The Author’s Guide to Book Trailers.

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Book TrailersOne of the objects of this blog is to publicise my novel, Floating In Space. In these digital hi-tech days it’s just not enough to whack out a novel then expect people to clamour around wanting to buy it. How will they know it even exists? Well, as I said in Confessions of a Self-Published Author, the writing of a novel is only the first part, then comes the promotion of the book. Yes, this blog, of course, is a great part of that, as are my posts on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest and elsewhere. Anywhere in fact that I have a social presence, I will be knocking out a post either directly or indirectly related to my book.

The important thing is not to keep going on about it; that is probably the social media equivalent of knocking on someone’s door and saying “Hi. Buy this book and it will change your life!” Floating In Space will not change your life but it will give you a few hours of enjoyment, taking you back into the world of the 1970’s, a world so different, and yet so similar to that of today.

Another way of connecting with those potential readers is the video and that is where the book trailer comes in. Back in the 1990’s I went on various courses in video production so I know the basic principles of shooting and editing but nowadays I make use of on line editing sites like animoto.com which can be used to build your video.  Here’s an updated version of the first book trailer I made using nothing more than still images uploaded to one of Animoto’s templates:

One of the great things about YouTube is that you can add annotations to the video: Links to other videos, links to my Google+ page and YouTube cards which open up when you hover over with your mouse and can be customised with web links. You can also add little information boxes which clarify or expand on information that is given in the video.

Here are a few tips for making your own.

1 Use a tripod. I’ve experimented with grips and clamps and selfie devices but the best way to shoot is to put your camera on a tripod, set up your shot and press record.

2. Keep it simple. Make sure you know what your message is and put it over quickly and simply. Attention spans are short these days for video. If people don’t like what they see, and believe it or not they make that decision in the first few seconds, then they just click away from your video to something more interesting.

3. Plan ahead before you shoot. Make a list of what you are going to do or say in the video. Even consider making a short script.

4. You Tube is the second most popular search engine after Google, so work hard on your video’s title!

5. 13% of video plays were made using mobile devices so make sure your video is mobile friendly! Click here to read some more interesting stats!

Not only do I have my videos on YouTube, I also have a few on Vimeo. Vimeo.com presents the video in a more stylish way but the cards and annotations that can be utilised on YouTube are not available. Here’s my very latest promo. Shot with my camera on a tripod and edited using windows movie maker.

https://vimeo.com/169686229

I’m quite pleased with the fact that I only took eleven takes to make this one. In the first few I didn’t like my shirt so I changed. Then it became rather windy which ruined the sound. Then just when I was about to pack up, I popped on another shirt and did a few more. The take above was somewhere around the take seven mark! Here’s another video, this time made with Animoto templates.

Weather’s looking good lately, why not make a start on your video promo?

If this post has got you interested in Floating in Space, click the links at the top of the page for more information. Click the icon below to visit my Amazon page.

Seven Questions about the Bobby Kennedy Assassination

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Robert F Kennedy died from gunshot wounds on this day in 1968.

I’ve seen and heard a lot of shocking events on television over the years. I remember hearing about the death of Princess Diana one Sunday morning while I waited for the kettle to boil for a mornin…

Source: Seven Questions about the Bobby Kennedy Assassination

Captain Kirk, Al Jolson, and the problem with Windows 10!

Posted on by Steve Higgins

captain kirkTime passes, as Dylan Thomas said in Under Milk Wood. Time passes and the new replaces the old. Okay but why is it that the old is sometimes better than the new? Here are a few cases in point.

Star Trek.

Here is something that may be a revelation to you; if you don’t know it already it will vastly improve your understanding of Star Trek. It’s a simple truth and here it is, Star Trek is about three guys, Captain Kirk, Mr Spock and Doctor McCoy. Sometimes there are four, we can maybe throw in Scotty but that’s it, that’s the essential truth about Star Trek and that’s why things like the Next Generation and Deep Space 9 will never come up to scratch, simply because Kirk, Spock and McCoy are not involved. Even the Star Trek people themselves understand this, which is why Star Trek has been reinvented (re-imagined to use movie speak) with new actors playing Kirk and his crew in the latest Trek movies.

