Tag Archives: Tracy Baines

Living with Alzheimers – The Day Bob Got Lost by Chris Suich

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Living with Alzheimers the day bob got lost

It was a glorious Autumn day. The leaves were just turning into swathes of gold and red and the sky was the brightest clearest blue. Not a cloud in the sky, great for walking and a ‘feeling good to be alive day’. Bob at this time enjoyed walking in the countryside. Indeed he had even joined the ‘Ramblers’ and joined in with a group to explore the local countryside without me, when I was at work.On this particular day I had a hair appointment which was near to  a local beauty spot, Hubbard’s Hills.
‘I’ll come with you’ he exclaimed, ‘I can walk around Hubbard’s Hills whilst you have your hair done.’
‘Well take your little Nokia so I can let you know when I’m done,’ I replied. (Thank God I’d thought of that phone!)
We drove together to the hairdressers and Bob went off in one direction and I rushed off to the hairdressers.
We arranged to meet up at the car, or ring each other whoever was finished first. It was me who rang Bob to find out where he was. I’d been waiting in the car for about half an hour  – that was just over two hours since I had left him.

‘Where are you?’ I asked him slightly irritated.
‘I’m on my way back’ he said.
‘Ok, I’m in the car waiting for you. ‘
Another 30 mins passed and I thought I’ll go and look for him coming along the road near to Hubbard’s Hills. I’ll spot him I thought, as the road is straight and I’ll easily see him coming.
No sign.
I rang him again, slightly anxious. ‘Where are you?’
‘I don’t know.’
I asked him what he meant, and if he could see any buildings, or if he could see the church spire from where he was.
‘No’ he said, ‘I can’t see anything just miles of fields.’
I knew I had to stay calm because Bob was in a panic. I told him to see if he could see anyone to ask. He explained that there was a man in a tractor in the field that he could see. He was beginning to walk through the field to get to him.After a few minutes the farmer was put on the phone to me. He told me the name of the hamlet which I didn’t really know and told me that Bob had got himself lost. He pointed him back on the road to home and I said I would drive to get him.
In hindsight I should have said keep him there and I will come to you, because Bob carried on walking and when I got to the hamlet he was nowhere in sight.
It was 6 hours later and I had driven around searching for Bob on every little road leading back to our town I could think of. I decided to go home and ring the police as it was getting dark. Panic was starting to envelop every part of me.
I had just picked up the phone when a 4×4 roared into the drive. Bob had been picked up by an immensely kind man and brought home. He was cold and muddy and very sorry for himself but none the worse for his adventure. He was able to recite his address and let the man know where he lived. (Even now his address and date of birth are imprinted on his mind).
I knew he was upset so I didn’t get cross to add to his trauma but simply said ‘ It’s alright Bob you’re home now and I’ve got some lovely warm soup and a nice warm fire.’
To the kind stranger I simply said. ‘Thank you so much, I’ve been out of my mind.’ I pressed a bottle of our best red wine into his hands and told him to have a drink on us.
It was after this incident that I found out about The Herbert Protocol, a scheme where you can fill in a form and give it to the local police with a picture in case a loved one like Bob ever goes missing again. It can save vital time in this sort of emergency.

Later I asked Bob how he had managed to get lost and he said matter of factly, ‘I forgot to turn round and head back.’

He was walking further and further away without knowing!
And that’s when I realised he wasn’t safe to go off walking in the countryside on his own.

 

My Writing Process – Ruthie Lewis

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Ruthie Lewis is the latest author in the series How I Write, which gives readers, and other writers, an insight into the minds of writers. Not only how they think, but how they work. However, this is a writing process with a twist because A.J. MacKenzie and Ruthie Lewis are pen names for the husband-and-wife writing team of Marilyn Livingstone and Morgen Witzel. They also write non-fiction under their own names. 

