Tag Archives: new writing

Floating In Space: Free offer!

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Anyone who knows me will tell you I never give anything away free, so just to prove them wrong you can download the Kindle version of Floating In Space free from today until the 22nd January! Click the picture below to take you straight to the amazon.co.uk page!

fiskindlecover

Floating In space is a novel set in Manchester in 1977 and if you like kitchen sink dramas like ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning’ and ‘A Kind Of Loving’ then you’ll love this book too.

If you remember the seventies I hope you’ll perhaps enjoy a trip down memory lane, if you’re younger then you’ll be pleased to know life did exist before mobile phones and the Internet were invented and if you’re familiar with Manchester then I hope you’ll recognise some of the locations, particularly the pubs and clubs mentioned.

Here’s me talking about the book on you tube:

 

 

Love Isn’t

Posted on by Steve Higgins

 

Love isn’t some little thing that goes ding!

It isn’t a song that you can sing.

It’s not something that might happen in a flash,

It doesn’t happen while driving and cause you to crash.

 

Love isn’t something tangible, something you can see,

It might even be invisible, to both you and to me.

It’s something that will join us and hold us together,

It’s a feeling that will get better, whatever the weather.

 

Love isn’t the singing of a song

But it’s working together when things go wrong

It isn’t the chiming of a bell or the tooting of a horn

But It’s just tears of joy when a child is born.

 

 

paperback writer!

Posted on by Steve Higgins

It’s been a long wait but you can finally buy the Floating In Space paperback version from Amazon! Just click on the picture below to take you to literary heaven! (OK, that’s a little over the top but, what the heck?)

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If Only . .

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Just looking through my old videos the other day and I came across a documentary about James Dean called ‘James Dean’s last day’. It’s an interesting film and a sad one too as it counts down Dean’s last day, his leaving Hollywood and his departure for a racing event at Salinas. If you don’t know much about Dean then you won’t know he was an amateur racing driver and was killed in a car crash in his new Porsche.There are so many ifs and as I watch the film I keep thinking if only Dean had left the Porsche on the trailer instead of driving it to the race track. If only the speeding ticket he was given had made him slow down. If only a man called Donald Turnupseed had seen Dean and not turned across him. Such a shame, such a tragedy. Dean, I’m sure, would have gone on to make so many great films and one day he would have directed some too.

Racing driver Ayrton Senna is a man would have gone on to greater things too, more world championships and more race wins. I even read something by Ron Dennis the other day in which the McLaren boss said that Senna had political ambitions too. Could he have run for the Brazilian Presidency? We’ll never know because Senna was killed at San Marino in 1994 and we are left only with the on car video pictures of him as his car slipped from under him and hurtled towards the crash barrier. The on car pictures fail before the final moments of impact when a suspension arm was flung back and pierced his helmet, causing his death.

A video that did show someone’s final moments was one I saw the other day. I was lying outside in the sun and I could hear a video playing on Liz’s I-pad. It was a woman talking about her son’s motorbike crash and hoping the video would help other road users, particularly car drivers who need to look out for bikes. I was reading a book at the time and the video distracted me, then I heard the sound of the bike, the rushing of the wind and then the impact.

“What was that?” I asked, “Was the crash filmed?”

Indeed it was. The rider was wearing a helmet camera and his fatal crash had been recorded. Later I took a look for myself. The rider was a relatively young man, only thirty eight years old and the video starts off as he waves goodbye to his friends at an air base and immediately he leaves the car park he is gunning his bike very, very, fast. As his mother talks sadly about her lost son, holding back the tears we cut again to her son, riding extremely fast and passing cars quickly on a single carriageway road. He pulls out and slips quickly past a car. As he pulls back in front of the car he reaches a junction, another car pulls across to turn right in front of him and he has only time to shout ‘No’ and he hits the car and tumbles onto the verge. The impact is shocking, so shocking I awoke last night still thinking off it. The rider had been doing 97 mph and had no chance whatsoever of surviving or avoiding the crash. Why was he going so fast? If only he had tucked in behind the car at the junction he would have avoided the crash altogether.

These are questions without answers. Riding a bike very fast is exhilarating and exciting but a rider needs to be so very aware of what he is doing, what is happening ahead and he must react so much quicker than a car driver as he is so much more vulnerable. Listening to the video, as I first did when it played on Liz’s I-pad, it seemed to me that the clip was aimed at motorists who do not look properly, who do not check properly for other vehicles before turning. After actually watching the video it is clear that the speed of the rider, 97mph on a sixty mph road, was the main factor in the accident and it meant that the rider had no time almost to react other than to hit his brakes. Still, if the car driver had taken a second look up the road, a second glance, he might have seen the bike and stopped. If only.

