Up Our Yard

Vigil-aunties is a story set twenty years in the future. The residents of a small coastal town are fed up with the anarchy on the streets and the apathy of those in charge who are supposed to represent the people. The police service has been completely privatised and is now controlled by a private company who have their logo emblazoned on the flanks of the patrol cars, 'Crimecrackers in partnership with a police officer in your area'. Because it is a private company and the police service are paid by them it is normal for 'petty' crimes to be ignored as a waste of time and sponsors money in favour of the more TV and media friendly ones because it is this that gives the sponsors 'Crimecrackers' the air time and publicity and the police officers promotion. Led by a reluctant hero, Nurse Christine Walker, the towns folk join forces and make the decision that if the authorities are not sufficiently bothered to rid the streets of the thugs and drug dealers - two of whom, Spud and Robbo, feature heavily in the story - many of whom have taken up residence on a deserted caravan park just off the promenade known locally as the lost city then they will do it themselves, and they are not too particular how they do it.The revolution starts when a well-liked elderly couple are assaulted in broad daylight, the lady subsequently dying, there is a public meeting, the townspeople realise perhaps for the first time at that meeting that they can expect no help from the mayor, the chief constable nor the sponsors Crimecrackers. The very next morning they hold a meeting in the local cafe....

Nobby Clifton, a petty crook most of his life is scared of dying in prison so he decides to retire from the game and go to live with his brother who runs a cafe and gift shop in the little village of Grinding Halt, a little coastal holiday village. Unfortunately his sister-in-law can't stand him but his niece Thelma idolises him so it isn't all bad. Unfortunately for Nobby an old adversary of his Nigel Pugh, a newly retired prison officer has bought the redundant railway station in Grinding Halt and has moved in, his intention to build a model railway in the old waiting room. Contrary to expectations they eventually become firm friends, neither having had much experience of life outside prison. Nobby falls foul of Mrs Jones, the post mistress who prior to nobby's arrival in Grinding Halt tries to tell everyone that he is a mass rapist and if Nobby Clifton is allowed in the village they will all be murdered in their beds. A plan to open a cafe on the beach threatens the future of 'Casatways' Nobby's brother's cafe but strange nocturnal happenings soon sorts that out. The police decide that it cannot be Nobby, after all it is well known that he is terrified of dying in prison, so if it isn't Nobby, who was it who burned down the building that was to be the beach cafe.

More From Grinding Halt carries on from where Grinding Halt left off. Nobby and Nigel are now well established in the viallge and it is generally idyllic, but trouble is brewing. Nigel's wife has heard that her ex-husband has inherited a lot of money from an uncle - Nigel usew most of it to buy the railway station - and she turns up demanding her share. Thelma devises a plan to get rid of her. She suggests that she pretends to be Nigel's girlfriend, but the fates take control and things don't go according to plan. The Grinding Halt ghost hunters society plan a visit to the railway station because they have heard about the ghost of Cacky Williams, a porter run down by a steam engine many years before. Mrs Jone Post is tricked into taking part having been reminded that her grandmother was well-known in these parts as a medium. Nobby and Thelma, with the aid of special effects plan to put the wind up Mrs Jones as pay back for continually condemning Nobby for things has hasn't done. Unfortunately the ghost of Cacky actually appears.

And there is more.

Lady Charlotte Montgomery, a retired parliamentarian realises there is a gap in the hotel market, a hotel specifically to cater for naughty weekends by the great and the good. She takes over a hotel tucked away in the mountains of Wales; she does not open to the general public, she sells shares to MP's, Bishops, Golfers, etc offering in exchange guaranteed discretion. Unfortunately as in all good plans there is a snag. The local village church has held a fete on the front lawn of the hotel every year since 1916, Lady Charlotte knows that to refuse would be negative publicity so she gives the go-ahead knowing that somehow she has to keep her clients away from the public gaze. The situation gets worse when one of her guests, the well-known MP Sir Rodney Cobbedick there for a weekend with his researcher Helga, dies in bed. His wife, who knows nothing about his share in the hotel has sent a private detective who thinks he is the reincarnation of Humphrey Bogart after him to find out what her husband is doing when he is not at home. At the same time the Bishop of Whittington and his 'secretary' Fiona are also there; unfortunately the bishop knew the local vicar, the one who is running the fete when they were at college together, so keeping them apart is another complication. Two nuns turn up on the doostep because they say their Morris Minor has broken down, but even this is not what it appears.