Forget about Mr Pointy-head Captain Picard and the cocktail lounge style bridge on his version of the Star Ship Enterprise. Why on earth does he have to run every decision over his number two, his councillor and everyone else on the bridge when Kirk would have just sorted that situation out like a shot and would even have found a pretty girl to flirt with too? Deep space 9: A load of old tosh and as for Star Trek Voyager? Well, I have to say I do like the later episodes when Captain Janeway finally got rid of her previous weird hair styles and the drippy Kes got the bullet from the show and was replaced by the rather interesting Seven of Nine, a young lady rescued from the clutches of the Borg. As much as I like Voyager, it really can’t compete with the original. Yes, in every way, old is better.

Movies.

If you are a regular reader of this blog you will know that I like my movies. I much prefer old classic movies to the latest films. The last movie I caught at the cinema was the latest Bond movie, well actually, not even the latest one, it was the one before that! I did try to see the new one, Spectre, but when I enquired at the picture house about the movie, the lady behind the counter looked at me and said: ‘Spectre? That movie has been and gone,’ as if I had been talking about Gone with the Wind. As I remember it, there were still Spectre film trailers being shown on the TV so my enquiry was not all that silly, although shortly afterwards they released the film on DVD. There seems to be a short shelf life for movies these days; they are released, shown for a while at the cinema and then whoosh –straight to DVD.

DVDs.

Talking of DVDs, one I picked up lately from e-bay for a measly few pounds was a DVD with two movies: The Jolson Story and the follow up, Jolson Sings Again. The Jolson Story is typical of the kind of movies watched in our house when I was a child. My Mum was a big musical fan and we watched a lot of musicals. I do love those movies of the forties and fifties, the ones where someone says something like ‘let’s put the show on right here!’ White Christmas with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby is the sort of movie I mean, some light comedy, some great songs and they put on a show in their old wartime colonel’s failing hotel. The Jolson Story has some wonderful songs, proper tuneful yesteryear classic songs and Larry Parks plays a great part. Sadly he was black listed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities and only made a few more films afterwards.

A much more modern movie I picked up recently on DVD was A Bridge of Spies starring Tom Hanks and directed by Steven Spielberg. Spielberg’s reputation as a great director precedes him as they say but for my money, I don’t really think his films are that great. I can’t rubbish this film by any means but it was a little tame and I have found that with a lot of his films, they always seem to fall slightly short of the mark somehow. Might have to sell Bridge of Spies in the same place I found it, on e-bay!

Windows 10.

Now, here is a perfect example of the old being better than the new. With my old laptop kitted out with windows XP and later windows 7 I could carry on doing the simple nerdy things I have always done on my laptop. As you know from these posts I have a long trip to work every day, I hate radio with adverts so I play a lot of discs, most of which I make up myself. I used to drop a DVD into my laptop, use windows sound recorder to copy some music or dialogue. Later I’d use various software bits and pieces to cut and paste, mix, and create a CD of favourite film music and dialogue that I could play in my car.

Anyway, in Windows 10, which I updated to not long ago, there is no sound recorder. There is however ‘voice recorder’ which I assume works in the same way only the tab on my computer is greyed out and when I click on it a message appears which says go to the windows store. Okay, I click that; a box opens up saying ‘windows store’, looks like it’s doing something for a minute than just closes. Right, so next I go to the Microsoft website, click on ‘windows store’, find windows voice recorder, click the download button and nothing happens. After a quick search I find windows sound recorder, I click on that and it says ‘not compatible with your device’!

While I’m on a rant about windows 10 here’s another thing. When I first installed windows 10, everything seemed to be in order but lately, every time I click on the start menu I get a critical error report and a box comes up saying ‘log out of windows and we will repair the error when you log back in’. So, like the box says I log out, log back in but did they keep their word? Have they fixed the critical error? No!

Wonder what Captain Kirk would do? Knowing him, a good blast from a Phaser will solve everything!

If you liked this post, why not try my novel, Floating In Space? Click the links at the top of the page for more information!

A Tale of Four Horses.

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Bank Holiday retweet time . .

Steve Higgins's avatarLetters from an Unknown Author!