I’ve had a few scary moments on my motorbikes but I don’t think I ever hit 97 mph, even on the motorway but then I’m not sure the 125 and 250cc bikes I had could go that fast. At work they used to call me the fair weather rider because if it was raining I would always get the bus to work. When I bought  my first car I hung up my helmet for good apart from a brief fling with a Kawasaki 500 when I had split up with my girlfriend.

The car driver was prosecuted and had his licence suspended for 18 months and was also sentenced to 130 hours of community work. The Bike rider lost his entire life, his whole future that was ahead of him, gone, just like that of James Dean and Ayrton Senna. He wasn’t a famous man and wouldn’t have, I suppose, made any great movies or won any motor races but he would have married, perhaps had children and gone on to live a happy, contented life. All lost in a single moment.

Self Publishing and more Shameless Self Promotion!

Posted on by Steve Higgins

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Thought I’d write a quick update about Floating In Space. I’ve been a bit slow in producing the paperback version but a few weeks ago I thought I’d finally sorted it out. I’d got a good PDF file so all I needed to do was upload that to createspace.com, order a proof copy and the book should be ready in a few weeks if not sooner! The thing is, that’s not how it actually worked out.

Writing a book is a pretty big thing but I’m not sure I’d say it was a hard or even a difficult task. Of course, when it’s something you like doing, something that gives you pleasure, hard or difficult hardly comes into it, but editing and proofreading, that’s a different matter.

Spelling mistakes are an issue though most of them can be caught by spellchecker but even then there are some things that slip through. Sometimes spellchecker will okay a word even though it’s wrong, like a correct word but used in the wrong context for instance. And grammar, well there’s a sticky subject that I find really hard work, I thought I knew about grammar until I came to edit my book. No wonder people make a living by proof reading, it’s difficult and involves going over stuff you have written time and time again.  I’ve been DSC_0293through my book so many times I’ve developed a sort of word blindness, I seem to be skimming over things and reading from memory rather than the printed word. I think I’ve got the definitive version, order a proof copy then spot a mistake in print that I couldn’t see in the word or PDF version! In my latest version I thought the font was too big so I resized it, tidied up the chapter headings and some other things I’d spotted, sorted out the PDF file and thought; great, finally sorted it. When I looked through the book on line I noticed various big gaps in the text and on further examination there were various section breaks in the word version that required eliminating! Anyway, I think I’m nearly there!

The Kindle version has been updated with spelling mistakes amended, duplicated words removed, and a small index added to help you understand 1970s England! It’s also got a much nicer cover than the print version, even though it was created using the same cover photo. What’s really odd is that the Kindle worked better with a word file rather than a PDF, while the print version works better with the PDF.

Any of you self published authors had silimar issues? let me know. I’ll feel much better if I know I’m not the only one!

David Copperfield, Steerforth, and Charles Dickens

Posted on by Steve Higgins

David Copperfield, Steerforth, and Charles Dickens.

An Airliner, An IRA Bomb, and John F Kennedy

Posted on by Steve Higgins

It’s a wonderful summer in the UK and school holidays have started so a lot of people will be wanting to fly away for their summer break. Wherever people are going though, they must be eager to avoid the Ukraine. I’ve not seen the news much lately and like many people I’m struggling to understand what happened. Why shoot down a commercial airliner? Was it a mistake? Did somebody think it was a military flight? Who did shoot the plane down and what will be done about it?

Things like this, needless death and destruction, are deeply upsetting. I remember years ago watching the New York Twin Towers terrorist attacks, 9/11 as it is now known, unfold before me on television and I’d forgotten really just how shocking it was until I picked up a DVD of Oliver Stone’s film World Trade Centre recently. I bought it at a car boot sale and watched it one night after a late shift and the scenes of people glued to their TV sets reminded me of myself, back in 2001, unable to move away from the TV screen.

Courtesy wikipedia

Courtesy wikipedia

One sad aspect of these atrocities, particularly the 9/11 attack in New York was that they are based on religious hatred, More than that, they are based on mistaken religious hatred because as far as I know neither the Koran nor the Bible incite murder or hatred. The Bible asks us to love our enemies, not so easy in the case of Osama Bin Ladin I admit but hopefully, in the next world the Almighty will grant his soul the compassion and understanding for others which he did not possess in this world.

A long time ago I used to have a small shop in the Corn Exchange in Manchester. It was called Armchair Motorsports and I used to sell all sorts of Motorsport memorabilia. When things weren’t doing too well I accepted an offer from a guy I knew in a similar business and sold up. He didn’t use my unit at the Corn Exchange, as it was only rented and anyway, he had his own premises. Just as well because some time later the IRA planted a bomb outside and blew the building up. The thing is, what I thought to be something of a blow was in fact a good thing. If I hadn’t sold the business I could have been going to work that day and been injured or even killed. Tragedy, world tragedy, sometimes makes you look at your own life and think just how lucky you are compared to some.

