I have a number of interests: I play the ‘cello, I teach reading to children at my local Primary school and write poems with them, I compose music for the piano, I paint in water colours, I am learning to throw and decorate pottery, I have written several short ghost stories, I translate from German and French and I have written a book about a horseman and his wife who have taken communication with horses to a new level. This was published in the autumn of 2009 and has been translated into French and German editions. As you might guess, anyone who divides his life amongst so many pursuits has so far escaped fame and fortune, but on the other hand has found great satisfaction from them all.
Since many of the things that I have done have not been published or made public, my idea in starting this website is to make them available to anyone who might be interested.
When I tell friends stories about my grandparents and parents they often say, why don’t you write these down. So I shall also do just that. I will include letters written by my father from the trenches in the 1st World War and from India in the 1920’s.
Published books in which I have had a part,
1. Romany Wood, published 1974 by Hart-Davis Educational Ltd. in association with Gallery Five Ltd. Co author with Beshlie. Pictures by Beshlie
2. My Bear Book, published by Gallery Five in 1984 in UK and by Intervisual Communications in USA. Pop-up mechanic and pictures by me. Traditional nursery rhyme. ISBN0-9507214-2-5
3. Bel and Bub and the Baby Bird ISBN -0751372862, Bel and Bub and the Bad Snowball ISBN0751372919, Bel and Bub and the Big Brown Box ISBN0751372765, Bel and Bub and the Black Hole ISBN0751372811, published by Dorling Kindersley in 2000. Assistant Illustrator to Jan Pienkowski.
4. The Animals went in Two by Two . ISBN-7445-9267-4 (A Noah’s Ark pop-up book) published by Walker Books in 2003. I was Assistant illustrator to Jan Pienkowski
5. Goodnight, published by Walker Books in 1999 ISBN0-7445-5587-6 also in smaller version ISBN 0-7445-8142-7 Assistant illustrator to Jan Pienkowski
6. Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Hansel & Gretel, and Cinderella, published by William Heinemann and Gallery Five in 1977. Translations from the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perault. Pictures and design by Jan Pienkowski.
7. The Fairy Tales, republication of the above (item 5) by Penguin Books in 2005, in a single volume. ISBN 0-141-38224-4
8. The Thousand Nights and One Night, published by Penguin Books in 2007, in which I told the stories, working from Sir Richard Burton’s 19th Century translation. Pictures and design by Jan Pienkowski. ISBN 978-0-141-38288-3 Simultaneously published in Italian by RCS Libri. ISBN 978-88-451-4383-0
9. The Nutcracker, published by Penguin Books in 2008, in which I translated the original German story by E.T.A.Hoffman, and then told in my own words. Pictures and design by Jan Pienkowski.
ISBN 978-1-84248-231-5
10. Ninja Cat, Published by Mathew Price Ltd in 2007, in which I wrote the text to fit with the pop-up pictures by Jan Pienkowski. ISBN 978-1-84248-231-5
11. Gallop to Freedom, published by Trafalgar Square Books, Vermont, USA, in October 2009. Reprinted February 2010 book and is about to be published in French German and Dutch. It is about an extraordinary Frenchman and his wife, Frederic Pignon and Magali Delgado, who are world leaders in the field of communication and the understanding of horses and have developed a new approach to bringing them up. They were the founding stars of Cavalia. ISBN987-1-56076-439-4
12. In The Beginning, a collection of stories from the Old Testament. Jan Pienkowski did the wonderful pictures which almost tell the stories without the words.We used a heavily pruned version of the King James translation of the Bible for the words and I was responsible for these. The stories are told in very few words but these are often taken verbatim from the King James so that the flavour of that great work is maintained. There is no ‘modern speak’; it is anchored in our great literary tradition. Publication is due October this year.
Possible future publications
1. Poems written with and even occasionally by children at Lowther Primary School, Barnes – a suburb of London - where I go once a week to help on a voluntary basis. I work with 8, 9 and 10 year olds. Very often the poems are by me based on what they tell me about what they have been doing but I always try to get them to make suggestions and then if necessary change the direction of the poem in order to incorporate them. Sometimes they come up with either a whole poem, which usually needs a bit of tidying up or several lines. ‘Volcanoes splatter, Earthquakes shatter, Door Mice squeak…’ was entirely the work of Rian Arbon. I tried to get him to provide a last line but finally had to suggest ‘It don’t matter’, which he immediately liked.
Recently when I was away for a couple of weeks having a stent put in a blocked artery they wrote me a card with some little poems. Here is one by Ashley: ‘It is very sad you are ill/ It must be giving you a very large chill/ So please get well and over the spell/ That someone has placed on you.’.
2. Short Stories (not published)
c. Cycle Sales
d. Santa Fiora
f. ‘Room number, please!’
g. Carrion
h. Craw-Craw
4. Piano scores
Opus 1 – opus 69 with recordings by Richard Black
5. Family History
- Grandparents and Great Grandparents
- My father
- My maternal great-grandfather
- My maternal grandparents
- My mother
- Myself
A. Great-grandparents’ courting and marriage.
B. Father’s Service career told by himself
6. Art
a. Drawings
b. Computer drawings
7. Pottery
8. Poems