Thought for today:
"Never underestimate the worth of a good book. I used to think that books were made only for those times when people involvement appeared too hectic and unpredictable and where a bit of escapism was required instead to still the mind and settle the soul. However, I have long ago learned that books are designed for all manner of person and situation.
Ever since spending one year in a hospital bed led me to read my first pictureless book from cover to cover at the age of eleven years, I have been hooked on the magic of books and have loved the written and spoken word. Books have grown my imagination and have represented landmarks in my life and development. They have nurtured, stimulated, sustained and supported me in times both happy and sad where a degree of emotional distancing from the world and the cruelty of circumstances was required.
By the age of twelve years, I was reading medical books to better understand why I was unable to walk and why I had no feeling below my waist. Between twelve and fifteen I read every classic adventure book I could get my hands on. Being unable to walk and with the prospect of always remaining immobile, I learned how to mentally run alongside the book characters. Between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, I read all manner of meditational book to get me walking again and to minimise the effects of a limp that had been created by over fifty-three operations on my left leg which had stunted its growth; leaving a three-inch disparity between the two. By eighteen years of age, I was the youngest shop steward in Great Britain and was reading about the Jarrow March, The Tolpuddle Martyrs, the Luddites and all manner of industrial and trade-union history, and master/worker dispute in the textile mills of Yorkshire.
My two years in Canada and the USA during the early 1960's led to me reading all of their most renown writers, along with some of the most obscure ones. During my late twenties, I read around five books every week; mostly classical, historical or biographical. It may have been a character flaw of mine, but I loved reading about men and women of small and common stature who went on to do rare and great things for the betterment of humanity.
I was in my late twenties when I re-read a book which was to have a profound effect on me and was to put me back on my path to destiny; Victor Hugo's 'Les Miserables.' This book reminded me of the crucial importance of 'second chances' in life and was to change the course of my life again. It eventually led me to stop being a Mill Manager and guided me towards a career in Probation Officer work. As a child, I had grown up learning to steal and to stretch the truth with the best of them, and by the age of twenty-two years, I vowed never again to steal or to deliberately tell an untruth; a promise I have been able to maintain, but often with some great difficulty ever since.
My years as a Probation Officer between the ages of thirty and fifty-three led me into the disciplines of behaviourism, emotional disturbance, relaxation training, hypnotism, assertion training, fear reduction, anger management and stress management consultancy. During this period of extensive learning, almost all my reading had to be obtained from either France or America as I was involved in pioneering work and needed to keep abreast of research studies around the world as I engaged myself in closely examining the essence and composition of behavioural response patterns. I needed to learn more about the functioning of the human body and so much of my reading involved medical papers and books on psychology and neurosis; most of which needed to be obtained from the USA or Europe, and which cost an arm and a leg to purchase.
At the grand old age of forty-eight years, I was asked to provide relaxation training to children of Primary School level. Given the complexity of the concepts to be communicated to the 5-8-year-old to make this possible, I found that the best way of getting them into the process of relaxation was through 'telling them a story' which I had constructed. Having a higher than usual public profile from my pioneering work in the field of Relaxation methods and Anger Management, which was daily attracting increased regional publicity and national attention, I was then asked by the Probation Service to write a children's storybook which covered themes and emotions that children found difficult to deal with or healthily express like bullying, jealousy, bereavement, homelessness, separation and loss etc. I wrote my first published book for children called, 'Everyone and Everything' in November 1989 and after selling over three thousand copies to primary schools in West Yorkshire within the space of four weeks and allowing all £10,000 profit to go to 'Children in Need,' I've been writing for children, young persons and adults ever since. I have just published my 67th book.
During my earlier years of getting my work published and more widely read, I never seriously thought of myself as being a writer; more as a 'social crusader' masquerading as an author in disguise. Not only was I doing something that I loved, but apart from the £200,000 profits that my published book sales made for charity between 1989-2005, my reading and writing continued to nurture, stimulate, sustain and support me at all times ever since besides providing occasional comfort to others.
