Category Archives: livesinprint

Gerald Eugen Marcuse, G2NM
David Fry

Published: July 2023
Paperback: 298 pages
Price: £16.00
ISBN: 9781915972125

Colour Edition
Buy direct from the Author
Contact: marcuseg2nm@protonmail.com

Black/White Edition
Available worldwide
on Amazon


Gerald Eugen Marcuse, G2NM
Pioneer of Radio
by David Fry, G4JSZ

Gerald Eugen Marcuse, a contemporary of Marconi, enjoyed similar fame during the early years of radio.

Marcuse’s amazing exploits in the 1920’s had earned him an international reputation as a radio experimenter and broadcaster but subsequently he became less wellknown.

In this superbly researched volume, Marcuse’s achievements are set out in detail, including numerous ‘firsts’, made through his brilliant understanding of the technology of the day and his perception of what was needed and what was to come.

First to contact South America, California, Australia & New Zealand by radio, he was instrumental in the foundation of formal ‘Ham’ Radio organisations, making contact with the Hamilton-Rice expedition and assisting both the Police and Ambulance services to set up mobile communications.

He shared his experience with other ‘Hams’ by giving advice and sending them vital components.

Marcuse was issued with a licence to broadcast entertainment from his home in Caterham. He battled with the legal authorities, especially the inertia of the Post Office (the legal body responsible for issuing amateur radio licences) and the BBC which hadn’t accepted the best operating frequencies that should have been used to broadcast overseas successfully.

A household name in the 1920’s but now almost unknown.

A remarkable career but with no official recognition.

After graduating from High School in Toronto, Canada in 1966, David was licenced G8CDQ in 1967 then G4JSZ in 1968.

He was appointed Technical Assistant at the BBC Engineering Department in 1968 at Evesham, Skelton (World Service Transmitters) & Droitwich.

David graduated in 1973 to teach Maths & IT at Droitwich High School. Here he established a vibrant radio club, coaching several students through the Radio Amateur’s exam and is still in contact with some of them.

He was appointed Head of IT at Shrewsbury Girl’s High from 1990-2006 then left to build a successful picture framing business.

David’s first book was based on a diary that Marcuse kept as an engineering student in Einbeck, Germany in 1903.

Smoking Red
Wyndham Ward

Wyndham Ward spent fifty-eight years in aviation: twenty-three years in the RAF and thirty-five years in civil flying. From Boy Mechanic he progressed to fighter pilot on the famous Hawker Hunter, flew low-level high-speed Buccaneers with the RAF, and with the Fleet Air Arm from HMS Ark Royal he was selected for the Red Arrows Aerobatic Team of 1979, a team that was unique in flying the last of the Gnats and the first Hawks.

Published: Jan 2023
Paperback: 316 pages
Price: £14.99
ISBN: 9781914424588
Available in UK on Amazon

and worldwide on
Book Depository
Smoking Red
by Wyndham Ward
The Red Arrows and more - a life on the wing

A life-long lover of aeroplanes, Wyndham Ward spent fifty-eight years in aviation: twenty-three years in the RAF and thirty-five years in civil flying. From Boy Mechanic he progressed to fighter pilot on the famous Hawker Hunter, flew low-level high-speed Buccaneers with the RAF, and with the Fleet Air Arm from HMS Ark Royal he was selected for the Red Arrows Aerobatic Team of 1979, a team that was unique in flying the last of the Gnats and the first Hawks.

This involved an extended tour of duty with the team displaying the Hawk internationally and mixing with celebrities of many types.

After a wonderful five years with the Red Arrows, Wyndham took to civilian aviation and joined Cathay Pacific, flying the Pacific Rim on B747’s and long range Airbus A340’s out of Hong Kong airport.

An invitation to join Oman Royal Flight followed and as a Royal Flight Captain he flew the Sultan, VVIP’s and Heads of State in his B747 SP’s.

Casting aside the glitz of royalty, he took up an appointment with Airbus Toulouse training pilots and this led to training business-jet pilots with CAE a world-wide Canadian training company and manufacturer of the latest synthetic flight simulators.

