How did Margaret Thatcher spark the idea for a love story?

Some thought Thatcher’s cool approach cold and insensitive; others admired her courage and determination but as the National Coal Strike of 1984 dragged on and political arguments raged between the government and unions the effect on ordinary people was emotional and real. Without coal, there would be power-cuts. The stocks of coal would be depleted when the winter came. This would mean, unless the strike was called-off, power stations and factories would be forced to shut-down, bringing the country to a standstill.

I lived in a Kent mining village during that time. Tilmanstone Colliery, near Dover, was threatened with closure too. Many of the miners were descendants of those who travelled on foot from Wales or the North of England specifically to work in the Kent coalfields early in the twentieth century. They were loyal, hard-working people. To their delight the Coal Board provided new houses to accommodate them, with all mod-cons. This was a luxury they were unaccustomed to, and the job promised a secure future. But by the 1970s the industry was in trouble: 34 pits were closed before Margaret Thatcher came to power. When Ian MacGregor became Chairman of the NCB in 1983, he resolved to shut all uneconomic pits. Arthur Scargill reacted with hostility, saving jobs being his priority. Those who continued working were threatened at the picket-lines. To protect them, the police were called in and so the situation escalated. Where emotions are running high, and people’s livelihoods are at risk, it’s easy for things to get out of control.

On the horizon, in the Midlands where I now live, eight wind-turbines have been built to generate electricity. Everything changes. In 1984 I looked out of my window and saw the headgear of the colliery standing tall and proud against the sun – now, in 2013, it is the blades of a windmill turning instead. One thing I know, we would be completely lost without electricity and there’s nothing like a lovely coal fire on a winter’s night.

Tilmanstone Colliery. Copyright: Theresa Le Flem.

My book, The Sea Inside His Head, explores the effect of Margaret Thatcher’s policies on a young couple – the coal-miner Bradley and his wife Helen. Perhaps I could compare the effect of the National Coal Strike as like being thrown into a war situation, when a couple’s home-life is suddenly devastated by things happening in the outside world which are beyond their control. The strike stopped their routine in its tracks; it caused my protagonist Bradley to reflect on his job, working as a coal-miner, and wonder to himself whether that really was what he wanted to do with his life. It also caused Helen to re-assess her own role and perhaps discover in herself skills she never knew she had.

Bradley, in the opening pages, witnesses his father dying from Pneumoconiosis and after this he begins to resent the pit. He is thrown into a helpless situation, wanting to work to earn extra money to start a new life somewhere else, but with the very job he had come to loathe denied him. Debts mount, but his family and friends are all supporting the fight to keep the pit open. It leaves him feeling lonely and isolated. Finally, in a moment of desperation, he tries to tell Helen about his true feelings but she is adamant they must fight on.

Neither Bradley nor Helen know what is in store for them as the months pass and there is no sign of an agreement. Helen, busy running the soup-kitchen, also becomes heavily involved with organizing the fight to keep the pits open while Bradley retreats to his allotment, keeping his thoughts to himself. Helen is gaining confidence and when an NUM meeting is called in the village she urges Bradley to attend:

‘You’ve got to tell them we’re not open to compromise,’ she said importantly. ‘Tell them we’re managing. We’ve got plenty of money in the kitty and support from all over the country. We’ll get by, so long as we stick together, for as long as it takes. Let that Maggie Thatcher know she’s got a real fight on her hands! I’d like to stand up and say we’re behind them a hundred per cent – the strike’s not just about money, it’s the principle of it!  We want prospects! Job security! Oh Brad!’ she cried, reaching out and grasping his upper arms with firm hands, her eyes shining. ‘We want jobs for life, don’t we? It’ll be worth it in the end.’

Bradley doesn’t have the heart to dampen her enthusiasm but when Helen proudly talks of their baby son’s future, and how he could follow in his father’s footsteps, Bradley replies bitterly:

‘Future? Look where it got my old dad, in his grave without a breath of life in him before he was forty-five! Is that your so-called future? Is that what you want for me, and for our Sam?’

What happens to Bradley and Helen?  You will have to read my book to find out!

