A Couple Of Bits About Books

ROBERT HALE AUTHORS SITE: This site is devoted to writers published by Robert Hale Ltd.
By joining the site you will receive an invitation to join. This means that you can post details of new books and their covers. It's a site that is publicity driven. At the moment there are only two Black Horse Western writers there. (link in panel)


THE TOP TEN SECOND HAND BOOKS: This comes via the Daily Telegraph of the 5th January 2009.
This was supplied by Richard Booth's Bookshop of Hay-on-Wye, Herefordshire (or mid-Wales - depends on which side of the border you are.
Hay-on-Wye is the second hand bookshop and is the largest in Europe.
1. Kilvert's Diary by Francis Kilvert
2.On The Black Hill by Bruce Chetwin
3.Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen
4.Self Sufficiency by John Seymour
5.Origin Of The Species by Charles Darwin
6.The Famous Five Stories by Enid Blyton
7. The Mabinogion (I would have expected this book to be higher - it's Welsh, you see.)
8.To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
9.Food For Free by Richard Mabey
10. On The Road by Jack Kerouac (should be higher - biased as it's a personal favourite)

Forgotten Books: The Big Pick-Up by Elleston Trevor

Elleston Trevor was born in Bromley, Kent in 1920 and died in Arizona in 1995.

During the second world war he joined the R.A.F as an engineer working on Spitfires. When he had a break he took to writing and saw his first novel published in 1943. He wrote several crime and detective novels under the name of Trevor Dudley-Smith.

His first best seller did not come until 1955 when Wm Heinemann published 'THE BIG PICK-UP'.

The Big Pick-Up is a realistic novel of the British retreat to Dunkirk and the epic evacuation told through the eyes of a handful of ordinary British Servicemen.

Hungry, weary and dazed Corporal 'Tubby' Binns and his men are cut off from their unit and left without transport and food.

At the start of the book they are prone and about to be dived bombed by Stukas and Binns' fear of death seeps through the words.

For the next few days they foot slog across a devastated landscape with no idea about where they should go or what to do.

In a telling scene they stop off at a deserted farmhouse and as night comes down they see a distant orange glow. For a moment they pity the poor people caught up in the air raid - they have no idea that glow comes from their destination - Dunkirk.

As they head north-east they pick up more stragglers some of whom die, while others leave or continue to live.

There are moments of humour - some grim, sometimes touching and there are times when it all comes naturally but none of it comes with that 'British stiff upper lip'.

The small group arrive on the beaches of Dunkirk during the lull in the bombing and they are elated, at first, but then they see just how many men there are on the beach. The long, straggling lines of men up to their necks in the sea waiting to be lifted off by the armada of little ships.

Then the bombers arrive - and all hell breaks loose.

To me The Big Pick-Up is the definative novel about the retreat to Dunkirk and would recommend it to anyone.

In 1958 (I think) there was a movie called 'Dunkirk' that starred John Mills, Bernard Lee and Richard Attenborough. It was made up with material from two books of which 'The Big Pick-Up' was one with John Mills taking on the role of Corporal Binns. The material taken from the book was faithfully reproduced in the film.

Trivia: Elleston Trevor also wrote as Simon Rattray and as the 'Quiller' creator Adam Hall.

Elleston Trevor also wrote a novel about the Battle Of Britain called 'Squadron Airborne'

The Battle Of Britain -1940

When I was growing up my father, like many others, rarely talked about the war. They talked about the fun times but the really serious stuff was never discussed.

I remember standing on Waterloo Bridge with my mother when she mentioned out of the blue that she remembered looking down the river and seeing the docks ablaze and that the glow, from the fires, in the sky could be seen from miles away.

My dad would recount the night that he came home during the blitz. He was on leave and had arrived at Waterloo Station only to find that there was no transport to take him up to North Finchley. So, in the middle of an air raid he decided to walk all the way. He was almost home when a land mine fell of the Finchley football ground. Fortunately - for me anyway - it didn't go off but he ran the rest of the way home. When he got there my mum and her parents (my grandparents) were in the Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden. He knocked on the door but my grandmother wouldn't open the door as she was convinced that he was a German parachutist. Eventually, calm was restored and my granddad let him in.

So, despite the physical evidence of bombed out buildings and the constant use of ration cards, the war was something that was not discussed.

