My War Started at Chorley Bus Station, and Ended With POWs at the Bottom of the Garden

While I was in Blackpool last week, my son Joe decided it was time to get some leaflets done to publicise  “Someday We’ll Understand“.

Probably the most important thing, (as it’s not quite in all the shops yet!) as it directs people to this blog to buy the thing is to say where you can get it…..

Obviously the place I’d like everyone to go to is Pegasus Publishers, because they are the people who’ve had the faith to publish my story. But they also recommend Barnes and Noble, Waterstones’ and The Book Depository.

Whilst I was grateful for Joe getting these leaflets done, I was a bit surprised that he said the book starts at Preston Bus Station, when I definitely remember it was Chorley Bus Station! This might be a forgivable if it wasn’t for two things; it’s on page one, and he edited the book……..

When I pointed this out, he said that he had absolutely no idea why he’d put Preston. He knew it wasn’t Preston, he’d always known it was Chorley. Then a few minutes later he said that he’d always had this image of Preston Bus Station in his head, even though he knows it now looks nothing like it would have done in the war. Even when he first read the book, he was thinking of Preston Bus station, for some reason.

The other thing was that he said the Prisoner of War Camp at the bottom of my garden. No, the Prisoner of War Camp was two streets away. The Prisoners of War (long after the war had finished) were building a road at the bottom of my garden!

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In Search of Patrick, with Pegasus on my Shoulder

Last week my publisher sent me an author questionnaire, you know, a few questions about me which they’ll use for publicising Someday We’ll Understand.

At the end there was one question which probably isn’t there for publicising the book, but I expect the publisher uses the answers as testimonials. Obviously that’s fair enough, they have been great to me, but I’m not sure the answer I gave is exactly what they expected……..

Why did you choose Pegasus Publishers?

 Well there is a story. I had looked up various publishers, and there were a lot focused on self-publishing which looked difficult and expensive.

Anyway, I had been looking up various different publishers and wasn’t sure who to contact, and then a friend of mine asked if I remembered when we went and got our fortune told by this bloke called Patrick.

And then it came back to me, that before he’d even started dealing out his cards, the very first thing he said was “You have Pegasus on your shoulder.” Now obviously that meant nothing to me whatsoever, but it was so strange that we of course remembered it. Whilst that was the first thing he said, the last thing he said was that I was going to write a history book. I told him I had no real interest in history, but he insisted I would and said that he wanted a copy of the book when it was published.

That was about 1990, and I would love nothing more now to send him a copy, but all I know is that he was called Patrick, the shop he operated out of in Coventry has long since been knocked down, but wherever he is, I get the feeling he knows.

Since then we’ve tried to figure out exactly where Patrick would have been working from. I said to Joe it was Spon Street in Coventry to which he said “A building on Spon Street knocked down since 1990? The one bit of the medieval City they tried to preserve? They haven’t even knocked down the Watch Museum, and there’s a massive bloody crack in the side of that!” This is probably a fair point, but he does remember a sort of shambles in a prefab on the corner of Corporation Street and Hill Street, which is more than I do, but that’s maybe exactly the sort of place a fortune teller might have operated out of?

If anyone has any ideas, please get in touch.

Over a Million Places Up the Rankings!

I have to admit, with Someday We’ll Understand being published a couple of days after I got back off holiday, I wasn’t really ready to get much work done in terms of publicising it. After all, I’ve only had about twenty-seven years build up for the event….

I am going to do some more work on this – I don’t think the publishers will be very happy if I don’t – but I’ve just been on to Amazon (for Gods sake, please don’t buy the book from them, not just this book but please always buy books from anyone  but Amazon, see this blog from Kenilworth Books), and on day one, they had the book listed as about 1,250,000 on the bestseller list. Well, it’s now up to 186,114th.

Now I just have to keep that sort of progress up!

 

Publication Day!

Joe asked me what I thought about today. I said I went to the market, I’ve been to the doctors, I forgot my prescription. I don’t know, I’ve got lost with days. Oh and I’ve been to the Post Office then I sat outside the cafe and watched the men from the council plant some flowers in the roundabout.

He said he actually meant what how did I feel about the book I started writing 26 years ago being published.

I said I hope I get enough money to pay for my central heating to be fixed and don’t have another cold winter.

It’s #PublicationDay and all of our #newreleases are now available for purchase, so get buying! #books pic.twitter.com/L6WuZtVyoU

— Pegasus Publishers (@pegasuspublish) May 31, 2018

 

Right then….

Well we’ve been meaning to do this for a while, and with Mums book out soon, we’ll all be prattling on soon enough!