It’s a very strange feeling having completed a book. On the one hand, there is the elation that it is all finished: that every twist and turn has been explored, every angle examined and every exposition exposed. But, on the other hand, there is the very tangible feeling that it is ‘all over’. In some ways, that is more terrifying than the prospect of embarking on such a project.

They say, that for a gambler the most euphoric moment is when all the winning money is spent. The feeling of emptiness frees them from the compulsion to gamble and they are faced with the empty page of neutrality. But, as we all know, the desire with any addiction is to engage ‘just this once’ with the very thing that fills every thought.

VALVEPUNKS! ‘The long road to Quixotica’ (Working title) is the name of my newborn and it’s a ripping yarn of deliciously vintage proportions. Set in the future (but rooted in the past) it follows the adventures of am old man as he goes in search of his sanity. Or, as the blurb says:

“When an old inventor and radio star of yesteryear is visited by a journalist - keen to learn more about his past - he takes them both on an incredible journey to find the facts and in the process; to be reunited with the woman he loves. Struggling to cope with his forgotten life and facing an uncertain future, he tries to discover serenity and some crucial answers by time-slipping back into his troubled youth, then fast forward into one version of the future. Knowing the truth brings a dilemma; does he follow his previous timeline or choose to reinvent history?”

It’s a A quirky, dark comedy, mad science, time-slip, love story. Filed under: Steampunk / Mad-Science Fiction / Scifi / Comedy. But who is he? - “Reggie is a frail old man lost in space and time. He seems not to remember where he has come from nor where he is going. All that he knows is that he is fleeing from a forgotten enemy to a destination he can’t remember, using a machine that he built which can travel through time, space and matter.”

The research for the narrative has led me through hundreds of visits to antique shops, carboot sales and auctions. Along the way, I have joined astronomical societies, radio enthusiast circles and scientific forums. I have spoken to a great number of elderly friends to garner their impressions of the modern world (as well as their recollections of the past) and through it all, I have become transformed- both in my understanding of the world around me as well as the history of the universe itself.

But now I am faced with a sense of grief and panic that there is no more to do. Apart from the obvious sequel (which I am already working on) I am struck by an overwhelming feeling of loss now that my daily routine is devoid of any ritual obligation.

For the past 184 days I have spent an average of four hours (every day) writing a typical 800 words a day and to not have that focus anymore brings a feeling of loss which I am not sure how I will fill. In the space of exactly six months (from 23rd May to the 23rd November) I have written 146,127 words towards my book which represents approximately 736 hours (or a full working month) of writing. Whilst this is, in itself, a feat of no mean measure, I am now faced with the absence that its completion presents.

For the sake of my sanity, I intend to take Christmas off, and review the book in the new year and then the re-writes will begin. - that glorious process that involves the polishing and perfecting of all that is good. Hopefully, at the end of it there will be a story that will be worthy of reading. But, between you and me - I think it’s going to be great. I can’t wait for you to read it.

“My money’s always got it’s hat and coat on”. My grandma used to say and even as a little lad, that visual image entertained me with it’s stark clarity - meaning it never stayed around long enough to make itself comfortable. I had no idea what that must have felt like, as I grew up in a house where I wanted for very little but she was from a different age.

A time of hardship like I couldn’t even begin to manage I suppose: being married just after the great war; surviving the great strike of the 20’s; the slump of the 30’s; the second world war; rationing and the rest. She’d learnt to ‘make do and mend’ as she’d often tell me. But her and my granddad’s ways were borne out of survival and ingenuity. I remember: my granddad always mended his own shoes (or ‘clogs’ as he called them) in the cellar with bits of old leather that he kept in a box and a cast iron last. (It acts as a doorstop now in my living room. A solid reminder of all that he stood for). He grew vegetables in the back garden and always had a bag of tomatoes for my dad whenever we visited.

My granddad was very much the figure of your typical Yorkshireman. The kind you used to see caricatured in the pages of the Dalesman and on teatowels from Haworth - long overcoat, trousers big enough to make a tent from, held up with a belt halfway down, a collarless shirt and white muffler and the trademark flat cap. And then there were those ‘clogs’. Polished every Sunday to within an inch of their life.
“You’ve got to have shiny shoes lad. Wouldn’t do to not have shiny shoes”.
He had a hunched back as well, I remember, which came from being trampled by a horse when he was a little lad. Back in the days when all the streets were full of horses delivering everything from milk and coal to beer. Mind you, he’d always take his hat off when the dray horses came past with barrels of Timothy Taylors. I suppose it was an act of respect for his true love, but he took it very seriously. It was either that or in painful deference for his stooped posture.

Even when I knew them in the 1970s, it was all: “never throw out what might come in handy”
Every bit of food was recycled into something new. Crusts of bread became puddings and a joint of beef would feed them all week till there was only the string left. He’d even wash that out and keep it in a jar in the cellar along with all the stray rubber bands, washers, nails and mismatched screws.

She had standards did my gran. She used to ‘donkey-stone’ her front step every week (a ritual borne out of safety as much as anything. In those days, the smoke from the factory chimneys was so thick that sometimes you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, let alone your own front door and the bar of white stopped you falling at your own threshold. It also helped my granddad from falling when he’d spent all Saturday night in the Willow Tree). I do remember though, a very odd incident when she asked me to keep a lookout as she bobbed down for a wee in the bushes at the side of the Leeds Liverpool canal as we walked home from Cliffe Castle one Saturday afternoon.