 

We grew up in Canada, where we met at the University of Victoria. We come from quite different backgrounds. Marilyn grew up in towns and city suburbs in Ontario and British Columbia, whilst Morgen’s parents lived in the wilds of northern British Columbia. Same country – two hugely different lifestyles! We married nearly 40 years ago and had a long honeymoon in Europe. Back in Canada, Morgen did his MA in Renaissance history, while Marilyn waited until we had moved to the UK to continue her studies at University of London (MA in medieval studies) and the Queen’s University of Belfast (PhD in medieval economic history).

After moving to the UK we lived for a year in London, thirteen years in rural Kent and for the past nineteen years in very rural west Devon. Marilyn is a keen singer and musician and occasional composer, an A-level examiner and governor of a group of primary and secondary schools, Morgen tries never to miss Test Match Special, teaches at business schools and works as a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund. He is also a trustee of two local charities.

Morgen has written books on management history, leadership and ethics. Marilyn’s solo writing has been academic book chapters, articles and reviews about the agricultural economy of early 14th century England. Our first joint work was The Road to Crécy: the invasion of France in 1346 (2004) followed by The Black Prince and the Capture of a King, Poitiers 1356 (2018). Our A.J. MacKenzie novel was The Body on the Doorstep published by Zaffre in 2015, the first of three historical crime novels set in Romney Marsh during the smuggling era and the French Revolution (the others The Body in the Ice and The Body in the Boat). A J MacKenzie has another series set during the War of 1812 in Canada, published by Canelo (The Ballad of John MacLea, The Hunt for the North Star and forthcoming Invasion). Our first Ruthie Lewis novel, The Orphans of Bell Lane came out in August 2019 and is our first foray into historical sagas.

The Orphans of Bell Lane has a place dear to our hearts as some of the situations and locations are based on family history. It has been wonderful to bring that to life. We also love the Hardcastle and Chaytor mysteries, and hope to return to them soon.

Our writing process

It may be because there are two of us, but so far no two books have developed in quite the same way. This is partly for practical reasons; the person with the most free time will take on necessary jobs. For our first non-fiction work we wrote in the same room, sorting through the original sources with one of us keying in text. Otherwise, sometimes, we each write individual chapters or groups of chapters and then edit each other’s work to create a unified voice. Sometimes one person takes on the first draft and the other does a strong edit to ensure continuity of language, tone, voice and so on. Often one of us will have a very strong idea for a particular chapter and want to write that.

One thing that is important for all of our fiction is the final read through of the final draft. We do this in our sitting room, in facing armchairs, with a draft on our laptops and we read the book out to each other. One of us is responsible for making changes on the master text. The presence of at least one cat is crucial to this process, although we keep the dog out as he is still young and wants to play. (His role as editorial assistant is crucial as he gets us out to walk each day; walking is great for plot development too!)

Planner or Pantser?

We are very much planners. We spend longer on planning, character development, location research, plot development etc than we do on actual drafting. We find this a most enjoyable part of writing and we often do it out of our offices: on Dartmoor, on the beach, lazing in a garden in France, sometimes during long car journeys. Our planning document can take as much as a quarter the length of the eventual novel. We spend a lot of time on the background and back stories of our characters and we have full descriptions of the main character, not just what they look like, but how they move and sound, and how they think. This helps a great deal when writing dialogue.

Structure?

We start with a rough story arc followed by a basic chapter structure. We then develop a more detailed chapter outline guides the initial draft. And, we always have a sequel or series in mind as we write.

What do you find hard about writing?

One of us finds settling to writing more difficult and will procrastinate before starting, the other dives straight in. Mostly, though, the hardest thing is carving out enough time to do it…

What do you love about writing?

One of us particularly loves the character development part of the process, while plotting is the favourite bit of the other (not going to tell you which is which!)

Advice for other writers.

Try to write something every day, no matter how short. It is easy to drift and find that you have not written for days, and that makes it much harder to get back into it. The other piece of advice is that walking is a great aid to planning and plotting, and will often help to clear a log-jam that seemed insurmountable.

The Orphans of Bell Lane by Ruthie Lewis. Published by Zaffre, 22nd August 2019, Paperback, eBook and audio.