The Grand National is one of those institutions of British sport, and coming in the early part of April like it does, it’s one of those events that herald the gradual warming of the days, the better weather and the move into the summer. It also heralds, at least where I work, someone going round with a card asking for money to enter the office sweepstake. Pay a pound, choose a horse at random and hope you are going to win some money. The National itself is pretty random. The nature of the event with its long course and numerous fences mean a huge amount of luck is involved. Maybe that’s why it’s so popular with the betting public. Anyway, it made me think about horses and their connection with my family which, when it comes down to it, is more considerable than I had originally thought.

Royal Horse artilleryMy Grandfather, George…

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Have Movies Influenced your Music Choices?

Posted on by Steve Higgins

classical music + moviesClassical Music and Three of my Movie Favourites

I’m not a great lover of classical music but the classical music I do know and love has come to me through the medium of film. Yes, movies have inspired almost all of my favourite classical music choices.

The Blue Danube

The Blue Danube is a waltz written by the composer Johann Strauss II. He was an Austrian composer known as the ‘Waltz King’ and was largely responsible for the popularity of the waltz in Vienna in the 19th century. I first heard the music in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, the memorable sci-fi movie directed by Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick used numerous classical pieces in the movie and the Blue Danube is used during the space station docking and lunar landing sequences.

I first saw the film in the summer of 1968. I was only 11 at the time and I remember my Mum being surprised I had spent hours at the cinema on a lovely hot day. I watched the film in the huge movie theatre in Northenden, now a Jehovah’s Witness assembly hall. There were only a few people in the picture house that day and it was wonderful having this huge place almost to myself and seeing this incredible film in 70mm on the big screen. I recall being somewhat confused by it all, especially the jump from neanderthal times to the future, until I bought the novel by Arthur C Clarke which explained things in a way the movie did not.

2001 is a particularly visual film. Kubrick cut out a lot of dialogue because he wanted the film to stand as “basically a visual, nonverbal experience” that “hits the viewer at an inner level of consciousness, just as music does, or painting.”

2001

Picture courtesy Flickr.com

According to Wikipedia, despite the few people in the cinema with me that day in 1968, the movie went on to become the highest grossing North American movie of that year.

2001 set the pace for the sci-fi movie with its depiction of spacecraft drifting slowly and silently through space. The first Star Trek movie was heavily influenced by 2001 which made it look a little dated when the movie Star Wars was released and did the opposite thing, showing spacecraft whooshing across the screen at incredible speeds.

2001 is a wonderful movie and as well as continual enjoyment, it has also given me a love of Johann Strauss.

March of Pomp and Circumstance.

The March of Pomp and Circumstance was written by Sir Edward Elgar and there are actually six marches altogether. The most famous is the ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ march which traditionally ends the last night at the proms. I first heard this classical piece in the movie ‘Young Winston.’

The music for the movie was written by Alfred Ralston and includes his original work as well as arrangements of Elgar’s music. I used to have the soundtrack to Young Winston on vinyl and on the back cover there were extensive notes by the producer. He rather pompously announced that neither he nor Richard Attenborough, the director, had any interest in making a film about the British Empire, which is rather sad because the British Empire, in my view, was something we British should be rightly proud of. Anyway, Churchill himself was certainly proud of the Empire and his part in it, and in making this film the producers therefore did what they say they didn’t want to do. The movie is based on Winston’s early life, indeed his autobiography of his early days was entitled just that: ‘My Early Life.’ It is a wonderful read and has been made into a lovely film.

One interesting feature of ‘Young Winston’ is that at the end of the film there is a rather poignant scene where Winston, in his later years, falls asleep in his study and has a dream about his late father, his relationship with whom, as we see in the movie, was not good. In the sequence his father, Randolph Churchill, returns to him; he and Winston discuss life and finally part with a sort of understanding nod to each other. I have always thought that it finished the film off rather nicely but whenever I see Young Winston on TV, that scene has been cut. Years ago I bought the video version and the scene had been cut on the video too, so if I ever decide to buy the DVD version, I’ll be checking the running time before I buy!

Manhattan

Manhattan is Woody Allen’s ode to New York. I have always loved that opening sequence with the monologue by Woody. He narrates the opening of his book and is not satisfied with it so starts the book over again. The dialogue goes something like this;

‘Chapter one. He adored New York City. He idolised it out of all proportion.

No, make that he romanticised it out of all proportion.

To him, no matter what the season was, it was a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwyn.

