The Dark Mirror published by Dare Empire

Published by Dare Empire, The Dark Mirror is now available in pdf and Kindle. Cheap too! Paperback late April.

“Smoothly, expertly written, the author captures the essence and conflict of human love and religion as they struggle to coexist in a judgmental world.”

Powerful forces are at work in a group of country parishes undergoing renewal and charismatic revival, confusing reflections of reality. Emotions run riot. A supposed miracle birth during a previous revival haunts the present like a spectre at the feast. Weird happenings at midnight, desecration of the altar, accusations of rape, are just some of the challenges threatening the dedicated ministries of the handsome young incumbent and his secret rural dean lover. Can love continue to believe all things, overcome all things, in a judgemental world?

“A beautifully woven story of love, a story that will keep you turning page after page. Witness the accusations and heartache of this controversial work of art. This is a story that will touch your heart and keep you thinking long after you turn the final page. When a man believes he has to choose between the love of a man, and the love of God.”

Magpies Nest Publishing for ordering my print books, viewing chapters and reviews

Teenage Years of Long Ago

Teenage Years of Long Ago

It was a glorious time
as new friends came along
turning life into a song
ah, how we loved and played
dancing at the Palais
going to the ballet
playing tennis on the lawn
boating on the lake
drinking tea, eating cake
at Highfields Park pavilion

though we went our separate ways
I still recall those halcyon days

NHS ... babies and all that

People today have no idea how well off they are with today’s NHS compared with years ago. I recall quite clearly my first visit to our local hospital In Lough-borough. (I had been in Nottingham hospitals when a child: six weeks in an isolation hospital in a ward of adult women — no toys, no books, no visitors inside, only a chat through a window twice a week with my mum who had to make two bus journeys to get there; and a horrid ‘conveyor belt’ experience when I had my tonsils out a few years later.)
It had been established that I was pregnant and I guess the blood test, I was about to have, would determine whether I would qualify for a hospital bed when ‘delivery’ time arrived. It should be noted that unless you had a good case — problems expected or poor housing with no hot water or other essentials — your baby would be delivered at home in the care of a midwife and your own doctor. No matter that we were new to the area and had no one to help. Husbands did not get time off unless they took part of their two weeks annual holiday. Giving birth was no ‘big deal’ in those days. No classes to attend, no fuss, no social contacts — you saw your doctor only occasionally and given tablets for morning sickness. Being terribly ignorant and worried sick, I read a book. Looking at a diagram I was even more concerned. I told my doctor at my next visit that I did not think I had space between my pelvic bones for a head to pass through. He dismissed my fears and said I would be examined at the eighth month and that my build was all right. So I went on worrying.
The above hospital appointment was to take place in the Pathology labs. I found the guy in charge. He sat me in a room, stuck a hollow needle in my arm and left me to it, while drop-by-drop my blood dripped into a small phial he had given me to hold. I should mention here that I have a phobia (largely under control now) concerning blood and hypodermic needles.
I sat on that chair trying to take my mind off what was happening. When the guy returned I was trying not to fall off the chair. He pushed my head between my legs and removed the instrument of torture. I was taken to an examination room to lie down. Horrors! The bed had a sheet with a huge bloodstain that had not been washed out by the laundry. A consultant came to make sure my baby was okay. When feeling better I walked home. Shortly after I saw someone who told me that I had not been awarded a hospital bed, as my circumstances did not warrant it. ‘Even though you did apply before you could be certain you were pregnant,’ she added. No use telling her that my doctor told me to apply at twelve weeks.
In those days you spent at least a week in bed. I booked into the local nursing home, even though we could hardly afford it. They messed things up and I was sent to hospital as an emergency. Baby was born, with the help of a large episiotomy about 40 hours later — blue. I was sent back and baby kept for another day. How’s this for hygiene? When my next baby was born, also as an emergency, when I arrived at the hospital I was given an ordinary test tube and told to go to the toilet and pee straight into the tube! My bulge made things incredibly difficult — my hands, arms and legs were well wetted. BUT I was chased back to bed and not allowed to wash my hands. ‘You can do that when the bowls come round after lunch,’ I was told.
Because I had a huge bleed with the second baby my third infant was allowed to be born in hospital. Bond Street hospital in Leicester had been an old factory. Incredible. Caesareans were seldom done in those days; my huge baby (as was my second) was born (eventually) with forceps. My damaged uterus caused me problems for years until I had it removed.
How different today! Mothers take note — be grateful for all the good things on offer today (pre-natal and aftercare). My babies were born 15 miles away in three different hospitals. Dad was nowhere near. I was alone and frightened, especially when I had my first. On occasions I was left alone in a delivery room, distressed and lonely. At least a health visitor called a few times after my babies were born and I saw others at the weekly clinic. My story is not unusual.
Having had a number of operations, I think our NHS is fantastic. If you had been around in the early stages — corridors as waiting areas, crowded wards, cancer a death sentence, occasional scruffy toilets, smoke-filled ward-sitting rooms, you would feel the same way.

Death of a Bluetit

He flittered in the sunshine
And twittered in the trees.
Ate seeds with his little family
And glided on the breeze.
He gave us so much pleasure
Through weeks of winter snow,
But now we’ve found him lying dead
Just how, we do not know.
We’re grateful for that little life
That brought us so much joy,
A short life but a worthy one
That death cannot destroy.