However, while lots of dad's 'kept mum' about the war there were others who were prepared to write about their experiences. So from an early age I knew that wars were fought by ordinary men and women - even some of the officers had come from civvy street.

Apart from the escape books I always seemed to be drawn to 1940 and the Battle Of Britain - or should I say the Battle For Britain.

The phony war came to an end abruptly - Germany invaded Norway on the 9th April 1940 and within a couple of months had added this country to the list of conquests.

Though on the 8th of April, 1940 in the middle of a squall a small destroyer took on the German heavy cruiser Admiral Von Hipper. Out-gunned the Glowworm laid down a smokescreen and mounted a torpedo assault on the German cruiser that did not inflict any damage. Battered and damged and with only one gun left, the Captain of the Glowworm, Lieutenant-Commander Gerard Roope issued the order 'Stand by to ram'. Crippled and sinking she tore away over a hundred feet of armored plate and damaged the Von Hipper's torpedo tubes. Of the 149 crew aboard the Glowworm only 31 men were saved. Despite the damage to his ship the Captain of the Von Hipper stayed for over an hour to pick up the survivors. Later that Captain, Helmuth Heye, wrote via the International Red Cross recommending Roope for the Victoria Cross. The only time in British history that a V.C. has been recommended by the enemy.

Within a few weeks of the invasion of Norway the Germans moved into Holland, Belgium and France. They moved fast - Blitzkreig. It had worked in Poland and the thrusts were doing the same through the French and Belgian countryside. The British and French troops who had expected to fight the Germans the same as they had fought in the First World War were taken by surprise and chaos ensued. There was only one way to go and that was back towards the sea.

For an unknown reason the German forces ground to a halt which allowed time for the British troops to make it back to Dunkirk - and the armada of small ships that would pick up a third of a million men from the bombed out beaches.

It was another nine weeks before Eagle Day (or in German - Adlertag) came into being. This was supposed to be that day in August when the British air force was wiped from the skies so that Operation Sealion - the invasion of Britain could begin.

Unfortunately, the Luftwaffe had miscalculated - badly. Britain had a leader in Winston Churchill and an Air Marshall in Lord Dowding who were damned sure that Britain, though alone, would not succumb.

The Battle Of Britain produced the heroes like the legless Douglas Bader, Sailor Malan, John E. (Johnnie) Johnson and 'Ginger' Lacey who shot down the plane that was about to bomb Buckingham Palace and Al Deere. Deere was the Australian that just couldn't be killed - he was shot down and had his plane bombed out from beneath him but he emerged each time unscathed.

Unlike Richard Hillary and Geoffrey Page who were burned in their cockpits and had to undergo plastic surgery. Hillary climbed back into the cockpit and was, later, killed.

At first, the air force threw everything they had at the Germans. The slow Gladiators and Fairey Battles and the nightfighters like the Defiant lining up with the Spitfires and Hurricanes. Despite the odds they made a difference - these pilots discovered the weakness of the Stuka and that it was vulnerable when it pulled out of a dive.

In the background to all this and soon to be used were the Czech, Canadian, Polish and American 'Eagle' Squadrons and when they were unleashed it made a difference.

Georing then made the mistake of keeping his fighters back to act as an umbrella for the bombers. This did not go down well with one Gruppe leader, Adolph Galand. To try and appease his Gruppe leaders Goering said that he would do all that he could all they had to do was ask. Galland came back with the famous response: 'Then give me a squadron of Spitfires'.

By September the 15th 1940 - the barges in Boulogne had gone and the troops dispersed. Operation Sealion was not going to happen. The Battle Of Britain was over and the German bombers switched from daylight raids to night raids - The Blitz had begun.

The one thing that I learned from all the reading of this period is that wars are fought by ordinary people. Doesn't matter about what nationality they are - but they are a part of history.

That is something that can't be brushed under the carpet as though it never happened.

Two good books by Richard Collier: Sands Of Dunkirk

Eagle Day

These read like novels with a blend of historical fact and eyewitness accounts.

Also: Larry Forrester: Battle Of The April Storm - a fiction/fact book about HMS Glowworm

Friday's Forgotten Books: Von Ryan's Express by David Westheimer

Von Ryan's Express was first published in 1964.

David Westheimer was born in Houston, Texas in 1917 and died 2005 in Los Angeles, California. During the second world war he served as a Captain in the USAAF as a navigator in bombers. He was shot down and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of war.

