“If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how you write.”

– Somerset Maugham

I have been reading since the age of seven, starting with all the works of Enid Blyton. A teacher at primary school gave me a book called The Dolphin Crossing, a story which I can still recall vividly to this day. Throughout my teenage years, I became deeply entrenched in exploring the world of literature – Orwell, Bates, Conan Doyle, Salinger, Steinbeck, to name a few. Bizarrely, I would only read books by dead authors, my rationale being, if they were still being published after they had died, then they must be quite good. Even today, I still do the same. Sorry JK, but at least it means you’re still with us.

I used to love writing as well. Strange, funny essays at school, weird postcards from around the world and, most famously, a letter to the examiner who had the misfortune of marking my only A level, informing them that Modern History was unlikely to be a career for which I was made. For most of us though, life has a habit of taking away huge slices of time as we transform from children with all the questions into adults with none of the answers.

In 2020 we were all locked down. Some chose the time to make sourdough bread whereas I saw it as the opportunity to finally sit down and write the book which 80% of the world believe is within them. Literature is subjective and I appreciate one person’s Ernest Hemingway is another person’s Nadine Dorries. However I am convinced, if you write with authenticity about interesting people then you will create a story worth telling.

I firmly believe that my book has all the qualities that Somerset Maugham suggests and I hope you enjoy reading Goodbye Morecambe as much as I enjoyed writing it.