The Yorkshire Erk

Ron Cartwright’s RAF career comes to a sticky end. Should he pursue his ambition to become a TV engineer, or take Sir Reginald’s offer of chauffeur? What should he do about Daisy? Ron Cartwright, 23, grandly imagined a long successful career in the Royal Air Force, perhaps twelve or twenty two years with full service pension. A commission perhaps? Remustered involuntarily into surface-to-air missiles from his beloved Canberra bombers, a stupid prank cast him as a suspect communist spy. Uncovering a cook house criminal scam endangered his life, as the ringleader attempted to have him murdered. If that was not enough, his fiancé jilted him rather than become a service wife. Ron’s career came to an ignominious end. Ron’s passion was anything on two or four wheels that will reach the ton. A chance 100 mph dice between his Norton and a Service Police Corporal’s Triumph TR3 introduced him to the old world of Riddley Hall, a Victorian estate near Bradford in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Major Bradshaw, the owner, partner in Bradshaw & Bradshaw solicitors with his brother, Sir Reginald, offered Ron excellent lucrative employment as a chauffeur. How tempting as Reginald has a Bentley S2 limousine on order. Avril Bradshaw, almost seventeen, vivacious blonde school girl, captured Ron’s heart, but was set to break it if he did not heed her brother’s advice. She was bent on becoming the first female RAF jet pilot. Another girl, a young maid, sets her sights on Ron, but he’s not too keen. Ignoring all advice, Ron aims at a new professional life in domestic television servicing. He returns to live with his parents, the landlords of the Runswick Inn, on the Market Square of Wakeford, a small city near Leeds. Securing a job as an inside TV service engineer with Calderdale TV & Electrical Ltd, the first day saw Ron in utter despair, realising what a foolish decision he had made. Would pride allow him to quit? Tail between legs, would he flee back to Sir Reginald? The novel is set in the halcyon days of the late 1950s in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire before speed limits. Working men, miners in particular thundered around on Triumph Tiger 100 motor bikes. Some were just beginning to afford a small Ford or Morris saloon. The fortunate few impressed the girls in their sports cars. The well off cosseted themselves in their Bentleys. Ron Cartwright, like a fish out of water, found himself in the latter camp. The saga commences in Australia where Ron was buried. The sequels in order of publication: Erk in Trouble, Erk on the Run, Erk in Hiding, and Erk Down Under – No Doughnuts for Deryk, continue the story of Ron Cartwright in The Cartwright Saga series.