- Theresa Le Flem, author of The Sea Inside His Head

The Baby-Led Weaning Recipe Book Authors Discuss Where it All Began

Felicity Bertin is an osteopath, a breastfeeding peer support volunteer and a lecturer in Neuro-Musculo-Skeletal Medicine, Embryology and Developmental Biology at the British School of Osteopathy – as well as being mum to three-year-old Lucas.

Emma Ogden-Hooper studied English language and linguistics at university and enjoyed a successful career in professional recruitment before becoming a full-time mum to her two year old son, Ethan. Whether it be baking birthday cakes for children, hosting dinner parties for friends, or creating dishes for her family, Emma always takes delight in cooking up a storm in the kitchen.

Together, Felicity and Emma have written The Baby-Led Weaning Recipe Book. Here’s how it all came about…

Felicity

Emma and I met at ante-natal classes when we were pregnant with our boys, Lucas and Ethan. We supported each other through each stage, regularly discussing how many times we had been up that night or vomited upon. At six months old, the time came for us to wean our boys and this is where (for the first time) our parenting choices deviated. I decided to baby-led wean Lucas and Emma decided to traditionally wean Ethan.  As a health professional it’s in my nature to research every parenting decision I make, from vaccinations to washable nappies. All my friends were pureeing up carrot and shovelling another spoonful of baby rice in to their little one’s open mouth, but all my knowledge of child development led me down a different path. I decided to follow my instincts and got stuck in with serving up chicken curry and falafels and allowing Lucas to feed himself.

Being a new mum I was scared. None of my mummy-friends (who I always looked to for reassurance) were following this method. I had nobody to ask for help or to gather tips from and I had no idea if what I was doing was right. There was only one book on the market on baby-led weaning which gave me guidance on how to do it but didn’t answer all my needs. So, I fumbled my way through and in the evenings once Lucas was in bed, I started writing my own – a baby-led weaning recipe book which I hope deals with questions that occurred to me. I wanted it to contain knowledge I had gleaned and recipes which could be knocked together when Lucas was napping whilst still squeezing in a cup of tea and biscuit.

I kept my little project to myself and then several months later, Emma and I were sitting in the cafe enjoying lunch with our little ones and the subject of weaning came up. As we started sharing recipes for finger foods Emma suggested “Why don’t you write your own recipe book” and from there I knew that the book I had started to pen was a good idea, and let her in on my little secret. With Emma being such a fabulous cook I knew that if we pulled together our experiences of baby-led weaning and traditional weaning we could produce something really special. And we have.

The book sat there for months on my computer, not really doing much as how do two mums with no experience of publishing get a book on the market? One day, fate intervened and in my work as an osteopath, it turned out a patient whose baby I was treating was a graphic designer. I told her all about our book (which she thought was brilliant) and before I knew it, we had a possible book cover and sample pages drawn-up and a company: Yummy Discoveries. I searched on the internet on how we might get our book published and stumbled across Robert Hale Ltd who stated on their website that they accepted unsolicited manuscripts – so we wouldn’t need an agent. Amazingly, they liked what they saw and the rest, as they say, is history.

Emma

Felicity and I met back in 2009 through the NCT course we signed up to in Hertfordshire.  Both of us went on to have baby boys Lucas and Ethan, who are now 3 years of age and are just as good friends as their mums are!

When it came to weaning, the one thing I was sure of was that I was going to feed Ethan home cooked food.

I was brought up on traditional food and I can fondly remember how my mum’s kitchen always smelled of something delicious being cooked or baked.  Being the daughter of a mother who cooked everything herself from scratch (pies, casseroles, roasts, soup, bread, pastry, biscuits….) I have clearly inherited her love of cooking.  I believe that this attribute has contributed to why I am conscious of eating a healthy diet and one not laden with processed foods.  Becoming a mum myself, I wanted to give Ethan the best possible start to his culinary journey and that for me, begins with home cooking.

What I wasn’t sure of was the method I was going to use to feed my son this home cooked goodness.  All my friends with older children gave me advice on how to wean with purées as did my mother and the health visitors at the local children’s centre.  So I decided to go down the puréeing route.  I armed myself with a blender and ice cube trays and whizzed up the foods I cooked.  But after a few months Ethan become bored and restless at mealtimes and started to refuse what I was feeding him.  But I discovered that if I offered him the food and allowed him to feed himself he once again became happy when eating.  It therefore became clear to me that Ethan enjoyed the freedom to explore food for himself and he relished the independence that came with self-feeding.

