Rivers of Light

Rivers of Light draws deeply on the ancient Chinese teachings of the Five Elements, guiding the reader through a personal wisdom journey of awakening and understanding. The teachings of the Five Elements describe our intimate connection to the laws, cycles and movements of nature, showing how all the Five Elements of the natural world live and work within each of us. However, we have an essential relationship with just one element, which plays out through a person’s life and has a central role in all aspects of health, from the physical to the emotional, mental and spiritual.

The author interprets this elemental relationship as karmic. She invites the reader to take a personal voyage as the book moves through the challenging shadowlands of stressful and difficult times that we all encounter, to lighter and blissful realms of higher consciousness, or the domain of the soul.

Using meditations, affirmations and colourful descriptions alongside the text, the reader is drawn into a fascinating world of discovery, to answer the deeper questions that we all meet as we move through life:

‘Why do I feel as I do?’

‘Who am I really?’

‘What am I here to learn or to understand?’

To know ourselves on a profound level is perhaps more urgent than ever before, as we come face to face with uncertainty in this rapidly changing world.

Robin Hood - The New Evidence

The story of Robin Hood is very well known. Writers and historians have been reading and rewriting it, analysing and altering it since Ritson published his version in 1795, more than 200 years ago. The story has been published in many forms, including books, films, TV and radio programs, articles held in the World Wide Web and probably many others. As far as can be ascertained, they all have two things in common: they all contain many errors and they all fail to explain a number of mysteries.

In his book, Geoff Wilson has corrected many of the errors and has explained many of the mysteries. This he has done by accessing many surprising sources of evidence, including, for example, the British Geological Survey, aerial photography and by following on foot several of Robin Hood’s journeys described in the ballads. Practical tests were also carried out. The author’s sons (both quite young at the time) were encouraged to shout at the top of their voices in one particular location to test if sounds do in fact echo in the valleys. They do.

Among the mysteries solved are the identities of Sir Richard at the Lee and the location of Verysdale and the Village of Lee. The ‘fayre castell’ described in the Gest is also identified, as is the chapel in Barnsdale dedicated to Mary Magdalene and described in stanza 440 of the Gest. One mystery which remains unresolved, however, is the identity of Robin himself. Perhaps he is, after all, just a yeoman named Robin Hood, although the claims of an alternative candidate are seriously considered.

Rose's Children

When a young woman promises her dying mammie that she will keep her seven siblings together in the family home, she has no idea of the huge responsibility this would become. 1940s' Ireland was a cruel and unforgiving country to abandoned and orphaned children. Notoriously run by Religious Orders of Nuns and Brothers, orphanages and church homes were a final bitter resort. Devoutly religious, Rose McGorry's one obsession as she approached her death was praying to her Heavenly Father that her beloved children never suffer the pain of being separated or the shame of succumbing to the poverty that surrounded them. How these eight young people managed to stay close and survive is a tribute to the mother who loved them and the strength with which she imbued all her children.

Rotting Man Goes to Town

Rotting Man Goes to Town deals with an adult relationship; which is in deep trauma from the outset of the story. Its technique is predominately dual narration, going from him to her vantage points. There are two sides to every story. Some of the language is hard-hitting, with angry scenes or mindsets, including some swearing. Political incorrectness exists in parts. The emotions are raw. It is a compelling and authentic read. It begins badly. How will it end?

The initial setting is in America, with flashbacks to Britain, meant to counter the: hurt, sadness and anger, by the use of the device of injecting past comedic episodes. Levity and tragedy are seen in animal antics. Thus, the humorous scenes are meant to bring a balance to the novel overall.

With the exception of the animals’ names, which remain true, all human names have been changed.

Royal Engineer

As compelling as it is a delight to read, Royal Engineer is a military memoir that is truly a breath of fresh air and a ‘must’ read for anyone who has an interest in either the military or modern history, and for those who quite simply enjoy a good read.

Fascinating, honest, gripping, hard-hitting and never shying away from the truth, the author’s passion for chronicling his and others’ past events and experiences becomes abundantly clear from the very beginning. The unique style of writing and the way in which detailed narratives are brilliantly incorporated make Royal Engineer a powerful and moving memoir. Emotions, opinions, positives, and negatives are freely shared with the reader to ensure that there is no sugar-coating on subjects and matters that are of a sensitive and topical nature in today’s world.

Be prepared for a reading experience like no other because Royal Engineer is filled with comprehensive and engaging narratives that will have the reader mesmerised from the very first page, and it is also a remarkable piece of writing because of the honest approach and evocative language the author adopts throughout.

Sailing Through Life...

When Nick Ardley asked for a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test, the aftershocks of a prostate cancer diagnosis were momentous. Frightened, he said he was too young to die. Petrified, he understandably broke down. But all was not lost: his family and the boat shared with his wife were soon at work repairing his life.