 

A Day in the Life – Glenda Young

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Glenda Young by Emily Pentland

My day begins with tea made in the pot and warmed by a tea-cosy. I try to schedule my days in advance into writing and non-writing so that I know, for instance, on a writing day I won’t even look at email or social media or do anything other than crack on with my work in progress.  This may make me sound as if I am incredibly disciplined. But in truth, as anyone who works from home will know, the lure of the hour-long coffee break, daytime TV and the call of the biscuit tin are often difficult to ignore. In order to get any writing done at all, I have to be very focussed. Hold on a moment, would you, while I go and pop the kettle on?

On writing days I aim for 2,000 words and no matter if I’m in the thick of it or not, once I reach those 2,000 words, I force myself to stop. This leaves me itching to get started again the next day, rather than being stuck as to how to start. It might sound odd, but it works for me!

And if it’s a non-writing day, then it’s admin – emails, social media, appointments, arranging talks and events. As a debut novelist, giving talks is very new to me. It’s exciting but more than a little scary as I’m really quite shy and have to force myself out into the world to stand in front of people and talk. Fortunately, all talks so far have gone down well, and (I hope!) people are laughing at my anecdotes rather than laughing at me.

Research is also a key and ongoing part of writing a novel and it’s one I enjoy tremendously (although, yes, just like the hour-long coffee breaks mentioned above, I know it can work as displacement activity from the real task in hand of writing!). My novels are set in the northeast village of Ryhope, where I grew up. It prospered as a coalmining village and there is still a very strong sense of community there. My family still live there and I visit Ryhope often. The Ryhope Heritage Society have been extremely generous with their time and resources in helping me research for my work.

On a Wednesday afternoon all writing of my novels and admin come to a halt. Wednesday afternoons are sacrosanct. This is when I write my weekly soap opera Riverside for The People’s Friend magazine. I’m honoured to be writing the first ever soap opera in the history of the longest running women’s magazine in the world.  I love Wednesday afternoons and writing Riverside. It’s a fun, sunny break bringing life to a community I’ve created.

And whether it’s a writing day or not, one thing I like to do as long as the weather allows, is take a bike ride outside in fresh air. I’m very lucky to live on the coast and we have cycle paths stretching for miles in each direction. As a writer sitting at a desk all day, getting outside to cycle is a real luxury and one I enjoy a lot. It’s also important for me to get out and talk to people and so I try to arrange meet-ups with other local writers. Mondays are my “day off” when I’ll go shopping in town or treat myself to the afternoon at the cinema – phone off, cup of tea in hand, cocooned in the dark and utterly, totally switched off.

 

Belle of the Backstreets by Glenda Young is out now in paperback

Headline £6.99 RRP also available in E-book and audio

Glenda Young credits her local library in the village of Ryhope, where she grew up, for giving her a love of books. She still lives close by in Sunderland and often gets her ideas for her stories on long bike rides along the coast. A life-long fan of Coronation Street, she runs two fan websites for which she sometimes interviews the cast of the show. For updates on what Glenda is working on, visit her website glendayoungbooks.com and to find out more find her on Facebook/GlendaYoungAuthor and Twitter @flaming_nora.

Cosy Christmas Reading – Book Reviews

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A Nightingale Christmas Promise by Donna Douglas

A Nightingale Christmas Promise by Donna Douglas

East London, 1914: Britain is preparing for war. As young men queue up across the country to enlist, the Nightingale Hospital has its own set of new recruits…

Anna has had a happy upbringing in her parent’s bakery in Bethnal Green. But as war descends her family’s German roots will wrench them apart in ways Anna never could have imagined.

Kate dreams of following in her father’s footsteps and becoming a doctor. With female doctors virtually unheard of, it will take courage to face off the prejudice around her.

Sadie joins the Nightingale Hospital for a new life away from her mother’s interference. But the legacy of her family may not be so easy to escape…

As the shadow of war descends, will the promise of Christmas help to bring the students together?

