Many moons ago when I was a medical student I started writing children’s stories for The People’s Friend, a weekly family magazine published by DC Thompsons of Dundee. Then when I moved to England on the first of a series of hospital jobs I wrote stories for the Kingston upon Hull telephone exchange’s ‘Dial a Bedtime Story Service.’ For the 6d (old money) telephone charge for a three minute call a youngster would hear a tuck-me-up tale.
The Kingston upon Hull telephone exchange still has the wonderful creamy white telephone boxes.
I am a member of the Medical Journalists Association and have written a weekly column in the Wakefield Express for the past 38 years. I have written for various other newspapers and medical journals on an ad hoc basis and still very much enjoy the research, and the discipline of producing copy every week.
Over the years I have notched up a fair number of non-fiction titles, many of them popular medical books. Various books have been translated, so currently there have been thirteen languages. The prettiest by far was the Korean edition of my book on Understanding and Dealing with Heart Disease.
Mid-grade YA book
Originally published by Golden Guides Press and republished in the USA by Sundown Press, the Curse of the Bodysnatchers is a gothic tale for youngsters set in mid Victorian London.
Here’s what it is about:
Victorian London is a dangerous city to be alone THE CURSE OF THE BODY SNATCHERSin at night for 12-year-old orphan, Jack Moon—and his business in those forbidding streets would make a grown man cringe. But his best friend, Danny, has just died, and Jack has promised him a burial in a haunted cemetery beside the woman who cared for them.
Living in a rat-infested warehouse, Jack ventures out into the London fog, where he is waylaid by Professor Stackpool, a phrenologist. Can he really read a person’s character by examining their head? He claims Jack is a prime example! But at a public demonstration, he announces Jack is a typical London urchin, destined for a life of crime, and Jack revolts.
Benevolent Sir Lionel Petrie and his granddaughter, Olivia, are outraged. To prove Stackpool wrong, the kind judge gives Jack a job at his home. Olivia and Jack become great friends, but something sinister is going on—and Olivia is becoming gravely ill over and over again.
Someone is out to kill Jack, but who? And why? When tragedy suddenly strikes, Jack vows to save Olivia, and he is forced to enter the world of seances, ghosts, and ghouls. Will Jack live to bring Olivia back to her grandfather? Can they all survive THE CURSE OF THE BODY SNATCHERS?
Take a look at the video clip about the book
The Curse of the Body Snatchers
Medical Books
General non-fiction