Due to Felicity’s own experience of weaning her son, when we came to write the book together, we both agreed it was important that it offered more than just recipes to parents who are at the weaning stage; we wanted to create a “handbook” and one whose style, tone and content reflected the ethos of ‘written by parents, for parents’.

Therefore our book provides a step-by-step guide on how to wean the baby-led way in addition to over 150 recipes that the family can enjoy together (not just for weaning babies).   We have included useful tips which we found save time or make weaning and cooking a little easier, practical advice on how to get started with baby-led weaning, first foods, meal planners, shopping lists and eating out when weaning.  We have listed recipes according to their actual cooking times as we understand time is a precious commodity.  As parents, we also appreciate how costly throwing away food can be so we created recipes and suggestions for leftovers.

Children’s health seems to be a hot topic at the moment; from discussions about childhood obesity to fussy eating habits in addition to articles that discuss the virtues of home cooked foods for babies and children against those that are processed or pre-packaged.

I personally hope that our book is being released at a time when it can make a positive difference.  Not only can baby-led weaning help establish healthy eating habits and prevent fussy eating later on in life,  its principle of ‘your baby can eat what you eat (with a few dos and don’ts)’ is reflected positively by our book’s promotion of recipes you and your baby can both enjoy together.

The Baby-Led Weaning Recipe Book by Felicity Bertin and Emma Ogden-Hooper

We like to think we have created something special because our book has a few unique points which help reinforce our books ethos:

• Research has shown that once we start to get used to sugar in our diets we then crave more and so we end up more likely to become obese. Our book is 100% refined sugar free. We aim to target children when they first start weaning – and to encourage healthy eating habits from the moment they put food in to their mouth is a step towards this.
• Certain foods have been highlighted due to their health or developmental benefits
• The book contains recipes or suggestions for leftovers (to help save the parent money)
• There are easy ‘Adult Add-On’ suggestions, for the more sophisticated palate
• All recipes have been tried and tested by our families – including our little ones!

The Baby-Led Weaning Recipe Book by Felicity Bertin and Emma Ogden-Hooper is published by Robert Hale Ltd on Thursday 28th February 2013 and is available to pre-order now.

Author Carl Walker on Why It’s OK to Laugh at Men With Combovers

Carl Walker is a senior lecturer in psychology and he has ten years’ experience researching and publishing academic work on human behaviour. He is uniquely qualified to write this book on account of being the only man who considers himself a world authority on men who juggle. He lives in Sussex with his family and his hobbies include avoiding men who wear comedy ties and thinking up innovative new ways to hide his man boobs.

Here he looks at why he decided to write Wearing Combovers and why he feels it’s OK to laugh…

I’d like to pretend that I wrote this book out of some kind of antiquated notion of providing a public service to my fellow man. To help other men out there steer their way through the various and many trials of modern day living. I’d like to say that when I implored men not to shout at their dogs in public, jump over gates that they could easily walk through and wear combovers, I did it out of an urge to help people to correct behaviours that presented them as curiously hapless in the eyes of their peers. I’m afraid I didn’t. I wrote it to laugh at them. Just to make fun of them plain and simple. And laughing at those less fortunate than ourselves has really come to receive a bad reputation in recent years. We spend so long teaching our children that it is wrong to laugh at those less fortunate than ourselves.

But really, is it so wrong to laugh at a man whose combover has been mauled by the wind? Is it so wrong to laugh at men who walk into friends new houses and knock on their walls to confirm, with staggeringly little authority, that the walls are, indeed, fine. Of course it’s not, its great fun.

I wrote this book for people who like laughing at stupid men. If, when you see men cycling with no hands hit a bump and then panic as they grasp for their handlebars then this book is for you. If you laugh like a drain at that ‘gradual grooving’ bit between a man getting up to dance and their actual dancing then this is for you. If your favourite clips from You’ve Been Framed are the ones where clinically dim skateboarders give themselves DIY vasectomies on hand railings then this is for you.