 

I’ve enjoyed previous Nightingale Nurses books set in WW2 so was looking forward to reading A Nightingale Christmas Promise – which is the first one set during the First World War. It didn’t disappoint.

A Nightingale Christmas Promise follows the senior staff as they overcome the trials of their training years. Donna Douglas paints rich scenes in Anna’s family bakery, the training hospital and Sadie’s mother’s dwelling and weaves the threads together as the girls face their trials and tribulations as they go through their training. An absorbing and uplifting read.

A Nightingale Christmas Promise by Donna Douglas published by Arrow pb £6.99

Christmas at Tuppenny Corner by Katie Flynn

Christmas at Tuppenny Corner by Katie Flynn

Katie Flynn’s story follows fifteen year old Rosie O’ Leary as she comes to terms with change and upheaval in her life on the canals. Set in Liverpool in 1939, Rosie makes friend with fellow bargee, Tim Bradley who shows her the sights of Liverpool and it’s not too long before their friendship develops into something more.

But when Tim is called up to join the RAF, Rosie’s dreams of a future together is put on hold and she has to summon her inner strength to cope with changing events on the canals.

The world is full of uncertainty but Katie Flynn’s heroines are tough and resilient and Rosie finds hope that there really could be a miracle this Christmas. A heartwarming story full of richly rounded characters and vivid settings.

An absolutely perfect read for  Katie Flynn fans who will look forward to curling up and reading this on the run up to Christmas.

Christmas at Tuppenny Corner by Katie Flynn published by Arrow pb £6.99

The Original Suffrage Cook Book by Mrs L O Kleber

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The Original Suffrage Cook Book by Mrs L O Kleber

Originally published in 1915 to help raise funds for the campaign for the vote for women, The Original Suffrage Cook Book  is so much more than its title suggests. This new edition includes short biographies of many of the contributors and a new endnote by award-winning writer Cheryl Robson, which places the book both in its historical and contemporary contexts. It is such a fascinating read and the biographies are an inspired addition. One of them is Jack London, author of Call of the Wild. I remember studying the book at school for O level but when I read the short biography I wanted to hunt down a longer version. What a life!

This cookbook was compiled by Mrs Kleber from recipes contributed by leading men and women of the Suffrage movement in the UK and US, including Lady Constance Lytton (aka Jane Warton) who was imprisoned four times for her campaigning, Julia Lathrop the first woman to head a United States federal bureau department, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, author of The Yellow Wallpaper and Herland.

There is a wide range of recipes, many of them very simple, a few tongue in cheek – Pie for a Suffragist’s Doubting Husband for instance –  and all grouped in a simple and organised manner; much as these women would have attempted to change the course of history.

It’s a fabulous historical document of its time but also an interesting cook book to boot, interspersed as it is with line drawings and including letters to the editor – or Editress as she is described  in the contents section of the book.

Recipes aside this is a great gift idea. It’s both practical and fascinating on so many levels and I’ll be trying out more of the recipes over time. A unique way to celebrate the centenary of women getting the vote.

The Original Suffrage Cook Book compiled by Mrs L. O. Kleber
1915 Cook Book to be published for #VOTE100

www.aurorametro.co.uk

PB £12.99
ISBN: 978-1-912430-13-0

A Mother’s Grace by Rosie Goodwin

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A Mother's Grace by Rosie Goodwin

This, the  third novel in the Days of the Week collection by Rosie Goodwin, turns its focus on why Tuesday’s child is full of grace.

A Mother’s Grace  follows the story of Grace Kettle who longs to escape her bullying, controlling father. She becomes devoutly religious and goes off to Wales to take holy orders and become a nun. But there she meets the dashing and devout Father Luke and things don’t go as Grace had hoped. She is forced to make a difficult and life changing decision, one that she will spend the rest of her life seeking forgiveness for.

Some of the characters from the previous two novels in the series make an appearance in this book but you don’t have to have read them to enjoy A Mother’s Grace.

If you love riveting, heart-warming saga then you will not be disappointed. A Mother’s Grace has all the elements of a good page-turning novel and is a ‘curl up in a chair’ read for autumn.

