Biography/Memoirs

A charming and inspiring story about one woman’s quest to live her dream.

Jean Chadwick came from humble beginnings in her hometown of Rochdale. After a turbulent childhood, she discovered a love for music, singing and her idol, another Rochdale girl, Gracie Fields. Following her interest and her idol, Jean found herself presented with opportunities which she took with enthusiasm. Before long, as a young woman, she was working in the entertainment industry with an act she created based on the songs and style of Gracie.

Jean was often described as ’The little mill girl from Rochdale’ and she used this title to help shape her act as she travelled around the country and ultimately into Europe earning her living.

Often finding herself in difficult circumstances both in her work and her private life, Jean, nonetheless, as advised by Gracie, never gave up and managed to create a successful career. After her time as an entertainer, she spent happy and remunerative times on the Isle of Skye. Returning to Rochdale, she renewed her friendship with author Anita Lewis who has written a sensitive and interesting portrayal of Jean in a life full of ups and downs as she lived out her dream.

Author Anita Lewis was born in Rochdale and has lived a successful and happy life in her hometown. Educated locally, she was married in 1964 and with her husband Rodney, she brought up her family. Initially, civil servant, she later became a qualified teacher in Primary Education. She was also a tutor at Rochdale College in Health and Social Care.

She and Rodney set up a care home which they still run. Her work on safeguarding led to several awards and the business finally became a teaching care home. In 2019, the home won the North West Family Business of the Year and also the National Dignity Award for Dignity in Care.

Committed to improving the lives of others, especially the vulnerable and especially in Rochdale, Anita was proprietor of the successful Syke Junior Theatre club and a finalist in the Rochdale Woman of the Year competition. In 2020, she was invited to become a Parliamentary Review representative communicating the needs of the care industry to MP’s. A charity fundraiser on several community groups, she is an ex-board member of Age UK.

A former magistrate, Anita is now semi-retired, still enjoying time with her family and busy organising social events for the elderly and following her interests (arts, music and theatre). Writing and literature have always been of interest to her and Anita has now found time to complete her first book.

After inappropriate treatment of author Barbara O’Donnell’s baby boy, Andy, he suffered a series of debilitating conditions leaving him seriously disabled for life. Barbara didn’t give up. What began was a commitment to ensure, come what may, that Andy would be given the best chance to live as normal a life as possible.

The book tells the story of how Barbara and her other children at first lived with Andy in seriously challenging circumstances. As he grew, Andy was placed in various special schools while Barbara ensured that these organisations and their staff understood the unique features of Andy’s condition and how these might erupt into all sorts of extreme behaviours at any time, putting everyone involved at risk.

After a significant financial settlement, the family developed a life for Andy built around an organisation they created to care for him as an adult and then others with serious special disability needs. All the while, the family dealt with the cost-driven culture of the Social Services bureaucracy winning important disputes as Barbara O’Donnell’s dogged attitude ensured the protection of what she, her family and their support team had created.

Andy and Me: A Life for My Disabled Son will inspire families with disabled people and those carers who provide valuable support and care in the disabled community, sending out a message that all is not lost and that much can be achieved successfully even in the most challenging situations.

With the experiences of her son Andy, Barbara teaches work-based qualifications to staff members at Scenario Management which she formed in 1997 to support people with profound learning disabilities, challenging behaviour and autism. She also lectures at Lancaster University on the Positive Stories days.

Apart from Andy, Barbara has three other children.

‘I was on the last leg of my first cross country flight. My next radio call would be to ask permission to land. I began to relax. I was nearly home. That’s when the aircraft’s engine stopped.’ The Self-Improver is an autobiographical account about how a university drop-out took his first steps towards becoming the world’s most experienced Boeing 747 captain. Author Nick Eades was going nowhere fast when it struck him that after all, he was destined to follow in family footsteps and become a pilot.