A Gift From the Heart

There are times when nothing seems to go right. Times when it seems you receive nothing but adverse criticism when trying to do your best. When you work for many months on a project only for it to go seemingly nowhere, if not nowhere, then certainly haywire. This is when tiredness swamps your energy levels and you begin to wonder ‘why the hell bother?’ You lose sight of the good things that are also taking place, and of your achievements. To top it all, your baking is not up to scratch — smoke leaves the oven when you open its door (and the vacuum cleaner decides to take up smoking too!) The TV Arial goes on strike. Folk start treating you like you’ve gone non compos mentis. And you wonder why not give up and become a TV and chocolate addict. The problem with that is, since the good programmes are constantly repeated I would simply spend my days sleeping and eating — until my flesh became one with the easy chair, and ‘they’ would have to remove the big picture window to get me outside for a trim.
Guilt (because you feel you SHOULD be happy with so many blessings to be thankful for) builds up and depression appears like a black hole to easily slide into. After all, as doctors will tell us — this is the SAD time of year.
Then something totally unexpected happens. A gift of flowers arrive in the post. A good weep and the sun begins to shine once more.
Thank you, dear friend.

Song of the Nightjar

A man of letters with a priestly calling, a linguist, a wartime intelligence officer, a head of Oriental Studies of a prestigious Institution, a kindly man, a friend when in deed.
Visiting this friend, my tutor of years ago, my champion in a Church Authority dispute — a saviour who was never judgmental in his self-appointed task of rescuing me from the destructive forces cast against me — I was pleased to see he was awake and reasonably alert when spoken to.
The nursing home where he resides is one of the best — if not THE best — in the whole of South Cumbria. At least, that is my opinion from having visited quite a few in our local area.
Standing in its own wooded grounds by the seashore, the home is divided with the more vulnerable in a secure area. It was to this area reached by a long corridor, having walked through the impressive entrance of this beautiful country mansion, that I made my way.
I pulled up a chair, smiled, and gave him a greeting, “Hello, Geoffrey. Nice to see you. Don’t suppose you will remember me though. Years ago, you used to be my tutor.”
I took a photograph from my bag and put it on the table in front of him. I pointed to the figures.
“This is me — Gladys. This is you with me beside you. We were taking a service together at Dendron Church.”
He looked at the photograph. Wrinkling his brow, he said, “That’s me?”
Even while I explained our relationship his mind was wandering.
I thought I heard him say, “I’m a Nightjar.”
Oh dear, how should I answer that?
I didn’t. Partly because I thought I must have misheard him. I smiled and chatted some more about how he had been my tutor, how we had ministered together, and various ways he’d helped me.
But he repeated, “I’m a Nightjar.”
“A Nightjar?”
“A Nightjar. Do you know I’m a Nightjar?”
“No,” I said truthfully. What made him think he was a Nightjar?
“I can sing I’m a Nightjar.”
What a relief. Now I understood. “Really? I’ve never heard that song.”
“Would you like to hear me sing it?”
“Yes please.”
And so he lustily sang a song I had never heard of, nor have I been able to find on the Internet.
He ended with ‘Not going Nightjarring amore’ followed by the chorus.
The rest of the residents barely noticed. I guess it made a change from ‘White Cliffs of Dover’ coming at them from the audio system.
“It really is lovely to see you so cheerful,” I said most sincerely. For indeed, with his wife dying just a month or so earlier, and frustrations he must endure from lack of brainpower, it would be understandable to find him depressed. My own mother, who died twenty years ago, suffered severe depression along with her dementia — to the extent that she would have me constantly in tears because of my inability to bring her relief from her suffering. Of course, Geoffrey didn’t know me any more than my mother did.
He looked at me. “Cheerful? Of course I am. We have to keep cheerful, especially in company. Aren’t you always cheerful?”
“Not always, but I try to be in company.”
He gave me another rendition of the Nightjar song. I loved it. To be truthful I could not stop tears forming in my eyes.
The assistant brought over the mobile phone. Geoffrey gave his caller the pleasure of hearing “I am a Nightjar…” a couple of times over.
Eventually, I put my redundant photograph back in my bag and, after chatting a little more, I said goodbye. He took my hand and, much to my surprise, lifted it to his lips — something he had never done before, at least, not to me, or to anyone else in my presence.
I smiled and said, somewhat coyly, “Oh Geoffrey, I’ll never wash that hand again.”
Then I saw it — that familiar smile that made his countenance glow like that of a mischievous young man.
He half-laughed. “Oh, go on with you!”
And so I left the room, took a wrong turning, walked along several corridors until someone pointed me in the right direction.
But there had been no wrong turning in my visiting. It all went remarkably well. Sad indeed to find such a highly intelligent student of life reduced to sitting sleepily in a nursing home lounge devoid of his tools of learning, but how wonderful that he still retained much of the lighter side of his personality.

Dare to Believe!

Wonderful!
I recently signed a contract with Dare Empire for them to publish my trilogy woldwide as eBooks. Also in print for the Australian market. Things have gone quicker than I imagined possible. The first book Awakening Love is now available in Kindle with other formats being prepared as I write. The whole trilogy will be available from all major on-line stores by the end of January and print versions shortly following.
The whole trilogy is getting a new lift with intriguing covers by a team producing books in Amazon's top ratings.
Could 2011 be a true AWAKENING for my award-winning book?
STOP PRESS! All three are not only available but are presently (early FEB) at 'silly' introductory prices. Visit the Dare Empire Bookstore or Amazon Kindle store.
Go here to see a great video of the latest Dare Empire books, including my trilogy. A Dare Empire Checkmate print book will be available by the end of this month.