Oh no, let me start this over.

Chapter one . . .’

When he finally gets the book opening he wants, then the music of Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody In Blue’ roars into focus. Manhattan is a movie shot in black and white and is one of Woody Allen’s most famous and successful films. Allen plays a 42-year-old writer who is involved with a 17-year-old girl played by Mariel Hemingway. The photography is wonderful as is the movie. There is a lovely part played by Meryl Streep who plays the part of Allen’s ex-wife who has written a book about their former life together.

How have the movies influenced your music choices?

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Bicycles, Barry White, and a Man with a Chip on his Shoulder

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Bicycles, Barry White and a Man with a Cjhip on his Shoulder!Digital memories are pretty easy to save these days. Take a picture with your camera or smartphone and press the save button. That’s your picture saved.

Later you can transfer the picture or video to a laptop or a hard drive for safekeeping. Years ago it wasn’t so easy but at least today you can scan those old photographs into your PC and save them as digital media. Even old videos and 8mm home movies can be digitised and saved if you have the right software.  Still, memories are not just pictures. There are all sorts of things that can trigger your thoughts and bring back some long forgotten moment or event, or just something you haven’t thought of for a while.

It could be a piece of music or passing some old haunt, some pub you used to go in when you were younger but haven’t visited for a long while.

Something that was a trigger for old memories for me was an old tape recording I made when I was in my teens.

I used to make lots of recordings when I was much younger. I saved up and bought a tape cassette recorder and apart from recording music –they call them mix tapes these days but I never heard that term years ago when I was making ‘mix’ tapes- I used to record little plays and sketches I had written. My brother was press ganged into helping with these enterprises and I used various techniques to get him involved:

  1. Bullying
  2. Threats and intimidation.
  3. Violence
  4. Bribery

Yes, they all worked to greater and lesser degrees. It’s funny to listen to the tapes now because I can tell pretty much by his attitude when he went along with me willingly or otherwise. One other inducement I used was swapping. He might want a particular record or something that I had so we would swap that and some weeks later usually swap back. Lots of times I used to swap a record for my bicycle and that’s where I felt I really had one over on Colin, my brother, because he couldn’t, and still can’t ride a bike! Yes, I was on to a winner there because I’d swap my bike for a record or book and I had full use of the item while he couldn’t use the bike because he couldn’t ride it!

One time he really got one over on me. I had swapped my bike for one of his records or something or other; I can’t really remember what. Anyway, one day I went to go out on my bike- OK, his bike- opened the shed and it was gone. What had happened? Had it been stolen, where was it?

‘The bike?’ he answered blithely; he had sold it to his friend because he wanted money to buy a new LP!

My Mother facilitated the removal of my hands from his throat with a firm whack to the back of my head and asked what was going on?

‘He sold my bike!’ I yelled.

‘Your bike?’ she replied. ‘Didn’t you swap it with him? Isn’t it his bike?’

‘Yes but, yes but,’ was all I could say.

The tapes were mostly comedy sketches on the lines of Spike Milligan who was then a hero of mine. One of them went like this;

CUE COWBOY MUSIC

ME: Hey Stewart, I’m gonna knock that chip right off your shoulder!

COLIN: That’s no chip –it’s a potato!

ME: King Edward’s?

COLIN: No, he can get his own, it’s one of mine!

(These are the jokes folks, as someone used to say!)

My brother wasn’t the only person I dragged into making tape recordings. My old school friend Steve was a music fan like me. Well, I say like me but his music knowledge was prodigious. Name any record and he would say with certainty- ‘that went to number 2 in July 1974’ or whenever.

There was a radio programme we both liked. It was My Top 12 on Radio 2 and it was something on the lines of ‘desert island discs’. Someone from the music world would be interviewed and would choose their top twelve records.

Anyway, Steve and I decided to make a version for each other. One weekend I interviewed him talking about his favourite music for which he provided full chart statistics, naturally. On another weekend we reversed roles and he interviewed me for which I provided limited chart stats, usually something like, ‘that one just nudged into the top twenty to which my friend would reply, ‘yes, actually number 23 was the highest chart placing in October 1975.’