The book takes us into the cockpit to follow his journey to captaining one of the most iconic aircraft ever flown. The Self-Improver relates Nick’s step-by-step path up the aviation ladder. Working his way through a variety of jobs, he enrols and passes the necessary training courses to achieve the licences and ratings that will move him towards ever-improving jobs up the pilot hierarchy.

His journey takes him from close to home in the UK over to the US and back again, as he makes his way in the world of aviation. Including many amusing anecdotes and gripping incidents mixed with tragic ones too, The Self-Improver is a personal account of one man’s mission to reach the skies and achieve the ultimate dream.

This true account of one of the most tumultuous years in human history may have been written by Anne Vickers but it is the story of every one of us who lived through the year 2020. Anne gives a personal account of life in the Yorkshire village and surrounding areas where she lives during the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020.

She details the highs and lows she experienced. She tells the inspirational tale of a young boy’s magnificent fund-raising achievement, of her anguish at not being able to visit her elderly sick mother living in a care home, and how her friends and the community helped to support each other during this difficult time.

Non-Fiction

Early in the 2020 pandemic, author Steven Mason, seeking inspiration to help cope during the Covid-19 crisis, began to examine the lives of some of the great personalities from history. After considerable research, he discovered that many of these individuals had overcome significant adversity on their path to success. After sharing these stories with others, he was inspired to write this book.

The Adversity Formula: Inspirational Lessons from History reviews the lives of thirty remarkable characters from history to see how they dealt with adversity. The book goes onto provide a formula that readers can themselves apply to their own lives. Selected mainly from the 20th Century, the fifteen men and fifteen women, include scientists, entrepreneurs, humanitarians, politicians, entertainers, sports stars and war heroes.

The list contains well-known names like Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs and Walt Disney but also features lesser-known profiles of Virginia Hall, Irena Sendler and Victor Frankl, a holocaust survivor who, after his experiences in the concentration camps, developed a therapy to find meaning and purpose in adversity.

The book looks at the adversity these greats faced, what they achieved despite it, but also, how they dealt with adversity, often using it to their advantage. Their coping mechanisms are summarised in five characteristics for each individual and packaged into a general formula for tackling life’s problems. The conclusion found within these pages is that it is often how people respond to adversity, that can determine successful outcomes.

The Adversity Formula: Inspirational Lessons from History will be particularly relevant to those interested in self-development, especially during difficult times, as well as those with a love of history. The book offers hope in the face of life’s major challenges.

Author Steven Mason is a licensed insolvency practitioner by profession, one in which he has seen his fair share of distress during the pandemic. Living in Manchester, England, he is a married father of five. Outside work, he enjoys and values time with his family, his love of sport and especially, his love of history. He has a BA (Hons) degree in International History and Politics from The University of Leeds and a Graduate Diploma in Law from Manchester Metropolitan University.

This book is his first and as well as using the subject to help people cope with challenging situations, he hopes to make history relevant to a broad audience, including those not usually interested in the past and the lessons that can be learned from it.

After the passing of her beloved father, Sarah Duff felt something inside that she had not felt before, a desperation for change. She decided to follow this feeling and dive into the world around her until she understood more.

Her adventures took her everywhere, with new climates, cultures and beliefs and these experiences transformed Sarah into the person she is today. With her newfound independence Sarah embraced this growth with open arms and strived to reawaken her mind, body connection.

Beyond Gratitude: A Journey to Positivity, invites you to come along for the ride. It will allow you to understand how your life can be transformed if you begin to investigate the power it holds. This book describes real people and real experiences to help you discover your own level of emotional well-being and support you in its development.

Sarah now understands the importance of building connections rather than building possessions and hopefully this account will open up a new world of opportunity for you too.

Kino and Kinder tells the fascinating, poignant but inspiring story of one family’s survival as the Nazi party’s anti-Semitic policies unfolded through the 1930s, leading to the Anschluss and then, world war.

Author, Vivien Sieber, describes how her grandmother, Paula, her father, Peter and his stepbrother, Erich, grew up in pre-war Austria before the descent into war forced them to flee for their lives alongside many other members of the Central European Jewish community.