A life-long sailor, the salt marsh fringed waters of the greater Thames estuary had always enthralled, and it was to them he went for healing. It’s a place where in the free flow of a saline breeze his mind cleared, and he began treating it all as just another little illness. Like a cold, he said, knowing full well it wasn’t! Sailing up the River Thames, he announced to his wife his choice of the medical directions offered. Later, after mooring off Gravesend, both cried together.

Ardley’s treatment overlapped the COVID-19 pandemic. Fortunately, the serious stuff was done and dusted. The pandemic brought new trials. The couple were frighteningly threatened by a fellow yachtsman who disliked an Ardley web blog … the horror of that summer has remained fresh.

Throughout the telling of Ardley’s tales, his story, sailing with family and friends, country walking and living life, he has maintained a normality. Perhaps a familiar story, but it comes with a warning: Men, get yourselves tested before it’s too late!

So, onwards he goes, sailing through life…

SCAD Straight from the Heart

This book contains true stories from real survivors in the hopes of raising awareness of an uncommon cause of heart attack in women and men.

The emotional effect of SCAD can be quite traumatic for both the survivors and those around them. It is hoped that this book will help newly diagnosed SCAD survivors to understand that they are not alone in this journey. It is also hoped that this book will assist those close to the newly diagnosed survivors to understand SCAD and the emotional effect that it has.

Scallywag – My Duvet Diva

Scallywag – My Duvet Diva is a true story about a man trying to rebuild his life, and a dog in need of a second chance.

It tells of their adventures together ashore and aboard their canal boat “Bluebell”, of their developing relationship and of their deepening companionship.

Atmospheric, funny, and sometimes sad, it will make you both laugh and cry.

Keep the tissues handy!

Science and God: Enemies or Allies?

Some say, ‘I cannot believe in God because science has disproved it!’ It is now apparent that such reasoning is invalid.

Modern science supports what the Bible teaches, and the Bible supplies what science cannot.

This book demonstrates this unity with many facts and examples, showing how conflicts in the past have been resolved and how this is relevant to how we live today.

Science of Food Nutrition and Health

Diet is one of the important facets of comprehensive approach to good health along with physical, social, emotional, and intellectual well-being. During the second half of the 20th century, we witnessed a dramatic change in our eating patterns and lifestyle aided by agricultural and industrial revolution, globalisation, and urbanisation and emergence of associated diet related chronic diseases such as obesity, coronary heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, some type of cancer, stroke, and degenerative arthritis.

The science of food and nutrition is very complex. Nutrition science like many other fields of science is evolutionary and there are always conflicting research outcomes that need to be carefully evaluated. We ingest hundreds of dietary components every day and understanding various metabolic pathways and the effect of interactions of various dietary components in vivo is rather challenging.

Recent advances in genetic research fostered the emergence of new disciplines such as nutrigenomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and transcriptomics which can shed light on the molecular level interaction between dietary nutrients and the genome. These technologies provide the vision for future nutrition research that may unravel how the diet/genome interactions modifies the phenotype.

Food may not be the overall cure for the treatment of every possible disease, but the importance of food in both causing and relieving certain problems cannot be neglected. This is one of the most researched topics and there is a lot written about it. However, this book is probably the only text that provides up to date information on the various interrelated topics on food and nutrition that would be of interest to wider community.

Seascapes of a Soul: Wholeness and the Sense of Self

The search for self-knowledge and identity is a common theme in autobiographies these days. So also is the search for a spirituality other than that of the conventional religions. Both are found in Seascapes of a Soul: Wholeness and the Sense of Self. This book is an account of a unique spirit on an often solitary journey. With clear argumentation and transparent honesty, this author presents a story that reaches towards individuation, gained partly through discovering C.G. Jung’s ideas about the psyche.
Several themes recur: the onset of old age, Jungian individuation, solitude and aloneness, mood swings, a rejection of orthodox religion, a love for the natural world, an interest in gnosticism, the inner sense of the Divine. Her relationship with her twin sister is also prominent. There is light and dark here: the ups and downs of living with a twin.
In rejecting the Christianity she grew up with she followed an innate urge to a spirituality that ultimately arose from the strong sense of self she had had from an early age. If this has a name it would be ‘gnostic’ because it is a perception of inner divinity, the God within.
This is a woman’s story with a difference. Although, unlike so many, she did not have to struggle through a life of disadvantage and deprivation, she did have to wrestle with a powerful self that sometimes wandered up blind alleys into ego. But she learned to accept mistakes and incorporate them into what Einstein called a ‘calm and modest life’.
Images of the sea, symbols of the unconscious, run through the book. The ‘seascapes’ at the head of each chapter function in the story as a leitmotif for the modes and moods of the spirit.

Seasons of Antibes

She walks in the gardens of the Parc Exflora for the first time in three days. The 55 days of the first confinement are over and she cannot believe her eyes. For the first time she imagines, really imagines what it must have been like for Noah and the other seven, to be locked up in an “Ark” for 150 days. Wow! It is only something we read, but now truly we have not only imagined and caught a glimpse of it, but we do actually pray that we may never have to live through it!