I see the fact that I myself do many of the things in this book as no impediment to laughing at these varied forms of male idiocy. I hope you don’t either.

- Carl Walker

Wearing Combovers and 49 Other Things That the Modern Man Shouldn’t Do by Carl Walker is available to buy now with a limited time only discount of 30%

Author Helen Osborn on Genealogy: Essential Research Methods

Helen Osborn is co-founder of Pharos Tutors, providers of online genealogy courses. She has worked as a professional genealogist and historical researcher since 1998 with clients worldwide and thousands of hours of research time under her belt. She is a member of AGRA and has been a consultant on the popular TV series Who Do You Think You Are? Helen has been lecturing, writing and teaching about research methods for many years and has written three previous books about public houses and brewing history. This is her first book about genealogy.

Here, she talks us through what went into writing Genealogy: Essential Research Methods…

Genealogy is great fun, but it can be frustrating when you get stuck and don’t know where to look for advice. Thanks to the amount of records online, it is now relatively easy to start in the morning with just a few facts about an ancestor and to have built up some sort of a tree by lunch-time, assuming you have a subscription to one of the main family history websites. Yet, every single one of us doing this for any length of time will also fail to find an ancestor at some point or encounter a problem with identifying the correct ancestor. I am so pleased to begin to address the problems that genealogy throws at us, by producing the sort of book I wish I could have had on my bookshelf years ago. It comes not only from my own personal family history experiences, but also after having talked to hundreds of other genealogists about their problems, be they clients, my students or other professionals.

Working full-time as a professional genealogist for over ten years, I have built up thousands of hours of research time. Over time I have come to realize that problem solving and building up proof cases where identity is obscure or problematical is a whole lot more complex, pernickety and downright difficult than you might at first appreciate. Not only that, but there is very little information in print for the British genealogist about the best way to go about it.

There is lots of advice available in books and on the internet about how to start your family tree, and even how to venture further into the records, but very little that is for the intermediate or more advanced genealogist who wants and needs advice on method. General information about the life and times of our ancestors is to be found aplenty, but not much that discusses the issues and problems of genealogy in depth. If your family is anything like my family, you will find that they don’t conform very neatly to those broad-stroke general interpretations of history anyway. The internet has been a huge boon to family historians, but not everything you need is online and there is still no substitute for painstaking and detailed study into a family or community using original documents, analytical skills and documentation techniques. In short, there has been a lack of help for the genealogist who wants to advance their skills, rather than just find out about another set of possible websites to search within. I really hope that this book is going to start to plug that gap.

- Helen Osborn

Genealogy: Essential Research Methods is available to pre-order now with a limited time only discount of 30%

Peter Tickler on his Oxford-based ‘Blood On…’ Series

Peter Tickler has lived and worked in Oxford for nearly thirty years. He also studied at the University of Oxford, reading classics at Keble College. Previously a successful non-fiction author, Tickler turned his hand to novels in 2008 when Robert Hale published his first crime thriller Blood on the Cowley Road. The second of his Blood in Oxford series, Blood in Grandpont, was published in 2010. Here, he tells us where the Blood on… series all began…

Write about what you know. It’s an old adage, and for me it makes absolute sense. When I decided to try writing fiction, it was always going to be crime. Not because I have a huge personal experience of crime (none that I’m admitting to, anyway!), but because that was what I enjoyed reading – and indeed watching – on TV. But when it came to location, it had to be Oxford. I had lived some twenty-five years of my life there, as well as being a student for four years before that, so Oxford was what I knew – and loved. And it was Town not Gown that really interested me, the side streets and residential area of what might be termed non-tourist Oxford – the bits you rarely see on the TV programme ‘Lewis’. I’m also a great Oxford United fan. That is my Achilles heel, and so it is inevitable that Oxford United and its fans appear in my books. Of course these fans are entirely fictional, as are all the characters in my books. Only the dogs are real!

My first book, Blood on the Cowley Road, had as its central focus a mental health day centre, and again this derived from my own personal interest. Looking back at the three novels now available through Robert Hale Ltd – and indeed at the first draft of my fourth Blood book – I realize that I have continued to write about what I know. My characters are ordinary people: dentists and picture framers, lorry drivers and care workers, plumbers and administrators. And by and large they have the same sort of problems and lives that most of us will be able to recognize. Except that lurking there is the ever present possibility that they will suffer or commit murder.