To fulfil her obsession with the cinema, the family had purchased the Palast Kino for Paula to run in the heart of cosmopolitan Vienna. However, the rise of the Nazis forced Peter and Erich, to start new lives in the UK, and Paula to abandon her cinema and join them. She then became involved with a hostel for young girls taken out of Europe by the Kindertransport programme.

Set against the backdrop of the holocaust, Kino and Kinder describes how Paula, Peter, Erich and their extended family faced their wartime challenges. These included Peter’s wartime internment; his and Erich’s subsequent military service for the British armed forces and Paula’s time running the hostel.

After the war, the challenges continued as they traced the fate of their family members while Paula attempted to regain the ownership of her cinema; Erich forged a career in entertainment; and Peter built a business.

The book provides many wonderful details about life in Vienna, Austria and Central Europe before the Second World War and in post-war London, where the Paula, Peter and Erich continued to live. It also features interesting and informative first-hand accounts by a number of the women who had lived in the wartime hostel as young girls, in which they talk about their lives in the UK after they had been saved by the Kindertransport.

Kino and Kinder is illustrated throughout with many wonderful, evocative and historic photographs.

Dr Vivien Seiber is a retired scientist and lives in Oxford with her husband, Paul. Amongst her interests, she loves pottery. Kino and Kinder is her first book.

A story of courage, perseverance and a refusal to give in. Three Wise Monkeys is the autobiography of a man who endured a terrible, violent and abusive start in life which led to a string of criminal convictions and misery. His middle years were beset by continuing problems including gang rape and a complete lack of support from his dysfunctional family.

Alcoholism and illness also play their part but you sense through it all the sheer will and determination to fight against the odds. His reckless, compulsive behaviour sees him spending time in young offenders’ institutions and sometimes prison. It is a harsh lesson, but he learns to take the brickbats and the beatings before giving them back in return.

He has a running battle with the media to clear his name of unfounded, personal allegations and almost daily harassment from family, so-called friends and neighbours. Many would have cracked under the pressure but the author persists, come what may.

Sometimes he reaches his lowest ebb when things conspire against him. There is light at the end of the tunnel, but it takes him 23 years to shake off the shackles thanks largely to his wife, his ‘diamond’. He emerges a better individual although not fully at peace with his kith and kin.

This is the story of a man whose working life was way beyond the experience of most men. He faced great danger during his career whether walking, sailing or driving across the Equator. His journeys did not end there, as he has also flown or sailed across every ocean and sea on this planet.

He has spent over five thousand hours in the air as a pilot or passenger in forty-seven different types of aircraft, from a small Cessna to a Boeing B-747 Jumbo Jet.

Another truly impressive statistic is that he has lived or visited ninety-two countries.

Marriage, divorce, treachery, affairs, killings, corruption, and so much more were part of his extraordinary life.

Thanks to his meticulous and precious logbooks, the unbelievable real-life adventures of this RAF Officer, Diplomat and Gentleman can now be told.

For most of his adult life, Peter Morrell followed a career in the Law. Qualified as a solicitor in 1970, he switched to being a barrister in 1974, enjoyed a busy practice as an advocate, mainly in the East Midlands, and was appointed a Circuit Judge in 1992. After he retired from the Circuit Bench in 2009, he continued to sit as a Mental Health Review Judge until his seventieth birthday in May 2014.

However, before he became a lawyer and ever since, he has engaged with areas that have interested him unconnected with the Law.

Reminiscences of a Nearly Somebody comprises five adventures. It opens with Wandervogel, which describes a walk Peter took in 1963, aged 18, alone through the Rhineland and the Black Forest, in what was then West Germany, where memories of World War II were still fresh; and often raw.