Now retired from UK CAA and US FAA qualified posts, he lives in rural Mid-Wales and taken to writing to encourage young men and women to fly whatever their circumstances and to enjoy aviation as much as he has.

Front cover photograph by Claire Hartley

From Little Acorns – An Autobiography by Graeme Whiting
Graeme Whiting

Published: Dec 2022
Paperback: 252 pages
Price: £12.00
ISBN: 9781914424694
Available from Amazon

From Little Acorns:
A Story of Courage and Inspiration
An Autobiography by Graeme Whiting

The main thing about Graeme is this: his energy. More specifically, it’s a special kind of energy that acts as a catalyst on others. We all have great potential within us, but the difficult thing is activating it. Some people have the gift of providing the necessary spark to others – and this is at the heart of education, as something quite distinct from imparting information, and ultimately more important. Graeme is one of the rare people with that special gift. Jeremy Wade (ex-pupil, angler, biologist, TV presenter)

Graeme Whiting’s childhood was spent in poverty. He faced hardship and later, tragedy, but came through these challenges with the courage and enthusiasm to develop a remarkable career in education based on his passion for nurturing the individual abilities and unique potential of each student.

Graeme was initially a physical training instructor in the army and then taught in public schools where a key mentor helped him adapt and refine his degree-level training skills to teach children. A move to the Steiner system opened his eyes to a profoundly different approach to education, which along with Graeme's rich life experience – including his love of fishing, gymnastics, water sports and all manner of fun and adventure – became the foundation for his distinctively wholesome way of educating young people.

In 1991 Graeme was able to fulfil a lifelong vision of how schooling with heart and kindness can help children flourish. Together with his wife, Sarah, he took a leap of faith and created his own school – The Acorn School – now a highly original cutting-edge independent school in the Cotswolds.

After thirty years of Acorn, Graeme has written this book as an encouragement to us all to follow our hearts and take the path less travelled, no matter how humble our background.



The Ghosts of April – The life and times of the ugliest man in rock
Dave Russell

Published: Jan 2023
Paperback: 272 pages
Price: £9.99
ISBN: 9781914424830
Available from Amazon

The Ghosts of April
The life and times of the ugliest man in rock
living the dream isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be
by Dave Russell


As a teenager, Dave Russell discovered the joy of listening to rock music and watching live bands, an escape from his working class roots and strict upbringing. While pounding the streets of London as a telegram boy, he had the ambition to make music, but he could never have foreseen rubbing shoulders with real-life heroes or appearing on television and national radio as the singer in a band of complete unknowns. From performing in front of axe-wielding maniacs to interrupting a couple in flagrante delicto, this book is a journey of discovery – the real life of an aspiring musician, including redundancy, eviction, relationship break-ups and too many goodbyes.

Such a musician does not have the luxury of this book being reviewed by the national press or book clubs, but here are some comments by real people:

“Not bad for an ex-scaffolder,” my mate Glenn.

“You never told me you was in a band,” my milkman. “Is that your shed on the front cover?” my neighbour Clive.

Where Will I Be? – In Search of Sokolov
Barbara Truman

Published: Jan 2023
Paperback: 314 pages
Price: £12.99
ISBN: 9781914424809
Available from Amazon

Where Will I Be? - In Search of Sokolov
by Barbara Truman

The story of how one particular piano recital changed the course of the author’s life and inspired her to overcome her fear of flying and to travel to more than twenty European countries over a period of twenty-three years to listen to one very special pianist.

It describes not only the fascinating places she visited, the people she met, the friendships she cultivated, the comical and at times far less amusing things that happened to her, the kindnesses and the catastrophes, but also her impressions of the performances she attended, the diversity of venues in which those performances took place and the vagaries of audience behaviour.

It’s the story of someone approaching late middle age whose life suddenly turned into an amazing adventure, told with candour and humour.