My lead detective, DI Susan Holden, who lives in an unexceptional little Victorian terrace in South Oxford, has her own problems, of course. Don’t fictional detectives always have problems!? In her case, one of her problems is her mother. Or perhaps it is she who is a problem for her mother? She also has a high irritability rating and she - but I’ve given away enough….

- Peter Tickler

Peter Tickler’s new book Blood on the Marsh is published tomorrow, with his previous titles, Blood on the Cowley Road and Blood in Grandpont, also available.

Blood on the Cowley Road and Blood in Grandpont are also available on ebook from all good ebook retailers.

Fitness Training for Desk Warriors by ‘Military Fitness’ Author Patrick Dale

Patrick Dale, author of Military Fitness, has worked in health and fitness for over twenty years and spent five years as a Royal Marine Commando. Now the owner of a fitness qualifications training company, Patrick splits his time between training prospective personal trainers and gym instructors and writing articles for numerous magazines, including ultra-FIT magazine – one of the UK’s leading fitness publications.

Always practising what he preaches, Bristolian ex-pat Patrick follows his own fitness and nutrition advice and can usually be found training hard in his gym in Pafos, Cyprus.

Here, he shares his military fitness tips for those of us who spend our days working at a desk and explains how ‘If everyone could learn to sit and stand up straight, the world would be a happier and friendlier place.’….

At the risk of sounding alarmist, you are currently doing something that, according to many fitness experts, is very bad for your health. I’m not talking about reading emails or breathing (!) but sitting down. According to the brainiacs who study this sort of thing, spending long periods of time sat down can really do you harm.

Poor posture, often the result of sitting down too much, can have an adverse effect on spine health and increases your chances of suffering bulging intervertebral discs and other forms of back pain such as sciatica. In addition, a rounded back posture, properly called hyperkyphosis, promotes an outward bulging abdomen. Poor posture can also cause headaches, shoulder problems, digestive problems, knee pain, reduce general functionality and is also responsible for the current world-wide financial crisis(!). If everyone could learn to sit and stand up straight, the world would be a happier and friendlier place.

To check your own posture, stand in front of a mirror and look at your hands. Can you see the backs of your hands in the mirror? If you can, your shoulders are probably protracted (pushed forwards) and your upper arms rotated inwards. Next, stand sideways on to the mirror– you may need to ask a friend to check this for you. Is any part of your upper back visible from the side? If it is, your shoulders are definitely protracted. Is your ear over your shoulder or is your head jutting forward? A forward head carry suggests you have tight anterior (front) neck muscles. Now look at your lower back. Do you have a nice, small but noticeable arch or is your lower back flat? It may even be excessively arched. Either way, your spine is not in optimal alignment and back pain is only a heavy shopping bag away.

One of the best ways to sort your posture is to develop postural awareness. You literally need to teach yourself to sit and stand up straight. As posture is habitual, you will need to think about the way you sit and stand almost constantly before it becomes subconscious.

Try this exercise to help you get into good seated posture. Do this at the top of every hour and you’ll be on your way to picture perfect posture. Actually, do it right now. I’m watching you so no slacking!

1. Shuffle forwards on so that only your “sitting bones” are on your chair.
2. Plant your feet flat on the floor so your shins are vertical.
3. Let your arms hang down at your sides.
4. Roll your shoulders forwards and round your upper back – you have my permission to slouch!
5. Lift your chest, arch your lower back slightly and try to sit up as tall as you can without leaning back.
6. Tuck your chin in and raise the crown of your head upwards to elongate your neck – think long neck, heavy chin.
7. Rotate your hands outward and draw your shoulders down and back.
8. Hold this position for 30 to 60 seconds while breathing evenly and deeply.
9. Relax, but not too much. Try to maintain good posture for as long as you can. Eventually you will sag back down into your normal sitting position but with practice, you’ll maintain good posture for longer and longer until it becomes automatic.
10. You can also do this exercise while standing. Don’t worry – while it may look a little odd, chances are nobody is watching you because their posture is so bad they’ll be looking down at the floor anyway!

