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Pneuma Springs Publishing - E Herbert Royston

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108 pages

English

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Bert Simpson's life is a kaleidoscope of ups and devastating downs. A happy life at the beginning to the heartbreak that was to accompany him for the greater part of his adulthood.Trouble starts when his mother's illness causes Bert to be sent to live with his Grandmother. She dies in 1939 and war breaks out in the same year.Bert travels back to his hometown where his Grandmother looks after the whole family. War escalates and Bert is sent as an evacuee to Devon. Finishing school he returns to his hometown and once again picks-up on old childhood friendships. In marriage tragedy strikes and Bert is accused of murder and is sentenced to life imprisonment. In prison he makes some very unusual friends who manage to boost his low esteem and start him back on the road to his eventual recovery. It is here that he meets a girl who believes in him.The book also deals with the delightful cameo of the personal life of the investigating detective and his progress from murder investigation to meeting the woman of his dreams.Book reviews online @ www.publishedbestsellers.com

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Publié par	Pneuma Springs Publishing
Date de parution	28 février 2009
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781782281924
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0124€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

The
Lifer

Royston E Herbert
Copyright
First Published 2009 Published by Pneuma Springs Publishing
Royston E Herbert Copyright © 2009 Royston E Herbert
Kindle eISBN: 9781782280217 ePub eISBN: 9781782281924 PDF eBook eISBN: 9781782281054 Paperback ISBN: 9781905809486
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, save those clearly in the public domain, is purely coincidental.
Pneuma Springs Publishing E: admin@pneumasprings.co.uk W: www.pneumasprings.co.uk
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Published in the United Kingdom. All rights reserved under International Copyright Law. Contents and/or cover may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written consent of the publisher.
The Novel
1
THE BEGINNING
It was just over half way through the month of June and at last the summer had woken up after a long period of devastating weather that had made the people think that the winter of 1932 had mistaken that season’s end. Although the 19 th of the month had turned out lovely with a definite promise of long hot days to come with a golden sun shining in a cloudless blue sky. The little group of people in the terraced home had not noticed the phenomena and was concentrating on the job in hand.
Inside the Victorian house a young woman in the throws of a difficult labour was being urged to push and hold back alternately as the crisis developed. She was perspiring freely as she struggled to give birth to her second child who appeared to be determined to give just as much trouble as the first child had done four years earlier.
A collective sigh of relief from the little group and a final push from the mother heralded the birth of a perfect baby boy. The smile on the new mother’s face said it all as she was handed the crying infant and suddenly all the effort and pain she had experienced in the birth was washed away in a flood of happiness.
The new father, who was anxiously patrolling the passageway outside the room, was called in at last and soon the little group of three with the baby at its centre was providing a delightful picture, if anybody had thought to bring a camera.
The Baby’s Grandparents, who were looking after the couple’s older son Peter, would be able to visit their new grandchild at a later and more appropriate time. The get-together for family and friends to celebrate the birth, as was the custom in the Simpson family, would be in the form of a tea party and laid out in buffet form and would be given at a later date when the mother was in a less delicate state.
It was some three weeks after the birth that the party became a reality and as promised it was an uproarious affair and was only interrupted and brought to an end when the guests were reminded that the new mother, although much improved in health still needed her rest.
The days that followed the birth and for several weeks after were filled with good wishes from visitors and congratulation cards flooded the letterbox. Alan and Sally Simpson were quite exhausted by the attention and were secretly glad when the rush of excitement amongst friends and neighbours began to wear off.
The new baby’s brother Peter heaved a sigh of relief and was glad that he would now be left alone to do his own thing without all that baby talk and could concentrate on cuddling his new kitten and baby rabbit that his daddy had given him for his birthday.
Peter was quite obsessed with his new pets and would play for hours ‘improving’ the rabbit hutch with his little tools and the kitten couldn’t get away to find any peace at all.
Peter would drive his mother mad with all the dirt on his clothes and the scratches that needed constant attention from the little bottle of iodine that was kept in the medicine cupboard.
A few months later everyone was invited to the Christening and the little house was once more cluttered with special guests and all the neighbourhood well-wishers who popped in afterwards to offer their congratulations. Leading up to the Christening and after much discussion and argument it had been decided that the baby would be named Herbert Alan.