In 1970, he embarked upon a political career, which Hustings charts from his role as a Conservative Party constituency treasurer, through his unsuccessful campaign in 1972 for election to the Peterborough City Council, to the Three-Day-Week general election of February 1974, when he stood as the Conservative candidate in the strongly Labour mining constituency of Ilkeston, Derbyshire.

From very early, he aspired to be an author and Scribbling describes his efforts, culminating in the Pepynbridge trilogy of novels, published between 2015 and 2016; and, in 2018, a collection of his sermons, From the Pulpit, Home and Abroad.

In Robed, he records how, following a curious interview and during a bizarre ceremony, he shed his barrister’s gown in favour of a Circuit Judge’s robe.

In July 2008, Peter was ordained to the Anglican diaconate and, in the following year, to the Anglican priesthood. In Collared, he charts why and how that happened and shares some tales from his ministry, both before ordination, when he was a reader, and afterwards, as deacon and priest.

Anecdotal, self-deprecating and sometimes humorous, Reminiscences of a Nearly Somebody tell of polymathic serendipity, all too rare in today’s world of narrow specialism.

Peter is married to Mary. They have two grown-up daughters and a granddaughter and live in isolated rusticity in East Northamptonshire.

In this inspiring autobiography, journalist Rick Bowen accounts his life from a young boy, all the way to his life now. Rick has always been passionate about the world of journalism and knew it was his desired career path as young as 18. Yet even though he was born with cerebral palsy, Rick is a true example of disability not equating to incapability, in fact, much the opposite.

Following Rick throughout his life in school, university and onto his career as a journalist, he enlightens us into the many exciting opportunities the world of journalism has offered him and those he has met along the way.

Journeys with Open Eyes is not a travel book although it provides a wealth of information about places far-away and sometimes very close to home, both locationally and psychologically. Nor is it a history book, although the author, Hugh Roberts, was present in or around many of the world’s trouble spots immediately before or after some of the epoch-making events of the 20th and early 21st centuries.

Journeys … is a book about people. As such it is concerned with Hugh’s empathetic approach to members of the human race, be they indigenous residents of the High Andes, Soviet functionaries, Arab princes, white South Africans of the Apartheid era and numerous others. There can be no doubt that empathy helped him in his career as an international Urban Planner but empathy like this is only found in those with a genuine love for humankind.

He judges systems of government but rarely the people operating or imposing them. As a result, he invariably gets the best out of his fellows whether as friends, work colleagues or chance acquaintances. Journeys … will entertain and educate the reader in full measure and should be required reading for all who care for the inhabitants of this planet.

After graduating from the Universities of Oxford and Wales, author Hugh Roberts spent over forty-five years in planning, design and development consultancy for new towns and urban, industrial and regional infrastructure. He worked for some of the largest built environment consultancies in UK, the US and Australia and lived and worked in a wide range of countries throughout all six continents.

Following a series of professional journal publications, for example, in the Middle East Economic Digest, he wrote An Urban Profile of the Middle East published in 1979 (Croom Helm). They were taken over by Routledge/ Taylor & Francis who published it again in 2016. In 2017, he wrote Journeys with Open Eyes: Seeking Empathy with Strangers (i2i Publishing), a travelogue and biography of the projects and people with whom he interacted with across multiple working and domestic cultures worldwide.

The book is partly serious commentary on trends in urban development, but also anecdotal about bizarre situations – some mundane, others hilarious and a few even life-threatening – encountered through a long and varied career. Fractured Society: Causes, Effects and Resolutions is Hugh Roberts’ third.

Les Mason approached the huge gates of the prison with apprehension; he rapped on a highly polished brass knocker and a fierce man in uniform appeared and beckoned him in. Nothing could have prepared him for what he would see, what he would witness, what he would become a part of or the dramatic effect it would have on his young life.

Prisons hold a profound fascination for people and the author grips the reader’s attention with a humorous but sometimes harrowing story inviting us into the unseen world of two of the most infamous prisons in Britain.

‘High Walls and Iron Bars’ is a true account of a Prison Officer’s long and dedicated career from the day of his recruitment until his eventual retirement. You will enjoy this book.