Posture is not, in my opinion anyway, as fun or sexy as building strength or running sprints but if your posture is out, you are not going to get as much from these far more enjoyable training methods as you otherwise might. Think of posture, like good nutrition, as the base of your health and fitness pyramid. Only once you have built a solid foundation will you be able to reach the highest peaks.

Military Fitness by Patrick Dale is available to buy now

‘Making Money Online’ Authors Share Their Tips for New Bloggers

Antonia Chitty and Erica Douglas have teamed up to write Making Money Online, a guide which takes you step by step through the process of building an online profile, finding fans, creating products and making sales. From the basics of getting started, through deciding what to specialize in, to finding and keeping followers, you will find inspiring case studies and useful resources in every chapter.

Antonia Chitty is an award winning entrepreneur and author. She started blogging at www.familyfriendlyworking.co.uk in 2007 which lead to a successful business. Erica Douglas is one of the UK’s leading parenting bloggers. She writes on life and parenting at www.littlemummy.com. Over the last few years Erica has made the journey from mum blogger to business owner. She founded the Mum Blogger eCourse which has helped over 1,000 mums start or improve their blogs. Erica and Antonia provide flexible and affordable training through ACEInspire and help mums start earning through Become a Mumpreneur. Antonia has three small children and lives with her husband, David, on the Sussex coast. Erica is a mum to one and lives with husband Alex near Edinburgh.

Here are Antonia and Erica’s tips for new bloggers on how to get started…

New to Making Money Online?

If you want to make money online and need a website, a blog is a great place to start. Here is a simple guide to getting started with blogging:

1. What first? If you don’t have a blog, visit WordPress.com for an easy and free way to get started. If you have a website already for your business and want maximum benefits for search engine optimisation and traffic to your main site, ask your site manager to go to WordPress.org to download and integrate a blog to your main site.
2. Next Steps. Next, spend a couple of hours getting ideas for your blog. Pull together any articles you have written in the past that could be repurposed. Write a list of frequently asked questions that you could answer on your blog too. Perhaps gather together a list of products to write about what might interest your target audience. Have this sort of blogging brainstorm every month or two so you always have a list of ideas to write about.
3. How to do it. Blog 2-3 times a week. Keep posts relatively short. 200 words is about optimum, but it is fine to write 100 word updates too. If your posts go over 400 words, split them into two. Use simple jargon-free language so as many people as possible will understand what you are writing about.
4. Make it easy. Add in widgets so that your articles are tweeted automatically, use the Networked Blogs app to link your blog to Facebook, or join everything up using Twitterfeed. This means that your followers know when you have added a new article to your blog, every time.
5. Spread the word. Get involved with bloggers writing on similar and complementary topics. Comment on their blogs, join carnivals and create response posts to big issues addressed by other bloggers.
6. Stick at it. A blog needs persistence. Book time in your diary every week to add a few articles, using inspiration from your list of ideas, or find a ghostblogger to create content for you. Within a few months you should start to see more visitors to your site and clients for your business.

Antonia Chitty and Erica Douglas are authors of Making Money Online.

The book is set for publication on 28 September 2012 with a limited time only discount of 30%.

Top Five Writing Tips from Christopher William Hill, Author of ‘Playwriting’

Christopher William Hill is an award-winning playwright and radio dramatist. He was writer-in-residence at Plymouth Theatre Royal and tutors regularly for the Arvon Foundation. His latest book, Playwriting: From Page to Stage, is published at the end of August.

Here, Christopher shares his top five tips for any budding playwrights…

1. If you sit around twiddling your thumbs hoping for divine inspiration to strike you may well be waiting for the rest of your life without once putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard). As a wise man once said – if you can’t get it right, get it written.

2. Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can start today. Even half an hour’s solid writing can produce immediate results. If you write just 200 words of your play in thirty minutes, that’s 2,000 words in ten days, or 20,000 words in a hundred days (roughly equivalent to a full length play). See how quickly it all adds up?

3. If you find it brain-crushingly scary to start with Act One, Scene One – find another way. Start in the middle of the play if you want, or even at the end. So long as you end up with a complete play it doesn’t matter how you go about constructing it.