Barbara Truman lives in Birmingham, the city of her birth, although she has lived in other parts of the country and for a while in Australia. In recent years her leisure time has been largely devoted to travelling around Europe and listening to music.

In March 2020 at the start of the pandemic she retired from a sixty-year secretarial career during which she worked in the fields of commerce, accountancy and the law. With time on her hands she decided it was the ideal moment to start writing this book.

The Greatest – The Times and Life of Beryl Burton
William Fotheringham

Beryl Burton overtakes Mike McNamara to clinch victory in the 12-hour race at Otley, Yorkshire. When she finishes the marathon event after 277 miles, Burton has beaten Britain’s leading male time triallist and achieved something unheard of: she has taken a men’s endurance record outright. The moment enters cycling folklore because of Burton's gesture as she overhauls ‘Mac’: unsure what to do or say, she offers him a liquorice allsort from her pocket.

Burton was a seven-times world champion and multiple national champion, and this was the greatest feat in her 30-year career. The Otley ‘12’ should have been a groundbreaking moment in women’s sport, but along with the rest of Burton’s achievements, it has slipped into relative obscurity.

This new biography from best-selling writer William Fotheringham tells Burton’s story in full for the first time, from the brutal illness that left her bedridden as a teenager to her quarter century at the top of women’s cycling in the UK, and her premature death in 1996.
Published: Sept 2019
Hardback: 314 pages
Price: £20.00
ISBN: 9-781912-419531

Available from
williamfotheringham.com

William Fotheringham is the No.1 best-selling author of Merckx: Half-Man, Half-Bike. He writes for the Guardian on cycling and is the critically acclaimed author of Sunday in Hell, Fallen Angel, Roule Britannia and Put Me Back on My Bike, hailed by Vélo magazine as ‘the best cycling biography ever’.

A racing cyclist and launch editor of Procycling magazine, he has reported on almost 30 Tours de France, four Olympic Games and the Rugby World Cup.

The Joy of Knowing Pete
Hazel Morgan

Published:May 2022
Paperback:120 pages
Size:140 x 216mm
Price:£11.99
ISBN:9-781914-424526
Paperback and Kindle
Available on Amazon




The Joy of Knowing Pete
Much was said, yet no words spoken

‘Poor Pete he can never have an adventure on his own.’ His brother’s words describe Peter’s dependence on others for his care and safety. He had Down’s syndrome and profound and multiple learning disabilities.
He never used words but still made a profound impact on the lives of his family, friends and those he met. His individuality, love of music, his friendships and his determination all shine through The Joy of Knowing Pete. This memoir focuses on Peter’s teenage years, his home, his surroundings, his schools, his church membership, his outings, his holidays and his three months in hospital following severe strokes and his final months in a Sue Ryder home.
In her first book, Through Peter's Eyes, Hazel Morgan captured the life of her younger son, who had Down's syndrome, up to the age of eleven, first in Durham and then in Suffolk. Now in her second memoir, The Joy of Knowing Pete: Much Was Said, Yet No Words Spoken she focuses on what Peter taught her in his teenage years and how he touched the lives of so many people. She also reflects on services and supports for people with learning disabilities over the years arguing for greater opportunities, equality and fairness.
Peter's death shortly before his nineteenth birthday prompted her to change career: she had studied Modern History at St Hugh's College Oxford and taught for many years in secondary, further and higher education. She subsequently became a Co-Director of the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities, then part of the Mental Health Foundation, overseeing research and projects. Now in retirement she is a trustee of People First Dorset.
Hazel lives in Dorset with her husband and enjoys being close to her son, Philip, and his family, reading novels, researching family history and exploring the local area.

Hazel is working alongside the Media Production Department at Bournemouth University on completing an audiobook of "The Joy of Knowing Pete" and a soundscape based on words, music and sounds from Peter"s life. Information to follow later this year on how to access these.

READER REVIEWS...