Les Mason approached the huge gates of the prison with apprehension; he rapped on a highly polished brass knocker and a fierce man in uniform appeared and beckoned him in. Nothing could have prepared him for what he would see, what he would witness, what he would become a part of or the dramatic effect it would have on his young life.

Prisons hold a profound fascination for people and the author grips the reader’s attention with a humorous but sometimes harrowing story inviting us into the unseen world of two of the most infamous prisons in Britain.

‘High Walls and Iron Bars’ is a true account of a Prison Officer’s long and dedicated career from the day of his recruitment until his eventual retirement. You will enjoy this book.

Harry Houghton considers himself to be just an ordinary bloke. He was born in 1946 just after WWII in a country that had been devastated by the war. Industries were struggling, money was in short supply and there a lack of social care except from your own family. There was no NHS until 1948 and food rationing continued until 1953. Keeping your sanity and wit was crucial. His mother, like many mothers of the day, including those who had been employed for the war effort, struggled to cope with daily life.

Fathers and husbands had also had a big part to play in the war doing necessary work in the Forces, coal mines, steel industry and railways. Harry wanted to write this biography as a personal story that was also a historical account, reflecting some of his memories and experiences and the struggles that made him into the man he is today.

In Pursuit of the Slam: My Year Travelling to Tennis’s Top Four Tournaments tells the story of the author’s year out between jobs during which he attended all four of tennis’s Grand Slam tournaments.

Unhappy in his corporate job, tennis fan Mark Cripps decided to pack it all in and start again. But a chance sighting of an old friend in an in-flight magazine led to an idea: Why not take some time out to travel, organising the trip around tennis’s Grand Slam tournaments?

He made a plan to attend the 1992 French Open, Wimbledon, the US Open and then, returning to Australia in early 1993, where he had been based with American Express, the Australian Open. On the way, he would visit places of interest, catch up with old friends and visit other tournaments in the build up to each Slam, including the Italian Open in Rome.

The book describes how the author organised the visits to each Slam, once there, securing tickets and watching the tennis daily. A club tennis player, the book also tells how the author entered a tournament on the new British Tour and the experience of facing opponents of a much higher standard. Following the US Open, a week spent at a tennis fantasy camp helped confirm the next steps he needed to take when his trip was over.

In Pursuit of the Slam: My Year Travelling to Tennis’s Top Four Tournaments is told in an anecdotal style including the story of the author’s childhood introduction to sport, where his mother’s love of Wimbledon was so infectious.

A nostalgic look back at the professional tennis tours through the prism of a round-the-world trip, the book will appeal to those interested in tennis, especially the professional game back in the nineties and the history of British tennis in general; those keen on travel; anyone needing a change of job or career; or those who just want to make the most of their interests.

Mark Cripps was a corporate marketing executive and then, an award-winning tennis coach specialising in junior development. He now lives in Greater Manchester where he is senior editor for the publisher of this memoir, i2i Publishing. This is his first book.

Vanessa Milano was born in England but now lives in the South of France with her French husband and family.

The Heart of an Artichoke, her first novel, is based on true events: life as the daughter of a military father, living through riots in the Middle East; being pregnant in puritan England in 1967, life in a ‘Mother and Baby home,’ forced adoption; and the experience of being an Au Pair in France. It is also a story with one character always there in the background. That is the son taken from her after birth.

Vanessa always longs for a reconciliation with her first-born, but will that ever happen? The reader is taken through the sixties and seventies and contrasts the differences between the stiff upper-lip English, who insist on doing ‘what’s right,’ and the family loving Latinos, who accept reluctantly, but nevertheless, the unacceptable behaviour of their offspring.

‘Hello Computer’ is a story of a working-class girl who begins a life-long love affair with technology after seeing a computer for the first time in 1967. Her journey takes us through exciting times and epic events, from the dawn of the internet to the dotcom boom, from punch cards to the raspberry pi and virtual worlds.

