Aurthora's Head from Barlow Hill Wincle Cheshire.

Welcome to my website.

View of Aurthora's Head from Barlow Hill Wincle Cheshire.

Upon retiring, I found time to fulfil an ambition which was to write four novels, these stories had been at the back of my mind for several years, but prior to my retirement, I was always too busy running my business to spend the time or concentrate on these stories.

After several years of research and motivated by this landscape which was visible from my home, and the writings of The Venerable Bede a Benedictine Saxon Monk who recorded the history of Brittanica after the Romans. I wrote my first historic action-adventure novel, Aurthora: Celtic Warrior. The battles of a Celtic Warrior. This novel takes place in Elmet, the last Celtic kingdom to be overrun by the Saxons in 616 AD. The Kingdom of Elmet covered what is now the Peak National Park, My story is situated around what is now the town of Buxton and the villages of Wincle and Swythamley and is based on the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

Many thanks to my Great Nephew Tom Novacki for putting together my web page and also to my Great Nephew Oliver-Frost Danson for his narration on this video.

                                                                                                           

By now I was hooked and went on to write two other adventure stories and I have now just finished my fourth.

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In 2014 at our local village garden fete' at Wincle on the edge of the Peak National Park, in a corner of a large marque was a small table set aside for a selection of artifacts loaned by local families. These had been brought back by young local men who had been fortunate to return from that terrible episode in world history. WW1. There were several pay books, a mess tin, and mug, all army issue which was badly dented, several regimental cap badges, a pair of army issue 1st WW puttees, several letters, and a diary that finished abruptly. Not a lot to show for the carnage that took a total of fifteen million lives, and left twenty million injured!!!

In their memory, I went home and wrote this poem, which was then narrated and put to music and turned into a video by my nephew, singer-songwriter, Oliver Frost Danson which I would now like to share with you.

This poem is dedicated to the men of the Cheshire Regiment [The Old Contemptables.] And all the young men from that generation on both sides who did not survive that terrible conflict of the 1stWorld War, and who never had the opportunity to reach their potential or fulfill their dreams.

REMEMBRANCE POEM. A Lost Generation.

We left with cheers my mates and I from around our neighbourhood.

It would be all over for Christmas, we were led to understand.

We were all jovial, laughing and cheerful, waving to the crowd as we kept in step behind the big brass band.

But that was not to be in that ground of twisted rusting wire.

The smoke and shells and screams of broken men, lying in that knee-deep mire.

Their scattered limbs and crimson blood,

Lost forever below that thick brown mud.

The rain, the rats the sodden clothes, the forlorn look, the grey ashen face,

In their short young lives what had they ever done so wrong, to deserve this godforsaken place?

There was a crash, a blinding flash, my end was swift. And as I began to rise.

I left below me those shattered men and all their hopeless cries. Gas-ss! Gas-ss! Gas-ss!

A telegram was duly sent, which my parents did receive, the message was quite brief, it simply read,

We are sorry to inform you but we believe your three sons are missing, believed dead.

Those few lines brought a mother so much pain and filled her eyes with tears.

The passing of time did not heal those scars; it was still the same after many, many, years.

I meet many souls from many lands as I pass above these now green fields that once were so barren and so bare.

Below I see a multitude of poppies, one for every soul that left his broken body there.

They too are looking for their friends, there’s Pierre and Fritz, Chuck and Guy.

They to ask the same as I. Why! Oh Why! Oh Why!

They rallied to the call and the raising of their flag.

So many young boys who had never known a lover’s kiss.

For them, it was not supposed to end like this!!

And on that hell on earth the place they called the Somme.

I am still searching for my uncle Stan, my cousin Jack, and my two brothers Bob and Tom.