British Journal of Learning Disabilities January 2023
This book is an enjoyable read. I recommend it to a wide readership....'The Joy of Knowing Pete' is a rare treat as few books have been written about the life experiences of people with profound and multiple learning disabilities...Pete's life story is a plea to challenge discrimination, act imaginatively and enable all people with learning disabilities to live full and healthy lives in their own communities, where they are treated equally.

NASEN’s Connect magazine July 2023
The Joy of Knowing Pete is a heartwarming story…Hazel shows the importance of developing experiences for those who are non- verbal with complex needs….It is clear Pete has inspired the family…..the detail in this book will help to change society, develop inclusion and ultimately change the way we care for those with learning disabilities.
nasen.org.uk

Sarah Palmer, Emeritus Professor in Maritime History, The University of Greenwich
This book is a kind of love letter, not just to Pete but to the power of memory itself. Never sentimental, it is very moving.

Rev. Janet Bellamy
This is a loving and yet unsentimental depiction of life with Pete, beautifully drawn, in which Pete’s gift of himself to the family is powerfully illustrated and (implicitly) their gift of themselves to him is also movingly evident.

Dr Sue Brown, Writer
Hazel's book will contribute to a better recognition of how important it is to recognise the wishes and needs of those with disabilities and take them far more into account in responding to them. No one speaks with more insight and authority about that than she does.

Virginia Astley Writer
Through a series of snapshot recollections and the words of those who knew him, Hazel Morgan provides the reader with a memorable and poignant account of her son’s life…… The joy that Pete expresses in his own particular way radiates throughout the book and leaves the reader with the sense that this young man’s life touched a great many others.

Christine-Koulla Burke, Director the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities
This book is beautifully written with fairness and equality at the heart, reminding us that all life is precious.

Sally Bayley, Writer
Hazel’s book is a moving account of how one family learned to live - often joyfully - alongside a young son with a disability. There is not a shred of self pity here, only a reminder of the brevity of all our lives and our universal desire to make meaning.

John Swinton, Professor in Practical Theology and Pastoral Care, The University of Aberdeen
This is a lovely book.
It’s a testimony to Peter, but it is much more than that ... Hazel gently and kindly brings Peter’s voice to the fore.


Chris Hatton, Professor of Social Care, Manchester Metropolitan University
This is a beautiful and moving memoir - of joy, grief, pain, faith, belonging, love, and a life well lived.

Christine Towers, Director, Together Matters
This is Peter’s story written many years later.
It also subtly hints at the need for the rest of society to be more inclusive and for a greater national policy commitment to people with learning disabilities.


The Adventures of Agnes : Wartime nursing in Bulgaria, Poland, Persia and Russia 1912-1919
Tom Fowke

The Adventures of Agnes

Agnes Greg was born into a wealthy Lancashire cotton family. In 1912 a middle-aged Edwardian lady at a loose end, she decided to try her hand at nursing. Providentially, after many years of peace, Europe just then became engulfed in war and opportunities arose. Barred from nursing for the British, for seven years she worked behind the front lines of friendly or allied armies in the Balkans, Poland, Persia and Russia often in improvised field hospitals and dressing stations in difficult conditions and she journeyed long distances between them, often by primitive means. She had a traveller’s eye for landscapes and places of interest and mixed easily with local and expatriate populations. She nursed Turkish prisoners of war in Bulgaria, local peasants, Russian soldiers fighting Austrians and Germans in Poland and fighting Turks in Persia. At times she was seriously ill herself and she was trapped in the Caucasus for nearly two years during the Russian revolution and civil war.

This book uses Agnes’s extensive correspondence with family and friends so that the reader hears her adventures described in her own vivid and amusing words and all intermingled with private and domestic concerns illustrative of her epoch and circumstances. Additional background material provides the political, military and family contexts.

Published: Dec 2021
Hardback: 268 pages
Price: £24.00
ISBN: 9-781914-424328

Available from Amazon

Tom Fowke was formerly a civil engineer in various areas of the water industry. He is a great-nephew of Agnes Greg, and is married with two children and two grandchildren. Now retired to England, he previously worked for periods in Qatar, Iran and New Zealand, and lived for some years in Spain.