Rosie Goodwin’s books have  sold over a million copies and she has written over thirty novels. She’s been described as the Catherine Cookson for a new generation.

Rosie is also the only author to ever be allowed to follow three of Catherine Cookson’s trilogies with her own sequels.

www.rosiegoodwin.co.uk

Published by Bonnier Zaffre £7.99

Strictly Briks: Dream, Create, Grow

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Strictly Briks are Strictly Brilliant. What a fabulous add on to all those building bricks you have in the toybox. Strictly Briks enables children to create multi-storey platforms quickly using the baseplates and Stackers. And we all know how impatient small children are.

The various sets of Strictly Briks allow for plenty of creative play and are a fabulous extension to all of those other branded brick sets that almost all of us have played with at some time or another. Memories of Christmas morning building forts and castles come to mind. Happy Days.

Strictly Briks Trap & Gap™

I was really impressed with the Trap and Gap™ pack – the kids are going to have so much fun with this – Hadley pushing his cars up and down the ramps and Huxley using them as an ark for his animals. Who doesn’t love a trap door! Perfect for wizards and fairy godmothers to appear from.

The Trap and Gap set contains:

Trap and Gap™   Baseplates

Set includes 2 Trap and Gap™ Baseplate 10″ x 10″

2 Stackable Baseplates 10″ x 10″

15 Stackers™

£21.99 at Amazon

Strictly Briks – Brik Tower

The Brik Tower set makes building multi platforms quick and easy. Using the stackers children can soon build a tower – much easier than putting together small bricks to create varying levels on a building. Perfect for castles, garages, houses and any other building your child can imagine.

The Brik Tower set consists of:

12 Baseplates 6″ x 6″ and 80 Stackers™

£24.99 at Amazon

www.strictlybriks.com

Ages 5+

Due to small pieces not suitable for under 3s.

Eating Disorders – Missing the Signs

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If you’ve been reading my previous articles I know what some of you are thinking. She’s a bit dim isn’t she? How could she not know her daughter had an eating disorder?

That’s what I thought too. How could I have not known? Mother’s should know everything; they are meant to care for and protect their child against all comers.

What a shock it was. I was ashamed. I was a bad mother. Yes, I should have known.

Of course, I knew there was something wrong, I just never dreamed that it was an eating disorder. She wasn’t the type, was she? She loved her food. How wrong I was to dismiss it. It cost us precious time.

The thing is, most people are under the impression that eating disorders are anorexia. End of. Unless they are skeletal they can’t possibly have a problem. Big mistake.

My daughter was hiding things well. If someone wants to keep a secret they will go to great lengths not to be discovered. And my daughter was 19. She went to work, she could drive, she was an adult. She’d been ill for a couple of years – not all the time, some times were worse than others but I knew something was wrong. I went with her to the doctors, got referred to consultants and none of them could find anything wrong. No one mentioned her mental health, no one mentioned eating disorders. They were looking at the physical – as was I.

I took her to numerous alternative practitioners, had a nutritionist come to the house. Again, not one mention of eating disorders. Did they guess and not tell me? I doubt it.

She had always been feisty and strong willed – which can work for you or against you. It was the latter on this occasion. You need huge willpower not to eat. You need lots of determination. A steely core.

She was a stroppy teenager – who isn’t. I had been a stroppy teenager – I’m quite sure my mother still bears the scars from the lacerations of my sharp tongue. My daughter didn’t do anything I hadn’t done, only she did it to extremes.

I knew something was wrong and I was right.

And it would be well to remember this: if you think something is wrong it usually is – so persevere, get help. Don’t dismiss your instincts – they are the most powerful thing you possess.

 

Tracy Baines has written a book about how her daughter’s eating disorder impacted on her family. The book It’s Not about the Food is part memoir part self-help guide. It contains resources she found helpful and quotes from many other parents she either interviewed or who responded to her questionnaire.

www.b-eat.co.uk

www.tracybaines.co.uk