincide with the publication of the 1949 Affair, The History they Tried To Suppress has asked me to reblog an entry from Mark Birch’s blog – Modern Day Pepys – in the hopes that if it’s here, it will be visible to all. (It doesn’t show up on his blog – unless you access it from their offices apparently). So here goes…
From Mark Birch: Modern Day Pepys
Thoughts on Lucy’s Admiral…
Don’t get me wrong, Lucy’s my mate. We’ve known each other since the first day of primary school and I’ve really despaired at the way all the so called popular kids have picked on her over the years. They call her geeky. In my book that’s jealous for clever so and so who gets good marks and does her homework. Well what’s wrong with that? Luce was always confident that the only way you got off Canvey and stayed off was by getting good grades, going to college and all that stuff. That of course was before that day trip to Southend Pier!
Now we’re off Canvey for good! And although I ain’t said nuffin’ to Luce, I’m pretty sure we aren’t ever going to get back to our world. Well in our reality: Lloyd George died in a carriage accident in 1909. In the world we’ve ended up in, he became the Great War Prime Minister and key force at Versailles in 1919. So I’m pretty much guessing that even if we could get back to Southend and 2013 – it sure ain’t going to be the one we left. No surree bob as my grannie used to say! Still I’m not sure that’s a bad thing!
This time travel lark’s altered us too. There’s me – hob nobbing with politicians, and spies and the likes – getting beaten up like I’m some kind of young James Bond or that Biggles bloke and you’ve got to admit, even with the black eyes – being a real life adventurer’s got to beat being 18 and doing a college course. And then there’s her – gone from geeky to gorgeous faster than you can say – Aldwych Strand.
I know what you’re going to say: I’m jealous. No I’m not. Nor do I fancy her. Luce is my mate.
But I’d be lying if I said I liked all this attention she’s getting: and from all these “players”. Lloyd George, Marconi, Walter Nicolai. Least they was respecting her. This admiral? This Valentin bloke? He’s like an octopus. Or at least he would be if he touched her. And he don’t; which if you asks me is weird. Oh it’s not he don’t touch her: he don’t touch anyone! Not without his gloves on. But what I don’t like is the way his eyes follow her around a room. And he stands just close enough to let the whole world know she’s his. Of course she’s too naive to see what he’s up to. She’s says he’s just being kind and an … avuncular.
Oh Luce get a grip!
This bloke sure ain’t no Hercule Poirot.
He’s hiding something and it’s going to all end in tears one of these days – you mark my words.
Why do I say that? Simple. There’s more to this admiral of hers than meets the eye. Apart from being a murdering, lying scumbag nazi? O heck yes. She can’t see it though. I can. I’ve seen his handy work at first hand. I’ve seen him kill.
But what I really don’t like it the way this guy knows too much – about her, me; our world (the one we’ve come from, I mean). He knows about things a bloke from the early twentieth century shouldn’t. And every time you asks him to do something – to help out; he says it’s more than his job’s worth. There’s also the way he commands a room. Now I’ve watched Hitler on those film clips, and I’ve seen how he can hold a crowd in the palm of his hand. But this Valentin bloke. He really knows what power is. Like he’s ruled the world or something.
Still no doubt it’ll all sort itself out. When we leave 1949 and head off for our next adventure. He’ll just be a memory, and time will have returned to normal. Because if it doesn’t…
Sarah E Smith 