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The Joy of Knowing Pete
Hazel Morgan

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, 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.
Published:May 2022
Paperback:120 pages
Size:140 x 216mm
Price:£11.99
ISBN:9-781914-424526

£11.99 (+ £3.50 postage)
Number of copies:


Available soon from Amazon
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.

Reader Reviews...

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.

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Broadway book launch

Reparation, entwined Victorian lives and Cotswold gypsies, by Gail Fulton, was launched at Trinity Modern Galleries on Broadway High Street on Saturday 14 May to great acclaim.

Published by YouCaxton, this beautifully crafted novel tells the story of a fleeting love affair and of mistaken identity – and the tragic repercussions of jealousy.

 

 

 

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Letters on the Nature of Love
Janet Braithwaite

Letters on the Nature of Love
Janet Braithwaite was born in Staffordshire in May 1939 and has spent most of her life in the Midlands. Her life-long interest in languages, culture and psychology and love of music, dance, art, travel and mountaineering led somewhat haphazardly to a B.A. in classics, her first job working for three and a half years in rural development in north west Greece and a subsequent working life divided between psychological development work with troubled adolescents and freelance teaching English to adult foreign students. In her thirties she trained and worked as an artist printmaker. Her prints, deeply influenced by her memories of the Greek landscape and her love of modern Greek poetry, have been exhibited in galleries in London including the Royal Academy’s Summer Show, and the Midlands. She has mountaineered in the Austrian Alps and the Pyrenees and journeyed extensively on foot through the mountains of Greece, and has taught English in Athens and Paris for a year each. The same themes which inspired her working life inform the subject matter of her book and design for its cover.
Published:May 2022
Paperback:162 pages
Size:210 x 297mm
Price:£9.99
ISBN:9-781914-424489

£9.99 (+ £3.50 postage)
Number of copies:
Her first published work, it is a collection of recent drawings and poems written mainly since 1990 on the threshold of the second half of life. It is a celebration of love in all its permutations and of the joys of chance meetings with strangers and foreigners with all the enriching opportunities they bring for expanding horizons, experiencing different cultures and engaging with “the other”. Its ambition is to be deeply serious and light-heartedly humorous.

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175 Not Out!
Nigel Jepson

175 NOT OUT! offers a must-read experience for all cricket buffs who relish the peerless nature of the game as it is played at local level. Since Ramsbottom Cricket Club was founded in 1845, ‘generations’ of players have partaken of the sport and stamped their character indelibly on the style in which it has been played.
As an original member of the Lancashire League, formed in 1892, Ramsbottom has also succeeded in attracting many famous world-class professional players, for example arguably the greatest of all-time Australian skippers, Ian Chappell, plus in more recent years, Michael Clarke.
Few other cricket grounds have the same iconic atmosphere as Rammy’s Acre Bottom with its splendid green and cream striped pavilion, built back in 1904. Within its hallowe
d portals, Ramsbottom Cricket Club’s own Long Room, much like the one at London’s Lords’, contains evocative evidence of the club’s illustrious history splashed across its walls. Drawing on the club’s archive base, containing a wide and fascinating range of memorabilia, the author has succeeded in penning a vibrant narrative going back to 1845. In addition, interviews conducted with ex-players, the earliest of such recollections taking the reader back to the 1950s, provide rich and very often amusing first-hand accounts.
Published: June 2022
Paperback: 268 pages
Price: £11.99
ISBN: 9-781914-424595

UK Only
£11.99 (+ £3.00 postage)
Number of copies:

Available on Amazon
The club’s ‘roll of honour’, from 1892 onwards, reveals the remarkable record of success achieved by Ramsbottom teams across a distinguished history of involvement in the distinctive world of Lancashire League cricket. Going far beyond raw facts and figures, 175 Not Out! explores the human dimension and the way in which cricket resides in the soul of the town’s community. Above all else, this is a book which richly conveys the memories and recollections of all those who, whether as players, volunteer workers or spectators, have contributed so splendidly to the fascinating history of Ramsbottom Cricket Club.

Nigel Jepson lives in Ramsbottom and is a keen supporter and member of Ramsbottom Cricket Club.
He first came to the local area in the mid-1990s when taking up post as Headteacher at nearby Haslingden High School. As far as the broader community was concerned, it didn’t take long to pick up the vibes regarding the longstanding rivalry between Haslingden and Ramsbottom, much of it existing on a cricketing front as traditional close rivals in the Lancashire League. Nigel’s last UK Head’s post was at Kearsley Academy in Bolton from 2010 to 2014. ‘Retired’, he has though carried out interim Headteacher work in Dubai during 2016 and has also conducted teacher training programmes in New Delhi in 2018.

Although having always been keen on team sports, he developed a passion for long distance running which started with the London Marathon in 1982, moving through other events to New York in 2001. More recently, over 2017 to 2019, prior to the Covid pandemic kicking in, he ran four more marathons in Dubai, Belfast, Manchester and Liverpool.