The Alan bit was added as a sop to his father when that worthy protested that the long line of ancestors that had been graced with the name of Alan should at least be respected by keeping that name in living memory. And so Herbert Alan it was, but later, much to his mother’s chagrin, inevitably his name was shortened to Bert.
Everybody except his mother would always call him Bert and nothing that she could do or say could change the situation, despite her continuous pleas to the contrary. Therefore, Herbert became Bert and would answer to this diminutive at every phase in his life.
As a grown-up he would sign his name on every form as Bert Simpson and would laugh when he was forced to change it when the appropriate authority became aware of the discrepancy.
Growing up in those early years was a delight in Bert’s young life and he gloried in the attention given to him by his very young Uncle and Aunty; Jack and Rhoda.
Jack and Rhoda were the offspring of the return from the First World War by their father – Bert’s grandfather - who had tried to make-up in a very positive way for his years of abstinence whilst fighting the enemy; unfortunately a few years after demobilisation, he would die from the sickness he had picked up whilst fighting in the trenches.
Aunt Rhoda was 12 years older than Bert and was at an age when girls were particularly interested in babies especially when they gloried in a nephew who called them Aunty. Rhoda was delighted with the new baby and at every opportunity she would call round and pester Sally into letting her take him out.
During the school holidays Sally got to wonder whose baby he really was. Although Sally was grateful for much of the time and glad for the rest it afforded her she would have liked to refuse sometimes in order to have her beautiful new baby to herself.
Uncle Jack was only eight years old when Bert was born but was already a young tear-away and later when Bert was steady on his feet, would often drag that worthy and his brother away from Rhoda, under much protest from that young lady, to take them on one of his wild escapades.
Jack was looked up to as a bit of a hero by the two brothers and was especially worshiped by the awestruck Bert.
The effervescent Jack and his friends would take them to the local river nearly every day to search the banks for interesting artefacts.
The dead animals and birds they found were of particular interest to Jack because he fancied himself as a bit of a taxidermist and would try to sneak them indoors to practice on. However, under the watchful eye of his mum he soon found that this desire was well nigh impossible and could attract severe punishment as an eagle-eyed ever-present parent continuously thwarted him in his endeavour by wielding a very effective cane.
The tangled weeds and ever-present mud on the river-side were of particular pleasure to Bert who liked to get himself dirty as often as possible and a few hours of exploration of this and - even at his young age - climbing onto the boughs of the trees that overhung the water, soon deposited a fair amount of river and tree residue onto his very receptive person.
It was a wonder that the swaying boughs did not deposit the reckless children into the swift running water below. Every day Jack and his little group of friends would be in trouble for dragging their collective mess through the house and this would be in addition to Jack’s attempts to start a taxidermist business.
Jack’s mother would repair and patch and clean their clothes and apply sticking plasters where necessary and then send Bert and Peter home to an anxious mum as soon as possible. “Where have you been?” she would say in a panic stricken tone “And what have you been doing to yourselves?”
And then she would stand with her hands on her hips and say: “I suppose you’ve been out with your Uncle Jack again, I swear I’ll swing for that boy one day.”
Bert didn’t know quite what she meant by this but he knew that she wouldn’t hurt Jack and could detect that she was struggling to keep the laughter from her voice. The last straw was reached when Peter caught his finger in the spokes of his new bike while he was twirling the wheel around after mending a puncture. Before anything could be done, the whirling spokes had neatly cut the tip off of his index finger.
Luckily Sally had heard his screams and ran to scoop him up bodily and rush him to the accident department of the local Hospital where, fortunately, they were able to save the small piece of finger and sew it on again. The graft was successful but the tip had been slightly crooked when it was sewn on and would remain so for the rest of Peter’s life.
Not long after this disaster another one was experienced when a young greyhound that Bert’s father had purchased recently, suddenly shot through an open back-door and snatched Peter’s pet rabbit from its run in the garden and killed it before anyone could prevent the atrocity.
Life was dreadful within the Simpson family after this and the children never quite forgave their father or the dog for his brutal action. By and large, after this mishap, nothing else happened to mar Bert’s idyllic life until Granny Simpson met and married her second husband who proceeded to whisk her and his step-children away to a new house he had purchased for them on the outskirts of Clacton-on-sea.
Of course Sally and Alan missed the close proximity and shared companionship of the old folk and their children (The old folk would complain bitterly about being classed as old because they were only in their 40s anyway). But as a relatively young couple they w