|
Chico Buarque Songs TranslatedThe same content as the website - on Kindle.
|
Pilot ErrorIt is 1964, and Chris Nash is 20. His mother is married to Reg, whom Chris thinks is his father. He is therefore astonished when she tells him that his real father was a pilot, John Gregson, killed during the 2nd World War in an accident training Australian air crews. Chris sets out to discover more about the little-known incident. He tracks down his father’s only living relative, and visits the site of the crash, near a small church in Bedfordshire.
To commemorate the airmen who died in the crash, Chris organises a memorial stone in the Bedfordshire churchyard, and a church service. To his amazement a surprise guest turns up: an Australian who was the one survivor. |
Girl at DunkirkIt is May 1940 and people in the English coastal town of Ramsgate wonder what Britain's declaration of war with Germany will lead to. Then members of the British Expeditionary Force in France start dribbling back to Ramsgate harbour like defeated men. Gradually the truth emerges. Unless the 300,000 troops trapped on the French coast can be evacuated, Britain's war effort will be all but over.
Amongst the private citizens volunteering to supplement the British navy's effort is the 21-year old Chrissie Sellick. Together with her father she crosses the Channel in their 30-foot motor yacht Blithe Spirit. They ferry troops from the beaches onto big ships lying offshore, then enter the maelstrom of Dunkirk harbour itself, exposed to the full force of German fire-power. Chrissie Sellick is a female presence on the almost exclusively male scene of Dunkirk. In four days of relentless endeavour she faces both triumphs and tragedies, and realises that her sheltered life in Ramsgate will never be the same again. |
Bridger's Diary - A Mozart FantasyLarry Bridger's diary was found in a New York apartment after his death in the year 2065. It dealt with the last year (2035) in the life of Martin Amade, a Birmingham man who came to be regarded as one of the greatest composers to have graced the planet. The fictional character of Amade suspiciously resembles the real-life composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and the Bridger character mirrors Mozart's most successful librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte.
We see Amade and Bridger work upon an opera based on Alan Warner's novel, The sopranos, and upon a vampire oratorio commissioned by a mysterious 'dark stranger'. Rehearsals are staged in the theatre of Birmingham's Custard Factory. In between Bridger's many amorous exploits the pair search for a cor anglais player in Birmingham's dodgy Alum Rock area, and travel to Snape Maltings in a Suffolk that is flooded from extreme climate change. The decline in Amade's health leads to a wretched conclusion, partly redeemed by a final discovery from Amade's wife Connie. |
Out of BurmaJean Costain is the young wife of a British intelligence officer garrisoned in Rangoon during the 2nd World War.
The Japanese bombing of the city in 1942 finds British forces unprepared for war, and they soon fall back into northern Burma. Deprived of their protection, half a million members of the unpopular Indian community set out on the thousand-mile journey back to India. Unable to leave Burma by conventional routes Jean joins the exodus, along with her beautiful Indian maid and the maid's 11-year old daughter. They travel by jeep, by paddle-steamer and on foot through one of the hottest and most inhospitable jungles in the world, facing hunger, disease, hostile Burmans, gangs of deserters – and the Japanese. They mix with the exhausted British troops engaged in the longest fighting retreat of their history. |
Blame it on my youth - Mable MercerBlame it on my youth is a fictional biography of the cabaret singer Mabel Mercer, who worked in England, Paris and New York for much of the 20th century, achieving renown amongst her peers. Frank Sinatra said: 'Mabel Mercer taught me everything I know about phrasing'.
The book describes the colourful and eccentric characters Mercer met during an unusual life, and traces her gradual development from dancer to singer. It also looks past Mercer's famous reticence about her private life to imagine intimate relationships with members of both sexes. Mercer was born in Burton-on-Trent in 1900, product of a brief liaison between a 14-year old music-hall performer, Emily Wad ham, and a black American acrobat. She was sent to a Manchester convent school when her mother emigrated to New York. She left it at 14, joining various vaudeville groups to perform in English music-halls and working men's clubs. Following the rise of Hitler, Mercer sailed to America. |
Songbird of EdmontonDenis Scullers meets Beryl Rouson when they are 13-year olds in the choir of All Saints, a church in the down-at-heel north London suburb of Edmonton. He sees Beryl as a sickly girl with a deformed face, an impudent manner, and an extraordinary voice. But seven years later Denis hears her performing pop songs in an Edmonton bar acclaimed by hundreds of teenagers, and is seduced by her in the All Saints churchyard.
When he joins a rock band as an inept bass player, Denis has a ring-side seat to watch Beryl's rise to stardom as 'the song-bird of Edmonton'. She becomes one of England's earliest singer-songwriters, makes a number one hit record, and has a sell-out gig at the Festival Hall. As Beryl's life-style of drinking, smoking and promiscuity exacts its price, Denis finds he has more in common with her than he'd realised. |