Linda shares her experiences of computing through real life stories where systems are designed to make a difference to people’s lives. Demonstrating that although technology changes constantly, fundamentally, people don’t change that much.

Against a backdrop of unspoken bias the story captures the struggles faced by many young women, then and now. It is positive, heart-warming and full of hope that women will become more influential within tech.

A story of ambition, passion and programming, inspirational for future generations of women and girls in STEM.

My parents were keeping a secret from me. Although I tried, I was not able to discover the answers to questions about my birth, until one day, some sixty years after that event, an email popped into my inbox which explained a great deal. After reading the email, I decided to conduct genealogical research into my family. This book is the outcome of that research.

It describes the geographic origins of family members – mostly from Lithuania, Prussia, and later, Australia, England and, to my surprise, more ‘exotic’ countries such as Jamaica, Italy, Morocco, and Gibraltar. This book is not an autobiography, nor a history describing in linear fashion one generation after another. It is a collage, akin to a series of snapshots taken by a time traveller, of what some of my family members were doing at one time or other.

This book is a saga describing the successes, failures, scandals and occasional disasters of the interwoven family from the late 18th century until the first few decades after World War II. The families that I have written about are mostly Jews who migrated from Eastern Europe to England and Australia.

Did I discover my parents’ secret? I did. Newspapers gave me part of the story; family I had never known but who had contacted me via email told me their version and other relatives told me the rest.

Ernst Königsgarten was born in Brno in 1880. It was then part of the Austrian Empire and Ernst fenced for his country in the 1906 Olympics. His son Henry was also born in Brno, but moved with his mother first to Vienna in 1911 and then to Berlin in 1915. In 1930 he came to England where his mother and brother joined him after the Nazi annexation of Austria, but Ernst returned to Brno. What then happened to Ernst and other members of the family with the rising tide of Nazism, Henry never spoke about.

This book tells the story of how Henry’s son Michael, after discovering some family records in his mother’s attic, unearthed the full story of his family’s past – his father’s battles with the Home Office to obtain British nationality, the complex relationships of his romantic grandmother Lisi, and the ultimate fate of his grandfather Ernst and other family members at the hands of the Nazis.

So thorough were the Nazi records and so carefully have they been preserved that the inventories of Ernst’s confiscated possessions, some even with photographs, are still in existence today for all to read.

The Telling is a story of European Jewish identity set against the backdrop of the chronicles of one family, going back through history as far as Napoleonic times.

Author, Daniel Tabor, tracks the experiences and changing perceptions of his family as they find themselves having to move locations, often needing to flee oppression but also, to take up new opportunities.

The approach to the writing is based on the time-honoured Jewish tradition of older family members passing on their life stories and insights to younger ones, as one way of keeping the family culture alive.

The book looks back at those who lived many years ago during the nineteenth century in the days when the family was establishing itself in Europe, particularly in the Russian Pale and in Germany. These stories are combined with those of his more recent relatives who travelled in Europe, but also as far away as Israel and Australia, to find safe havens from oppression, or to make better lives for themselves.

How all these changes affected their perceptions of their identity is a central theme running through the book, as are the influence of the places they lived in, and how they remembered their life stories.

The book focuses heavily on the author’s parents, David and Hanna and their individual families. But Daniel Tabor brings in the life stories of other relatives on both sides of his family, too. Overall, the author has brought together the stories of twenty members of his family.

While there are tales of sadness, there are also many tales of joy as the family members set about making the most of their lives, dealing with numerous challenges thrown in their path, displaying perseverance, resilience, courage and determination along the way.

The book is written in an engaging anecdotal style and includes many evocative family testimonies and photos, providing a vivid picture of life in times gone by.

The Telling will appeal to those interested in Jewish history in general, Jewish family histories, the Holocaust, the formation and development of the modern state of Israel, the topic of people migration and also those interested in how others have overcome significant adversity to make a better life for themselves.