We slagged off all the music we looked down on and praised all the music we loved. Poor old Barry White (the same Barry White whose Greatest Hits is sometimes played in my car) got something of a drubbing. Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel were praised as a musical discovery of the highest order. (Steve who? Was he the guy who did ‘Come up and See Me, make me smile?)

Through the magic of the digital age I recently processed that old tape and converted it into a CD which I played in my car on the way into work today and it was lovely to listen to my old friend again.

Steve was the inspiration for the character of Matty in my novel Floating In Space. He was a lovely guy although something of a music nerd. We had a parting of the ways years ago when his brother came to rent a room in my house. He proceeded to wind up my bills; gas, electric and telephone, to such an incredible volume I could no longer afford to have him living with me. Steve took his brother’s eviction personally and alas that was the end of our friendship.

I always assumed one day we would have a pint together and talk about music, sci-fi and cult TV once again, just like we used to back in the seventies and eighties. We did keep in touch through an intermediary, my brother Colin. We last had a long telephone chat in the early 1990’s and talked about a reunion. I never heard from him again and when I enquired about him to his sister, whom I located on social media, she revealed he had been taken ill with cancer and had passed away.

Steve, as well as being a great music fan was something of an aircraft anorak too. He stars in my second most watched video on you tube, a documentary we made in 1986 with Steve espousing his love of aircraft. I think he’d be thrilled to find that over 11,000 viewers have watched it. Here’s another re-edited version with somewhat less views. I took out the chart hits of the 80’s and replaced them with copyright free music thinking I’d start to earn some money off YouTube. (No chance, they decided I had to have 1000 followers before shelling out!)

One tip just to finish with. Hang on to the recordings you make with your iPad and iPhone and all the other modern day gadgets. Keep them safe; invest in a portable hard drive to store them.

Get ready to invest in new software which will convert the files to whatever new application we will be using in the future because in thirty years time you’ll want to look back at those memories and relive those earlier times.

If you liked this post, why not try my book, Floating In Space? Click the links at the top of the page for more information. Click the icon below to go straight to Amazon!

Catchphrases, Pub Friends, and Big Steve

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Steve Higgins's avatarLetters from an Unknown Author!

quotescover-JPG-23Not long ago at work I noticed something that wasn’t right on the rota so I spoke to our former rota lady about it. She agreed with me, there was a problem but she herself couldn’t do anything about it and I would have to contact the new ‘National Roster Team.’

“Drop them an e-mail.” She said, then added with a giggle. “Tell them you’re not happy!”

Now, at first I don’t think I quite understood that but the other day I had an e-mail from a colleague which was in reply to some procedural point I had raised. The e-mail said something like I’ll sort that out straight away because I wouldn’t want you to be ‘not happy!’

Now, we don’t always notice that something we say habitually has become a sort of personal catchphrase and I’m sure I don’t say ‘not happy’ that much but clearly some…

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Confessions of a Self Published Author!

Posted on by Steve Higgins

self publishingYes, this post is about me, because believe it or not, I am a self-published author. The digital world of the 21st century has given me a chance that was unheard of before now. In the pre-digital world, writers like me would be prostrating themselves before the publishers of the world, trying to get them to accept our offerings, publish them and pay us royalties. Now, even professional writers, not just lowly amateurs like myself, are turning to self-publishing. The digital age has turned the publishing world on its head.

Of course, publishing is one thing but then there’s another stage, something that a publisher would consider part of his job: Marketing. How do the book reading public know about our books? How do they know what is available, what to read, where and why to buy? Yes, marketing provides the answer. A book must be marketed, brought to the attention of the public and, using all the slippery tools of the marketeer, the public must be made to want the book, and then actually buy it!

DSCF0008

Oops, yes, that was the copy that turned out too big!

I completed my book about a slice of 1970’s working class life some years ago. Three publishers had rejected it when I decided to self-publish. I was disheartened by those rejections I must admit, but in the world of publishing, twenty, thirty or more rejections for a new author are commonplace. I used Createspace and Kindle Direct Publishing, both part of the Amazon empire to platform my book. The paperback was produced using Createspace and the Kindle version with Kindle Direct.