Von Ryan's Express follows Colonel Joseph Ryan after he is shot down in Italy during 1943 and sent to Prisoner Of War Camp 202 known to the P.O.Ws as P.G. Doochentydooey.

He is greeted by Lieutenant-Colonel Eric Fincham of the British Army and, immediately, there is a clash of personalities.

The camp is run-down and morale is low. Although one tunnel had been dug before discovery and another under construction there had been no escape attempts had been made. As far as Fincham is concerned the men have been active with a campaign of mischief and mayhem designed to make life difficult for the Italians. The result of all this is that the camp Commandant has withheld Red Cross parcels and much needed clean uniforms.

Against this background Ryan, now the Camp's senior officer, begins to change things around. He is a very strict by the book and by the numbers officer that contrasts against the more casual style of his British number two. It is this clash which is, at times humourous while at others intense, that dominates the first third of the book.

As he whips the prisoners into shape his methods earn him the nickname Von Ryan. He still gets the job done. Despite opposition by the camp commandant Colonel Battaglia Ryan finds ways to get around the Italian's obstinancy to get the food parcels and the prisoners new uniforms issued.

When the Italians surrender the guards leave their posts and the time seems ripe for the P.O.Ws to just walk out of the camp and make for their own lines. However, Ryan urges caution as there is no knowing how far the Allied lines were or whether there had been another landing further north. He doesn't like the idea of hundreds of men wandering around the countryside and getting shot by the Germans.

When they wake the next morning the Germans are already in charge of the camp with plans to shift the prisoners to Germany by train.

Once aboard the train the action starts as the prisoners overpower the German guards and take charge of the train. Both Ryan and Fincham put aside their differences and work together in what is a rivetting second half of the book.

Von Ryan's Express is a great escape book with many interesting and well-drawn characters.

David Westheimer wrote a sequel in 1980 called 'Von Ryan's Return' - which in no way is a spoiler for the first book as the outcome of that book is one where you have to wait until the last page.

Wild West Monday - Monday March 2nd 2009

Gary Dobbs in his blog on The Tainted Archive has set the date for the next Wild West Monday.
It is better to read his blog for more information.
For one, I will be out there again because I believe that it is time that bookstores stopped dictating what we read. To me a bookstore is a place that sells books - and that it should cater for all tastes - that is the purpose of a bookshop.

In my interview with Michael D. George he mentioned that books shops no longer catered to the masculine genres.
I still agree with that comment.
So I'm going to change genres for a moment.
Where are the war novels?
Sure, you can buy war books in the non-fiction section but where are the war novels? There was a time when Robert Hale Ltd published war fiction but that market dwindled away to nothing when book shops stopped selling them.
The horror writer Shaun Hutson cut his teeth with war fiction; as Samuel P. Bishop he wrote the three 'Track' western novels again in a climate when the western was fading from the shelves.
So if you don't want the same fate for the western then, please, do something about it.
Nothing happens, in this world, unless you allow it to happen.

Thoughts On Comic Books

Each Christmas I buy my children a 'special' present - one that is just from me to them. For the first time I was a bit stumped for something to give to my youngest son - that was until I read an article on 'The Essential Silver Surfer' on THE TAINTED ARCHIVE blog (see panel for link). Said son was overjoyed with that choice.

As I browsed along the shelves of 'A Place In Space' one of our two local comic stores I had to smile at other books in the 'Essential' collections. There was the first volume of 'The Punisher' in his original costume - which was pleasing as it won an arguement with my eldest son.

Usually, when I go into these shops it is in search of something specific and I, rarely, browse. However, on this occasion I stopped for next to The Silver Surfer was 'The Essential She-Hulk'.

As I flipped through the pages it was like going back in time.

In the fifties parents were warned about a new 'thing' coming in from America - it was called 'horror comics'. Parents were warned by 'concerned' groups that these would be damaging to their children. So, we seven and eight year olds began to read these 'Amazing Stories' and 'Weird Tales' that had no effect on us whatsoever - except stimulate our active imaginations.

With these comics came the likes of 'Superman', 'Superboy', 'Supergirl' and 'Superwoman' that were followed by 'Marvelman' and 'Marvelwoman' etc. And, of course 'Batman'. For every man there seemed to be a woman like 'Spiderwoman' and 'The She-Hulk'.

When we moved to Orpington there was a shop at the end of the High Street where comics could be exchanged. I don't know how the proprietor made any money as kids would go in with a bucketful of comics and come out the same way. I never saw any money change hands.