‘The Inspector and the Superhead’ (2000)
‘Cut and Run’ (2006)
‘In a League of His Own’ (2011)
‘Speed is of the Essence’ (2015)
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Stately Lancashire
Barry McLoughlin

Stately Lancashire
A county better known for its industrial landscape and urban sprawl, Lancashire in fact contains some of the finest country houses in the United Kingdom.
This book – a sequel to Stately Homes Alone: Independent Country Houses in the North West, published in 2021 – explores another eleven great houses in Lancashire. They range from much-visited National Trust properties to lesser-known mansions, a romantic ruin and a huge stately home that virtually vanished overnight.
Stretching from Lancaster in the north to Manchester in the south, and Liverpool in the west to Burnley in the east., they span Tudor gems such as Speke Hall and Rufford Old Hall, the just-restored ‘Jacobean Gothic’ jewel Bank Hall and undiscovered Heskin Hall.
The Wars of the Roses, the Reformation, the ‘witch trials’, the Civil War and the Jacobite Rebellion… Lancashire’s stately homes have witnessed a catalogue of major historic events.
Illustrated in full colour, the book includes richly detailed descriptions of the houses, their owners and their gardens, their restoration and how to contact them. Several of the chapters first appeared in Choice magazine.
Published:May 2022
Hardback:94 pages
Colour images:35
Size:6 x 9 ins
Price:£9.99
ISBN:9-781914-424533

£9.99 (+ £3.50 postage)
Number of copies:


Available soon from Amazon
This book also examines how some of the houses have attempted to deal with the growing recognition that their owners were involved in the transatlantic slave trade.

A journalist, editor and author since 1973, Barry McLoughlin has worked for local, regional and national newspapers and magazines, including four years as editor of Steam World, Britain’s biggest-selling historical railway magazine, and a spell as a parliamentary lobby correspondent at Westminster. He is the author or editor of fourteen books, on subjects ranging from railways to politics. He is a Life Member of the National Union of Journalists.

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Saturday Live

Cheryl Underhill, author of The Box of Beautiful Letters, published by YouCaxton in Augst 2021, appeared on Saturday Live on Easter Saturday. Her book is a compilation of the moving love letters of her mother and father, written during World War II while he father was away on service.

 

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Reparation – Entwined Victorian Lives and Cotswold Gypsies
Gail Fulton

Reparation
Entwined Victorian Lives and Cotswold Gypsies
Set in rural Victorian Cotswolds, we follow the intrigue of a fleeting love affair, mistaken identity and the tragic repercussions of jealousy.
Albert’s combustible temper together with Peggy’s secret past, lead their twin children into an adult life of risky adventure and heartache.
Truth will out but not without personal torment and devastating consequences.
Published: April 2022
Paperback: 262 pages
Price: £9.99
ISBN: 9-781914-424502
Available on Amazon

Gail Fulton has recently moved to the Cotswolds with her husband and Border Collie, Monty. Their two daughters and a future son-in-law have also relocated to the area and they look forward to many hours of dog walks, dining out and laughter.

Gail is now retired from teaching but has also always been passionate about interior design and floral art is also. Another passion is people watching! Gail gained an M.A. in Psychology, focusing her interest on personality development and she is intrigued by body language. She so loves her visits to coffee shops and observing behaviour.


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Barley’s Biscuit, Pipit’s Perilous Plight
Roy Bradshaw

Barley’s Biscuit, Pipit's Perilous Plight


Up the Wrekin, here we go! Barley, the clever BorderCollie dog, Basil, his nephew and Mick, their human friend, have an exciting adventure and learn fascinating things about the Wrekin, a Shropshire beauty spot of fabulous rural charm, and a place of legends and wild imagination. When Mick runs into an old friend and local hero Gary, they start chatting – and the two dogs rummage around for an adventure...

Barley and Basil soon find themselves involved in a dangerous stand-off between a massive red-deer stag and a tiny meadow pipit bird.
Published: March 2022
Price: £6.99
Paperback 24 pages
Illustrations: Full colour
ISBN: 9-781914-424540


Available on Amazon
The stag is very distressed and Barley is not sure whether he’s friendly or not. But the stag is standing between Barley and a meadow pipit in serious life-threatening trouble – and she has a nest full of newly born chicks. Barley has to think quickly of a way to rescue the pipit. He needs to trust his instincts...

Does the meadow pipit understand that Barley is a friend? A new friend might just be able to help…

Teaching in primary, secondary and special educational needs schools gave Roy Bradshaw a broad experience in the joys that a good adventure story brings to young minds (and not so young minds). Coupled with a previous career in engineering, the teaching helped to gel a problem-solving mind with fun one. Growing up in the Black Country, then moving close to Ironbridge some thirty years ago has allowed him to discover many of the local beauty spots and to use them as a background for my children’s books.