4. Without conflict there is no drama, so make the lives of your characters as difficult as you can – thwart their aims and ambitions at every turn. There’s no reason why your play can’t have a happy ending – but it should be a hell of a ride getting there!

5. Don’t let anybody bully you into thinking there’s a right way or a wrong way to write your play – you have to find the way that’s best for you.

Playwriting: From Page to Stage will be published on 31 August 2012. It is available to pre-order now with a limited time only discount of 30%.

‘Understanding Austen’ Author Maggie Lane on the Words of Jane Austen

Maggie Lane is the author of Jane Austen’s Family, Jane Austen’s England and Literary Daughters, among other books. She has also published articles in The Annual Report of the Jane Austen Society and Persuasions and the journal of The Jane Austen Society of North America. She has lectured on Jane Austen in the UK, the US, Canada and Australia. Having served for many years on the committee of The Jane Austen Society UK, she is now Chair of its South West branch; she lives in Exeter.

Maggie Lane is an enormous Jane Austen fan, citing Persuasion as her favourite of Austen’s novels. Here she tells us just what makes Austen such an incredible author and why ‘it all starts with words’.

Once discovered, the novels of Jane Austen tend to be a ‘fix’ for life. Like many people, I’ve certainly enjoyed a lifelong love affair with everything Austen: her life, times, family, letters – and above all, of course, her novels. I don’t know how many times I’ve re-read them, always finding something new in their pages to admire or to laugh at. Austen’s humour, her dry way of looking at the world, and her piercing intelligence about people are what draw me and many like me to her novels time and again.

But however much we delight in her characters, both the comic ones and those she invests with all her own capacity for rational thought and tender feeling, in the end our delight comes back to words on the page. Much of the charm of reading Jane Austen must derive from her beautifully measured sentences and her ironic turn of phrase. Unlike most eighteenth and nineteenth century novelists, she never wastes a word. Never wearies us with long description, drawn-out dialogue, or padding of any kind. Her prose seems as sparkling and fresh on an umpteenth rereading as it does on a first but with the added joy of familiarity - the same kind of joy that we get from much-loved poetry.

In my latest book, Understanding Jane Austen, I wanted to analyse the magic of these words on the page – and specifically her heavy reliance on a clutch of abstract nouns – such as propriety, gentility, exertion and fortitude – words that can hold a plethora of meaning. Austen uses them repeatedly in each one of her novels, nuancing them differently according to context. These are words that may seem bland – but which carry an immense moral weight. They are at once precise and elusive.

Some words have subtly shifted in meaning since Austen set them down, and perhaps need elucidating for the modern reader; others, like ‘air’ and ‘address’ are easy to skim over but are worth thinking more deeply about as we, just like the heroines, encounter new characters. Investigating these key concepts has confirmed my belief that the novels of Jane Austen are inexhaustible in their layers of interest, but that it all starts with words.

- Maggie Lane

Understanding Jane Austen is available to pre-order now

Black Horse Western Series: The Appeal of the Wild West

The Black Horse Western series has provided Robert Hale Ltd readers with drama, action and suspense over the years. Here, some of Robert Hale’s Black Horse Western authors tell us why they love writing westerns and what it is that they love about the genre.

Paul Green

I have always enjoyed reading westerns and watching western films because the genre covers such a broad range of themes. It is possible to write about revenge, betrayal, love, greed, redemption and a host of other issues. The historical background provides a lot of rich material for writers as the West was going through a time of rapid change in the late nineteenth century. The violent and often lawless nature of the society can be drawn on to produce stories that contain conflict, action and suspense.

‘Writing westerns enables me to escape into a completely different world’ – Paul Green

Writing westerns enables me to escape into a completely different world which is as much about the mythical west of the imagination as the real one inhabited by actual people. I enjoy creating stories in which characters must win gunfights, face bandits and cross vast deserts on horseback while safe in the knowledge that I will never have to do any of these things myself. Westerns provide all the drama I could wish for without having to leave home.