When a public house was being demolished a mediaeval manuscript written in Latin was discovered in the rafters. It had lain there since AD1348 and had been written by Brother Barnabus of the local priory.It tells the story of the return to the village of Sir Enoch du Wulfrun and his squire Elijah Morgan after they had been fighting in the Holy Lands on a crusade.Lord Enoch returns hoping to marry the lady Rebecca de Darlaston but discovers that she has already been married off by her unscrupulous father but is now a widow. Her father intends that she will stay in the local convent until he finds her another husband, Sir Enoch he doesn't find suitable at all. Elijah returns to marry Eliza Highgate, his childhood sweetheart whom he left wearing a chastity belt of his own making, he has the only key sewn up in his jerkin. Eliza however has developed the knack of lock picking and now has a thriving 'housekeeping' business entertaining all the wealthy un-married men of the area. In the words of the villagers she is no better than she ought to be. To make things worse, Daft Alice Clackett the daughter of Mad Peggy Clackett - both wannabee witches who run the second hand clothes stall on the market - has heard of Elijah's return and hot-foots it from Blowich to claim him as her husband. She had been chasing Elijah for years before he left and intends to continue on her quest to marry him.Rebecca's father has closed down the healing springs where the pilgrims and sick and infirm come for treatment and he refuses access to these facilities. With the unwitting help of Mad Peggy and one of her four verse incantation spells Elijah hatches a plot to get rid of Daft Alice and Sir Richard. That's the bare bones, there is a lot more but you will have to find out.

A Christmas Fantasy for all year round specifically for those of us young or old who believe that Santa Claus is alive and well. Obediah Bigwig, a senior board member elf at Christmasland takes over the entire organisation with an unexpected coup. He forces Santa into retirement making him live at 'Bide-a-Wee', a company owned retirement home by the sea. Mr Bigwig re-brands Christmasland, it is now and everything is computerised. Santa Claus grottos at shops and stores where the cildren have always visited to tell Santa what they want for Christmas have all been abolished. Instead the children have to log-on and place their order on-line, but as Santa says where is the magic in that? He runs away from 'Bide-a-Wee' and as luck would have it he meets a little boy, Josh, who has an unshakeable belief in Santa Claus. He agrees to help Santa regain his rightful place at the head of Christmasland. Santa gives Josh a magic snow dome and although initially Josh has no idea what it is for, it turns out it is crucial to their success, especially as Josh learns that the computerised systems at   has gone haywire and there is a real danger that Christmas may never happen unless Santa can regain control.

In 1927 a chance encounter in a public house with the person who found a solid gold bangle whilst walking his dog was to be a life changing moment in the life of Captain Cornelius Wood. His journal written in 1956 was found only a few years ago by his grandson, it is a fascinating document, it tells of his adventures in the underground city of the Nation of the Angeln, a community that has lived in the deepest caves and tunnels below Dudley castle in Warwickshire for a thousand years. They have earned their living collecting the detritus of the upper world, as they call it, with their horses and carts - rags, bones etc. - selling this on to give their women - dressed in upper world clothes - the money to buy produce in Dudley market to supplement their production of sheep and cattle which graze quite openly on the pasturelands surrounding the castle. The language they speak - Anglo Saxon - is not so very different to the Black Country spoken by Dudley people -this dialect is itself derived from Anglo Saxon. By hiding themselves in this way in full of the world they have remained undetected for generations. Captain Wood chances upon this community and their way of life and is sucked into a power battle that is taking place unknown to the rest of the world. This entaglement has an unlikely side effect, he falls in love with the queen of this strange world - the ruling monarch throughout their history, by ancient decree, has always been a woman - but unfortunately he is not permitted to marry her, again by decree her husband has to be of the Angeln. Love triumphs in the end but only after many hurdles, not least Queen Cathryn's brother the ambitious Aethelfred.