For you regular readers, you will know how I like to tie up my blogs with something faintly amusing at the end but this subject is a tough one in which to inject some humour so I thought rather than go down that route and fail dismally I’d finish with a few thoughtful and sober words from President Kennedy. Words spoken by him in a speech he gave shortly before his death and words which I think are important to this day.

Kennedy was looking for something with which to bring the Americans and the Soviet peoples together, to find some common ground, not an easy task in the cold war period. This is what he said and I think there is something here for everyone, whether you are a Muslim, a Christian, a Ukrainian Separatist or just an ordinary guy like me.

“So, let us not be blind to our differences–but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”

Growing up with the Motor Car

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Ever look back at those old cars you used to own? I sometimes do and looking back, cars are pretty synonymous with growing up, certainly from a male point of view anyway.

9o698i3bgeI’m probably pushed to tell you the registration number of my current car but PDB 71M, the VRM (Vehicle Registration Mark) of my very first car is still firmly anchored in my old memory bank. My first car was a Bond Bug. You may not remember the name but they were sporty little three wheeler cars and I bought one because I failed my driving test twice and I could drive the Bug on my motorbike licence.

It was actually a pretty eye catching car for a three wheeler. No doors but the roof lifted up to gain access and the side windows were plastic held on by Velcro. I always remember bringing it home and showing it off to my family with a certain amount of pride and my Dad looking at it and saying “How are we all going to get into that?” Perhaps he thought I was going to take us all away for a holiday!

Still, we had some nice times, me and the Bond Bug but then one cold and snowy Christmas I decided to chance going out to a Christmas party in the car even though it was losing coolant. I topped it up with water and went off for a night of Christmas cheer. I walked home sensibly, I might add, but when I returned the next day I found that the car had frozen overnight and it ended up having to have an engine rebuild. That was a pretty expensive night out! Later when I passed my driving test I got myself a proper car.

I’m pretty happy with my current car generally, it’s a Renault Megane convertible and I kind of like being just a bit of a poser, driving round when its sunny with the roof down and looking generally pretty cool what with my leather seats and my shades but you do get those days when things go wrong.

I spent a lot of time the other day burning a few new cds to play in my car and just as I joined the motorway on the way to work I pressed the eject button on my CD player but the old cd wouldn’t eject. I could hardly pull over on the motorway so already my journey had not started well.

The other thing is that one of my electric windows, the rear off side one to be exact, has jammed. OK, at least it jammed in the up position but the car automatically drops the windows when raising or lowering the roof, so that means I can’t open my roof.  Add to that the recent lovely weather – perfect for open top driving – and as you can imagine, I’m not happy!

Anyway, I have to look on the bright side. When I pulled up at work and switched off the radio, my CD ejected! At least I was OK for music on the return journey!

Here’s my car when it was new . .

 

 

Catchphrases, Pub Friends, and Big Steve

Posted on by Steve Higgins

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 people think differently.

trawlboatHere’s another example of a catchphrase or saying that I always associate with a particular person but first I need to tell you about a pub that Liz and I regularly use. It’s called the Trawl Boat and we both know a lot of people in there. I don’t always know their names but then that’s the thing about pub friends, they’re acquaintances and beyond our pub chatter I don’t know much about most of them at all. Anyway, there are the two guys who always stand at the end of the bar and order double rounds (not sure if that’s a comment on the bar service or maybe they just like their ale!). The thin guy who works for British Aerospace and is not happy (oops, there’s that phrase again! ) about being sent by his company to work on a project in Australia. (Wish my employer would send me off on a project like that! ) Then there’s his colleague with the Kojak haircut and a group that I do know the names of, Colin and Dougie, B&B owners in St Annes and Nick who manages a hotel on St Annes front.

The very first guy we got chatting with in the Trawl boat was a guy we called Big Steve. I’m six-foot and Big Steve towered above me, he must have been six-foot six, easy. He was a pretty fit guy having been a former drayman, one of those people who lug big beer barrels about for a living and he was a really easy fellow to get on with. We always used to sit with Steve and have a drink and a natter and when he was due to leave his would pull his jacket on, say his goodbyes and then always say to us; “Nice to see you both again: As always.” And then he would be off.

A couple of years ago we saw Big Steve sometime in December and as usual at the end of the evening we said our goodbyes, wished each other a happy Christmas in case we didn’t see each other before the holidays and Steve said his usual “Nice to see you both: As always” and left.