It is only in later years that I have been more prepared to take on the mantle of 'author'. Since 2010 when my wife Sheila persuaded me to take up the pen again, I have been writing short stories for adults which can be freely read on my website www.fordefables.co.uk under the umbrella title 'Tales from Portlaw'. I know that the financial circumstances of many people today do not enable them to afford to buy books and most of my book profits today go towards providing free books to individuals and cash-stricken organisations. Indeed, six months after I have had my latest romantic novel published, I always make it freely available to read on my extensive website under the 'Tales from Portlaw' section of my books.
I have just had my sixty-seventh book published. It is, without a doubt, the best romantic story in my 'Tales from Portlaw' series of books and is called 'The Postman Always Knocks Twice'. What makes this book better than most of the other 'Tales from Portlaw' stories I have written is because it is the most meaningful to me. When I was a child, my mother told me every day of my life that I was 'special' This secret was revealed to her before I was born by a peg-selling gypsy who knocked on her door in Portlaw. At the time, my mother was two months pregnant but wasn't showing. The travelling Romany told my mother that if she crossed her palm with silver that she would tell her about the 'special child' she was expecting. My mother told me this story almost every day of my growing years and every time I managed to achieve something or do something unusual, she would remind me that it was because I was 'special'. I naturally believed every word my mother told me in my youth, even those that had been stretched towards the bounds of incredibility. All of the first half of my life I believed that I had been born a special child and it is only in the second part of my life that I learned to understand that every newborn is 'special'. The book is obtainable in e-book format from www.smashwords.com or in hardback or paperback from Amazon or www.lulu.com.
It is said that everyone has a book inside them worthy of penning and I believe this to be true. Over the past years since I developed a terminal blood cancer and have started attending my allotment daily with my wife Sheila, I have gradually reduced the number of books I normally write and have published yearly from three to one. For the rest of my life, I intend to plant flowers and potatoes in my allotment between March and September and to write my annual book for publication during the colder winter months. I have always allowed the sales profit from my books to go to charitable causes ever since my first publication and shall continue adding to the £200,000 they have raised since 1989 by enabling all my book-sale profits now and after my death to go to charitable causes in perpetuity.
I am often asked to recommend suitable books I've written and I, therefore, include a few details and indications below. For my youngest readers (those children between the ages of 5-9 years), I would recommend the 'Action Annie Omnibus'. This tells a story suitable for each month of the year that the late Dame Catherine Cookson and her husband Tom paid to have first published. If you have a child or grandchild between the ages of 5-11 years, please allow me to recommend either 'Douglas the Dragon' or 'Sleezy the Fox'. These are my best sellers for children and the late Princess Diana used to read them to her children William and Harry at bedtime. If you like ethnic stories, I would strongly recommend 'The African Trilogy' that Nelson Mandela phoned me up and praised in 2001. If you are a dog lover (child or adult), I would recommend 'Tales of Bernard' that James Harriot and Christopher Timothy praised. If a lover of cats, I would recommend my longest trilogy of books in which every character is a breed of cat, 'The Kilkenny Cat Trilogy' (for teenagers and upwards). If you are a romantic, then read my latest 'Tales from Portlaw: Volume 13: 'The Postman always knocks twice'. If you like stories about the Second World War, I would recommend, ''Butterworth's Brigade' and 'Robin and the Rubicelle Fusiliers' that Dame Vera Lynn praised and read from in a school in her village. If you would like to read a gritty Northern tale about a woman who leaves her child and spends years fighting to regain access to her, or a rags to riches story about rape, murder and revenge, then my only two (strictly for adults novels), 'Come back Peter' and 'Rebecca's Revenge' should make good bedtime reading, but please keep away from anyone under 21 years old or the eyes of the sensitive. Should you like to read the book I enjoyed best writing in the style of my favourite author, Thomas Hardy, then I would recommend, 'Tales from the Allotments'. I feel certain that in this list that there is a book there for you or a loved one of you to read and enjoy.
If, on the other hand, you would like to read a book by another author than myself, I would refer you to 'Les Miserables' by Victor Hugo, or any book by Thomas Hardy, or 'The Barchester Chronicles' by Anthony Trollope, or 'The Five Towns' by Arnold Bennett. As for poetry, my favourite would be Seamus Heaney who died in August 2013. The power of his imagery and descriptive phraseology is sheer music to this Irish ear of poetic discernment. Whatever you read though, please read! ": William Forde: August 9th, 2018.