It was with great delight that I launched the first two novels - For Freedom’s Cause and Battle for the North - in my Kimberley Trilogy of Australian historical adventure stories, at the Portico Library in my hometown of Manchester in the UK.
Whilst a committed resident of Richmond in marvellous
Melbourne, and Australian by choice, I was pleased to be able to introduce my
family and friends to Dan Bevan, the Manchester coal miner-cum-First War
Officer who is the hero of my novels, especially as there were several real-life Bevans in the audience. I was amused to reveal that the mine in the novel
(Bradford Pit) near where I was born and raised is now the site of Manchester
City’s football ground!
The setting was wonderfully appropriate and inspiring as
the Library opened in 1806 encompassing a reading room and newsroom for
gentlemen of a Liberal political persuasion. There is much evidence that long standing Chairman Reverend Gaskell, husband of Elizabeth Gaskell, renowned author of North
and South and Cranford, borrowed books for his wife and Sir Robert Peel, reforming Prime Minister and
founder of the Police Force (hence ‘Peelers’) was a member.
John Birkett, a friend from Cambridge University days,
introduced me in his usually warm and witty style and invited the audience to
question me about my books and motivation for writing. The questions were
shrewd and some of my responses were a revelation even to me.
Then a mischievous Australian visitor asked the thorny
one-“After 40 years in Australia do you feel more Australian or more English?”
My answer ignited the fire of Anglo-Australian sporting rivalries and
affiliations amongst the gathering to everyone’s amusement.
I am returning to Melbourne in early July and plan to
launch the second of my historical adventure novels-Battle for the North-which
has not yet been released in Australia- in Melbourne later in July and after in
Perth, Broome and Darwin.