The proprietor was a cadaverous old man with a mane of long white hair. The shop was long, narrow and dark and lit by single, low watt bulb. All the shelves were piled high with comics from the weird to the wonderful and just looked like the setting for some horror movies.

In the early sixties the shop just closed. Many of us just assumed that the old man had died. We turned up as usual to find the shop being cleared out - the workmen were just dumping the comics into cardboard boxes and leaving them out the back. By the next morning they had all disappeared - well, we had all climbed over the fence and helped ourselves.

A couple of years back I wandered back down the High Street and was surprised to discover that it was a comic shop again. I mentioned this to the new owner who was intrigued to hear about the building's past.

As the shop has changed - so, too, have comics. I do wonder how a twelve year old back in the sixties would see something like Frank Miller's 'Sin City'. I guess back then we wouldn't get to see it for it would be on the top shelf.

I was reading James Reasoner's blog (Rough Edges - link on the panel) on the new 'Hulk' movie the other day. The boys and I had seen that movie - but it reminded me that originally the Hulk had been a 'bad' guy until he got his own comic. When he became a 'good' guy I can recall that, in one instance, his adversary was Ben 'Thing' Grimm before he became part of the Fantastic Four.

It could be quite confusing at times characters that were 'bad' guys in one superhero comic would turn 'good' in their own - like Submariner or The Silver Surfer.

While I was in the store they were doing a survey and one of the questions that they asked me was whether I preferred Marvel or DC. I looked at the chap and said that they were just labels for a publisher and that when I was a kid it was the characters that we liked - and when it comes down to it who really cares who the publisher is? It's like asking me whether I wear Nike or Reebok - I wear trainers but I prefer the ones that fit me and I feel comfortable in. I have never bothered about the label on anything. He might as well have asked whether I preferred 'Superman' or 'Marvelman' - neither would be the answer for I read and enjoyed both characters.

I did get an unexpected Christmas present from my youngest son - he must have been thinking along the same lines as myself. He got me the graphic novel of 'Bat Lash: Guns 'n' Roses'. Well, as he's a fan of the group Guns 'n' Roses.....

Julie London

Julie London was born in Santa Rosa, California on the 26th September 1926 and died in October 2000, after a stroke in 1995, in California.

Her parents were vaudeville artists.

Julie London had been a bit part player in movies during the forties when she became one of the pin up girls for the American G.Is during the second world war.

In the fifties she was 'discovered' by Alan Ladd's wife Sue Carol who was an agent who revitalised Julie London's career.

As an actress she appeared in several movies and, probably, her best role was in the Gary Cooper movie 'Man Of The West' (1958), directed by Anthony Mann, where Julie played the only female role.
She guest starred in several TV series like 'Rawhide', 'Laramie' and 'The Big Valley' as well as classics like 'I Spy' and 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.'. Between 1972 and 1979 Julie London was better known as Dixie McCall RN in the series 'Emergency' in which she starred with her second husband Bobby Troup.
Her first husband was 'Dragnet' star Jack Webb.

Julie London, though, is not remembered just as an actress but for her cool, smoky and sensual singing voice with a range that covered blues and jazz.
'Cry Me A River' is her best known and only million selling disc - not only did she sing it in the 1956 movie 'The Girl Can't Help It' but has turned up in the soundtrack of other movies - the latest being 2006's 'V For Vendetta'.

My own interest in Julie London, the singer, stems from a 1957 Alan Ladd film 'Boy On A Dolphin'. It was a track that had been requested on the BBC Radio show 'Family Favourites'. I was thirteen at the time but Julie London made an impression on me. Believe it or not I did not hear 'Cry Me A River' until the following year during a music class at school.

During her career Julie London has recorded over 30 albums that have included songs that she has composed herself as well as classic tracks. Tracks like Sinatra's 'Fly Me To The Moon', Nat 'King' Cole's ' When I Fall In Love' and Marylin Monroe's 'Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend' - and each one Julie London has made her own.

She reckoned that she couldn't sing - a 'thimbleful' she called it - and had to get up close to the microphone to make herself heard. When compared to Monroe, Julie London denied being a 'sex symbol' and just described herself as an ordinary housewife who's family came first before her showbiz career.

Maybe, but Julie London has left a legacy of songs that always remind me of black and white movies and smoky dance halls - and a talent that is missed.