Greg Stokes
Showing 1–8 of 18 results
A Pocketful of Memories: War Memories (Recollections and Stories) – Greg Stokes
"This 'Fifth Column' apparently consisted of Nazi sympathizers who infiltrated anywhere where information could be gathered, hence the slogans that were invented, 'Careless talk costs lives' and 'Walls have ears.'
From My War Memories by Sylvia Thomas
SYLVIA THOMAS was born and brought up in the west end of Dudley. She originally wrote her war memories for younger members of her own family in attempt to show them what it was like to live through the conflict. However, she went on to present the piece in schools. My War Memories has been on the Kates Hill Press website for a few years now and is one of the most frequently visited items.
TOSSIE PATRICK, author of A Pocketful of Memories - Blackheath, continues bringing the past to life with her recollections of the war as it affected the town, and a young women in work.
EDNA MITCHELL lived out in Wilnecote near Tamworth, very much a rural setting on the fringes of the west midlands conurbation. Much has been written about evacuees from their viewpoint. Edna recalls the evacuees coming to her community.
GREG STOKES has written two stories to accompany these recollections.
Greg spent many hours round at author CLARICE HACKETT’s house. Her husband Wilf used to tell a tale of the time he had to work all weekend in the war. THE LONG SHIFT is based on that tale.
In May 2006 Greg took IRENE M DAVIES, author of A Pocketful of Memories Rowley, to Birmingham to appear on the Carl Chinn Show. On the way back she told him of her time at the Button during the war. The story is reproduced here as LOCK OUT.
A Witness for Peace – Greg Stokes
Someone brought a blanket and covered him over. A man approached my mother, "Did you know the Americans bombed Libya last night?" She did not….
Following the bombing of targets in Libya by the USA in 1986, Dudley man Doug Stokes was murdered in Marrakesh by an Arab looking for Americans - an act reported across the globe as that of a "crazed knifeman running amok".
"A Witness For Peace" tells the real story in a powerfully written account which takes the reader through a working class life which ended in tragic death, through a stoic fight with intransigent insurers and indifferent politicians to an ultimate statement of hope for the future.
"A Witness for Peace" is a moving story at times angry and indignant, but not without flashes of humour. The work critically analyses the product of the media as well as describing their excesses in obtaining it; it tackles the issue of crime and insanity in a case where the culprit got away with it; and it examines the role of professionals in an expanding bereavement counselling industry. The conclusions are startling.
For a full synopsis of "A Witness For Peace" click here
Foreword by LENNY HENRY
Black Country Stories and Sketches – Greg Stokes
"I've had a basinful. Low wages, filthy conditions, while you lord it over us… er… me."
Rodney Tumeley in The Glorious Revolution
A colourfully written collection of 29 short stories and word sketches reflecting aspects of Black Country life, past, present, and future.
Includes the much admired "Christmas Card to Lev" in which the football fans of Dudley undertake to send greetings to the Russian goalkeeper who delighted the Molineux crowd in the 1950s; "The Minor and the Miner's Son" which takes the reader from the steps of Wembley 1968 to the bitter miner's strike of 1984; "The Glorious Revolution" set in the future when the only industrial workers left are in the heritage museums; the haunting "On Leave"; the hilarious "Baldwin's Monument"; the melancholy "Boy in the Basement"; "The Blue Teapot" recorded for people with visual impairment; and many more.
For full synopsis click here.
American Toilet Tissue & Schrodinger’s Pussy – Greg Stokes
Greg Stokes has had audiences in stitches with his comic short stories since he began performing them in 2005. At last, Doctor, The Grant, the Les and Sheila stories and many more are available in print!
Toilet tissue, to Brits its bog roll, to the Americans its an insult, arsewipe! Read how Les and Sheila Parkes, along with Les’s kid brother Des and his missus Steph tackle two arsewipe image rights attorneys from New York, and help one from another time zone!
Find out what happens when the Daleks come to Dudley in search of their arch foe the Doctor.
And what are those two Baggies fans doing going back in time to Kill Devil Hill to witness the Wright brothers’ first flight,,,
Erwin Schrodinger, find out who the hell he is, and how he really reconciled quantum mechanics with Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity with his famous equation... In Dudley!
Read how the world’s biggest particle accelerator is built under the Black Country and what happens when they find the elusive God Particle!
Finally, read The Procedure only if you are not of a nervous disposition. One of these doctor Johnnies has to introduce a camera into a chaps bladder, and there’s only one way in apparently...
Parental Advice: Contains some swearing, but no sex to speak of. Sorry. You’ll have to read Tried by Prejudice, some really serious shagging gets done in that...
20 stories, 128 pages packed with laughs.
A Pack Of Saftness – Greg Stokes
Gil had been standing on Fifth avenue unable to move for people.
"There's more than five bloody families here, kid," he'd told Gerry.
A Pack Of Saftness is a spoof detective novel set in a fictitious Black Country republic, independent of England, known affectionately as the BC. A Pack of Saftness introduces Inspector H McDonald - Riffy H - head of homicide of the BCPD.
The caper follows Riffy H as he pursues a serial killer who is wasting members of the local ecological group Green Henry like it is going out of fashion and the fact the local crime syndicate are involved in a cultural exchange with the New York mafia only clouds the issue.
A Pack Of Saftness, being part one of The Pantechnicon, is... a right ruddy pack of saftness.
Brierley Hills Cop – Greg Stokes
Set in the Black Country Republic, independent of England, Riffy H McDonald, most celebrated cop of the BCPD, is back in the second part of the Pantechnicon Trilogy.
Fresh from the plaudits of the Caprioni case told in the first novel A PACK OF SAFTNESS, Riffy H is mysteriously transferred from Homicide to Vice, and then suspended…
In seeing off the New York mob, the Black Country had become the fashionable place to be among the Hollywood elite. They move en masse from Beverley Hills to Brierley Hill where the locals add an S to the name to make them feel at home. American businessmen are even building a new theme park out near the Black Country International Airport. But what are they really up to…
Riffy H is on the case.
But will he find out in time…
Snowman 2 – Greg Stokes
Another hilarious comedy from Greg Stokes.
The wee lad who went walking in the air. We never learned his name, but it was Jimmy. Well, jimmy is now 18 and just out of therapy. all that walking talking snowman stuff was just unreal... or bollocks as we say in Dudley.
In Snowman 2 Jimmy has recently started work and is hoping to get off the mark with Fiona at the office Christmas party... Well, obsessed with getting off the mark with Fiona . Worried that things may drop off if he doesn't succeed, a heavy snow falls to dash his hopes...
Then an old friend turns up, and this time he's Scottish... and Father Christmas is a Scouser!!
Performed by Black Country Theatre
A Witness For Peace: Kindle Edition – Greg Stokes
Following the bombing of targets in Libya by the USA in 1986, Dudley man Doug Stokes was murdered in Marrakesh by an Arab looking for Americans - an act reported across the globe as that of a "crazed knifeman running amok".
"A Witness For Peace" tells the real story in a powerfully written account which takes the reader through a working class life which ended in tragic death, through a stoic fight with intransigent insurers and indifferent politicians to an ultimate statement of hope for the future.
"A Witness for Peace" is a moving story at times angry and indignant, but not without flashes of humour. The work critically analyses the product of the media as well as describing their excesses in obtaining it; it tackles the issue of crime and insanity in a case where the culprit got away with it; and it examines the role of professionals in an expanding bereavement counselling industry. The conclusions are startling.
Foreword by Lenny Henry