"A good friend of mine, Jolene Rae Walsh launches her very first book in Huddersfield this evening called, 'I Deserve my name.' Me and Sheila will be attending the event and we certainly look forward to reading Jolene's work.
Being her first book, I know how thrilled Jolene will be to get it out there and also how concerned she will be to see how it is publicly received. She reported on Facebook a few days ago that she was experiencing the collywobbles about delivery of the limited edition publication as there was only two days to go before the launch and still no books had arrived from the printers.
This reminded me about the launch of one of my children's books at a Dewsbury school back in the 1990s. It was the morning of the launch when the books were actually printed off. They arrived half an hour before the launch, but were too sticky to read, literally being 'hot off the press.'
The comedian Bobby Ball was reading the book to an assembly of Dewsbury school children at 9am and facing the prospects of having no book to launch with both the local television and radio stations covering the event, we did the second best thing. The secretary quickly copied the story in large type letters for Bobby to read and I rushed off to the launch, arriving with minutes to spare. Unfortunately, in the rush, the secretary had not numbered each page she had typed.
Bobby proceeded to read from the typed script and forever being the joker, one page in he dropped the dozen typed sheets on the floor as he fooled around. Picking them up, it only then became apparent that the pages weren't numbered. Bobby the trooper wasn't fazed, he read the story in the random order the sheets were placed back in his hands.
The overall outcome was hilarious. The children loved it as did the press, radio and television covering the event and I thought that the story Bobby told the children was probably better than the one I had initially written.
Good luck for this evening Jolene to a fellow author.I am so pleased for you. I'm sure your book will be a huge success. Lots of love Bill x" William Forde: October 4th, 2015.