Producing my book online was fairly simple but the process was one which actually underlined how much work was still required on my manuscript, which until then I had foolishly thought was complete. The first version for which I ordered a test copy was far too big, which I only realised once the finished product was in my hands. I ordered another version which again I wasn’t too happy with and after untold issues with fonts and formatting I finally produced a version that I thought was ready for the reading public. I explain things more in the video below;

I feel I now know something about writing a book but as for marketing, well, I’m just a beginner. I started this blog on wordpress for the prime reason of telling the public about my book but then immediately I was faced with a similar problem. How do I get the public to read my blog? It’s like one of those trick photographs you see, someone holding a picture of themselves and in the picture they are again holding a picture and it’s repeated into infinity. I had to create an Internet presence so I started selling myself on Google+, Facebook and particularly Twitter. I began a campaign of Tweeting; Tweeting my book, my posts, my photographs and my videos. I followed everyone who has followed me and gradually I have built up a pretty big following going from 90 followers to over 3000 in just over a year. That would be nice if all my followers bought my book, however, many are in a similar place to me, wanting to sell their book or video or music track or whatever, so not only are they not interested in Floating In Space, they see me as a potential customer of theirs!

output_lNzmQ3Yes, the writer of the 21st century is free of the restrictions of previous times. He is not beholden to or waiting on the attentions of a potential publisher but he has his own set of unique problems: He must be not only be a writer but also a marketeer. And he needs to have some graphic design ability and perhaps some photographic and video skills too! On top of that, most of my videos are me talking to the camera so a degree of TV presenting skill must be thrown into the mix also!

Sometimes I think about those heady days some years ago when I decided to self publish. Yes, the lure of fame as a writer, the interviews I expected, the potential trappings of success. Yes, that spurred me on to take my unfinished novel that had lain unread and unnoticed on a collection of floppy disks for many a year. To take it and bring it back into the modern cyber world, to re-write it, update and finally finish it for all those hungry fans of kitchen sink working class drama. (Yes, where are you, hungry fans of kitchen sink drama?)

Ferrari

Whoops! Not quite ready to order that new motor!

Eventually of course, reality stuck its ugly size 12 boot in the door: My book isn’t yet a best seller. The TV channels are not begging for interviews. The megabucks are not rolling in: Not sure if the guys at Ferrari were too happy when I asked them to put on hold the order for a new Ferrari I had tentatively made. In fact, the meagre pittance I have spent on a few facebook and twitter ads has far outstripped my royalties from Amazon. Still, who knows, maybe the next youtube video will go viral. Some random BBC producer may notice my blog and read my book and think ‘hey, this would make a great TV film!’ (Just in case, I should mention here that I do have a ‘Floating In Space’ film script draft!)

Of course, all writers are dreamers, that is why we write but if you too have aspirations of publishing success, be prepared to wait a while!

If, after reading this post you feel the urge to read my book, click on the links at the top of the page for more information or click the icon below to visit my Amazon page!

 

MASH and the Emotional Leap Indicator

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Steve Higgins's avatarLetters from an Unknown Author!

mash-title-960x590MASH has always been one of my very favourite TV comedy programmes. You may have read in another post about how I used to record the programme back in the early seventies with my cassette tape recorder. Later when video tape recorders appeared I used to tape many episodes of the show and now, here in the DVD age I have a number of box sets of the series. One of the things I have always loved about the show was how they could take zany and surreal humour, not unlike that of the Monty Python guys, and set it down in a real place; Korea in the 1950s. Some of the lines that came from the mouths of the characters were not only zany and funny but also very witty and clever. Apart from that, the characters themselves, Hawkeye, Trapper John, Frank Burns, Hotlips, Colonel Blake and Radar were…

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Three Funerals and a Pork Pie

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Steve Higgins's avatarLetters from an Unknown Author!

quotescover-JPG-12The other day my Mum started discussing her funeral plans with me. She is eighty five this year and I suppose at that age one starts to think that the day is coming when you won’t be around. Even so, it was pretty shocking to be talking about her funeral.

The first ever funeral I went to was my Uncle Raymond’s. Raymond was my favourite uncle and the most wonderful guy. When I first started work when I was sixteen, going on seventeen, I used to get off my bus, the 152, at the Bluebell pub in Handforth after coming home from work in Manchester and Uncle Ray was there, waiting for the pub to open. Inside he chatted to everyone, the staff, punters he had never met before and at the drop of a hat would produce the photographs from his recent cruise showing him and my Auntie Elsie…

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