We didn’t see Big Steve over Christmas, nor through the New Year period and one day we both said together in the Trawl Boat, ‘wonder where Steve is?’ Anyway we thought nothing of it and assumed we’d catch up with him soon.

Later, Liz was chatting to some of the regulars and one mentioned to her that he had been to a funeral the previous day. Liz asked idly who the deceased was and the man answered that it was someone they didn’t think Liz or I knew. It was a guy called Big Steve who used to be a drayman! Well, the words leapt up and hit Liz and I like a slap. Big Steve was gone and we’d hadn’t even had a chance to pay our respects at his funeral. I can’t tell you how sad we both felt.

Liz, being the amateur Sherlock Holmes she is, tracked down the widow and we went to see her to pass on our condolences. It turned out that Steve had died quietly in his sleep and his wife went into his room one morning to find him dead. Not very nice for her but a peaceful passing at least for Steve but here’s a thing about pub friends. I don’t have the phone numbers of any of those guys from the Trawl Boat and apart from the guys who own B&B’s I’ve no idea where they live. Luckily, Big Steve had mentioned Nick to his wife as being a hotel manager and one day they had popped in the hotel for a meal and when Big Steve passed away that was the one contact she had for Steve’s pub friends.

One day, in the next world, I’ll make a point of finding Big Steve and I can see myself now tapping him on the shoulder and saying “Nice to see you again Steve, as always.”

Hope he doesn’t turn round and say “Steve, I’m not happy!”

If you liked this, why not try my book? Click the icon below.

 

Wedding days, Cumbria, and what to do with those Wedding Snaps!

Posted on by Steve Higgins
Wedding day!

Tania and Alex

Well, you can’t beat a good wedding but weddings are hard work,  what with the planning, the arranging, the compromises, the cost, the logistics, and of course all the attendant stress that comes ready built in; very hard work indeed!

The wedding I went to at the weekend had a lot of great elements and the one important thing that only nature can provide; good weather! I shouldn’t complain really but I was sweltering in my three piece suit and a couple of degrees cooler would have been nice but that would be quibbling. The day was wonderful and one that all went to plan as far as I could see anyway.

Another fact that comes built in at a wedding are tears. I am referring to tears of joy of course and the bride and her Mum did their fair share as well as others. I doubt if there was a dry eye in the place during the speeches when it’s traditional to ponder in public about the subject of love and loved ones, those who are with us and those departed. On this occasion, the mother of the bride did a speech herself as her husband had passed away some years ago and her performance as she balanced emotions and stage fright was outstanding.

The one disaster, well for me anyway, came part way into the evening when I took a glass of red wine to my mouth,  inexplicably missed and as a result poured red wine all down my shirt. Anyway, I nipped round the corner to my room, luckily we were staying at the venue and soaked the shirt in cold water which I think was the correct remedy for the situation, changed shirt (to a less formal shirt I should add) and was back at the reception within fifteen minutes. My fiancée Liz, and also the mother of the bride, who seems to like me in my three piece attire was not amused that I had ditched my splendid outfit (jacket waistcoat and tie had seemed a little superfluous by this time) but of course you can’t please all the people all of the time.

The only other problem came earlier. The wedding cupcakes were painstakingly assembled in the reception room by bridesmaids and friends only to be told of a rule, well a law actually, that food could not be placed on the tables until licensing hours! First I’ve heard of that so the cakes had to be hastily removed! The thing is the wedding was in Cumbria and my experience of Cumbria people is that they don’t necessarily care about things like rules or laws.

A couple of years ago Liz and I stayed in the small town of Wigton. We had rented a small cottage for a few days and the first day we went to the local chippy for some old fashioned fish and chips, then decided to wash it down with a pint in the pub next door. When we stepped inside there were a number of locals smoking away, happily flouting new anti-smoking laws. We ordered our beer and one of the group asked if we minded them smoking and if we did then they would go outside. Actually we did mind them smoking but being British and not wanting to upset the regulars of a pub we reckoned we would be visiting regularly during our stay we said ‘OK, go ahead and smoke.’ Just as we were about to ask if the pub served food a couple of other locals arrived with fish and chips from the chippy, sat down at a table to eat and called over pleasantly for two pints of bitter! Yes, that’s the way they do things in Cumbria!

Not long ago I asked my Mum what had happened to her wedding pictures as I don’t remember seeing any. She replied, rather shame facedly, that after a row with my Dad she had taken her wedding pictures and ripped them up! Still, she continued in her marriage to my Dad, happily I might add, until his death in 2000. My wedding pictures are still intact in a box somewhere in the loft although my marriage ended in divorce many years ago. So, perhaps my advice to Tania and Alex should be to rip up their wedding pictures! Not so easy in the digital internet age!

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