The Gun Runners by Paul Green is available to pre-order now

Steve Hayes

I’ve always loved westerns. As a boy growing up in London during the Blitz, my favorite game was playing Cowboys and Indians on the rubble of bombed-out buildings. My favorite movie stars included many western heroes, such as John Wayne, Joel McCrae, Audie Murphy and Randolph Scott; and two of my favorite films were Red River and Stagecoach.

‘As a boy growing up in London during the Blitz, my favorite game was playing Cowboys and Indians on the rubble of bombed-out buildings’ – Steve Hayes

When I came to the States in 1949 as an actor, Westerns were in and through my close friendship with Errol Flynn I became friends with many famous western writers like Borden Chase, Louis L’Amour and William Bowers. At their urging, I decided to start writing westerns myself. My first story became a movie called Escort West. After that I turned to TV and began writing shows like How the West Was Won, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Maverick, The Westerner, etc. I found I could express my ideas of justice, fair play and gentile treatment of women in westerns more than any other medium. Westerns also fit my terse style of writing.

Today, even though I write other genres as well, my true love is still westerns.

Drifter by Steve Hayes is available to pre-order now

Terrell Bowers

Westerns are in my blood. From the first movies I ever saw to Saturday Westerns on television, I remember heroes like Hopalong Cassidy, Sunset Carson, Johnny Mack Brown and Bob Steel. Through the years I graduated to the more modern screen heroes like John Wayne, Gary Cooper, James Stewart and Clint Eastwood. I played cowboys from the time I could walk until my early teens, had my own horse and gun from the time I was eight. Grasshoppers, mice and wasps could not escape my BB gun and I began shooting for real at twelve.

One of the things I try to do as an author is stick to history. That means the guns, means of transport, and often some actual history is included in a number of my stories. I don’t read a lot of fiction, but I do read a lot of history and personal stories of triumph or sacrifice during the 1850-1880 years. My own great grandmother, Mary Goble Pay, was part of a handcart company that came from England to Utah in 1846. During their journey, they were too late in making the trip and suffered from the cold and snowstorms and hunger. At thirteen, she lost her mother, a baby brother and another brother during that bitter ordeal. All of her toes were frozen and had to be amputated. Reading her journal still brings tears to my eyes, but she endured to have a bunch of kids and teach Indians to speak English.

‘After a couple hundred books, I grew tired with some of the characters and plots. I wanted more humor and more he and she action so I started to write my own’ – Terrell Bowers

When I was out of high school, my dad got me interested in reading Westerns. After a couple hundred books, I grew tired with some of the characters and plots. I wanted more humor and more he and she action so I started to write my own. It took me 15 years of rejections slips and a dozen failed titles until I finally got published in 1979. A few years later I discovered Hale Books and landed a few titles with them. I still enjoy writing about the Western era, an innocent time when one man could make a difference.

Invite to a Showdown by Terrell Bowers is available to pre-order now

Chuck Tyrell

The news that western novels are dead or dying comes along every decade or so - news that is greatly exaggerated.

Many western novelists say they grew up on a diet of Gunsmoke and Wanted Dead or Alive with a smattering of Bonanza. I grew up where much of the West happened. My granddad earned enough money making charcoal for the silver mines in Nevada to buy four sections of range in Arizona, some land along Show Low Creek, and to add more, he homesteaded 160 acres in a place called Fool’s Hollow where the country club is now located. We always had horses and cows and pigs and chickens. We raised our own truck. We raised corn for us and for our animals. We branded and castrated and earmarked and swabbed it all with pine tar oil to keep the blowflies away. In other words, I lived my boyhood in circumstances not far removed from those I write about.

‘I lived my boyhood in circumstances not far removed from those I write about’ – Chuck Tyrell

When settlers moved into a new territory and set up a new town, chances are the first public building was a church, the second a school. They were there to build a life. They had strong ideas of right and wrong. They worked from dawn ‘til dark just to get along. And sometimes they couldn’t make it. But most of the time they could.

My western stories are often not quite as bloody as some. Most of them are about people I could have called neighbor in my boyhood years. Most of them could have worked side by side with my granddad. I respect these people. I believe their will to build a life would serve us well today. And I hope my stories may influence some reader to try a little harder and to realize that one person really can make a difference.

Road to Rimrock by Chuck Tyrell is available to pre-order now