Times haven’t changed much. I’m sure that they expected my generation to be millionaires living on the moon. They’d say “Eee” and “Ooh” when I went to Grammar school but it didn’t mean much. I’m nearly fifty now and as good as bankrupt. Each month is a race to the next salary. Eating Netto bread and tinned whatnots. Rummaging in bargain bins and some days I just eat cornflakes and toast and live off tea.

Where did it all go wrong gran? Where is this bright new future the politicians promised us after the war? Did it skip a generation? was I sleeping? Oh sure I have the pleasure of typing at my laptop or checking my emails on my phone, but in some ways they were richer than I have ever been. They never expected anything else and they were happy. All I’ve got to look forward to is encroaching senility, poor health and more poverty. I don’t even have a garden to grow tomatoes in much less a pot to piss in.

I used to spend most weekends there at one point as a little lad. My dad would take me over to where they lived in Riddlesden in his old green Mini van, it was such an adventure. I’d arrive just after lunch and he’d be off and my gran used to say (with great pride I might add): “I’ve got some bananas for you” which I reckon was a throwback to a time when the possession of such an exotic fruit was a thing of status and excitement. In the afternoon, she’d take me places (usually just into Keighley to the shops and such) but it meant a bus ride and that was always fun as we’d always get the best seats what with her being a ‘senior citizen’ and all that.

Then, when we’d get back the football results would be on and all had to be silent. My granddad would shout and carry on if he couldn’t hear the scores for his pools coupon. And then he’d cough and hawk up these big slugs of speckled muckment that he’d spit into the fire with a resounding hiss.
“Arthur!”. My grandma would shout from the kitchen and he’d wink at me and just mutter:
“Shut up” as he snooked and blew his nose into a checkered handkerchief. I suppose fifty years of working in a filthy engineering works had played havoc on his chest. There was no health and safety in them days.

From the kitchen, I’d hear the familiar sound of unidentified frying objects and my grandma would be cooking me butcher’s-fresh pork sausages for tea. Sometimes, she’d get me fish fingers as a treat as mother didn’t let me have them. She’d read a story somewhere about a kid who had drowned in a bath after eating them and was scared to death that I’d do the same, but I never really understood her logic. I never really forgave for for it either.

My grandma would sit me down with a plate of homemade mash potatoes, shelled garden peas (sometimes she’s let me shell them in front of the telly) and bring the frying pan to the table to let me pick as many sausages (or fish fingers) as I wanted. We ate in the kitchen in their house as they didn’t have a dining room - it was only a two-up, two-down, and I’d gorge on beaker after beaker of Ribena or Fanta from tins that you’d have to use a can opener to drink from.

Then it was time for Doctor Who on the telly, which I obviously watched from behind the sofa and I clearly remember the flickering black and white images of Daleks on the old valve set scaring the living daylights out of me. Then we had to sit through “Dad’s army” with granddad laughing and saying “I used to do that”. Thinking back, it wasn’t too many years earlier either but back then, seeing as he’d retired, he’d become a Lollypop Man. Still doing his bit and very proud he was of it too.

A bit later, I’m not sure what time it would be, but I’m sure I remember the start of “Saturday night at the London Palladium” being on television, I’d be sent up to the bathroom for a ‘weekly bath’ which was a treat made all the more special by my grandma squirting Fairy Liquid into the water to make it a foamy delight of detergent loveliness. Then I’d be packed off to the spare room to bed which was cold, a bit damp and foisty smelling with a floral pattern wallpaper that looked like lion’s heads. My grandma would leave me a torch in case I needed the bathroom in the night, which I thought was a little strange even back then as the house was fully equipped with electrical lighting, but I suppose she didn’t trust it very much.

But it was the Sunday mornings that were magical: woken by a cockerel crowing across the back field and the sound of St Mary’s Methodist Church bells ringing the faithful to their knees. There’d be cornflakes and fingers of toast for breakfast and the coal fire had been lit many hours before by granddad making the whole house smell of coal smoke and toasty warm. The whole place smelt of bacon and homely security topped off with “Two way family favourites” on the wireless.

After all was tidied away and the Sunday joint was safely in the oven, gran would take me for a walk somewhere or we’d go to the park and then it was back home for sunday lunch. Sometimes I got to beat the pudding batter, but she always did it again just to be sure and her arms flapped like a fisherman’s coat. “The oil has to be just so hot that you can see smoke rising”. She’d say as she poured the milky mixture into a cast iron tray. My granddad always had his as a starter with milk and sugar but I liked mine with thick beef fat gravy. All greasy and glistening with heaps of crispy roasted spuds.

After lunch, I’d engage in several rounds of draughts or dominoes with my gran (as granddad read the People or the News of the world) but little did I know that she always let me win. Then eventually, dad would arrive to take me away. Away from the cocoon and back to the other place and they’d stand at the door and wave me good-bye.

Many years later I went back to the street just to see. I could almost smell the puddings roasting but it wasn’t the same. The cock was gone and new houses stood in the old field. Oh, what I’d give to have it back but was it the life they shared with me I wanted? or was it my youth? No, in truth I think it was the joy that they found in simple things with little money that I yearn for. They had nothing but they were happy and they had a sense of humor which always carried them through. Right at the end, on hearing the news of my granddad’s death in hospital, my grandma said
“Bloody typical. Leaving me wi’ mucky end of the stick again. As usual”
I had no idea what she meant but I knew she was cocking a snook at him.