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Taken Over – John Summerton
One day, Alistair Carne will win a bet…
One day, he does…
And that’s the day he has bet he can spend the night in a mental health institution and succeeded. Getting in? Easy peasy! So getting back out again the next day to collect his winnings will surely be simplicity itself…
But this is the 21st Century Britain where simplicity itself is off the menu...
Follow Alistair Carne’s fortunes as he seeks to escape the Kafkaesque nightmare of his own making in John Summerton’s hilarious debut novel.
At turns moving and poignant, but brilliantly funny throughout, a story unfolds in which the lunatics really have TAKEN OVER the asylum.
Lamp Tavern Live – Tickets – Chris Bevington Organistation – Friday 22nd May 2020
We welcome the magnificent Chris Bevington Organisation back to the Lamp Tickets 10.00 Your tickets will be available for collection on the door on the night of the gig. If you would like to receive them through the post, please … Continued
Lamp Tavern Live – Tickets – Big Wolf Band – Friday 13th March 2020
We welcome Big Wolf Band back to the Lamp for our March gig. Tickets £8.00 Your tickets will be available for collection on the door on the night of the gig. If you would like to receive them through the … Continued
Lamp Tavern Live – Tickets – Triple J Trio – Friday 11th September 2020
Our second September gig sees us welcome to the Lamp Triple J Trio featuring Jeff Rich of Status Quo fame. Tickets £8.00 Your tickets will be available for collection on the door on the night of the gig. If you … Continued
A Music Box of Tranklements
To date the Kates Hill Press has published over 50 books by 30 different authors. The project to provide a platform for West Midlands writers continues with this new book Music Box of Tranklements. It came about after a suggestion by S.G Grey one night that the Kates Hill Press should produce an anthology of works by its authors. In 2014 Barry Harper sent in a piece about the music scene in London in the 1960s. Greg Stokes thought of one of his own old stories and of his conversation with Steve Grey. He asked the Kates Hill Press authors for pieces about music, musicians or youth culture. Encouraged by the response, Music Box of Tranklements has been the result. The collection introduces three new authors; Barry Harper, Neil Morris, and Joanne Webster.
This collection includes stories, poems, songs and plays taking the reader across the music scenes of London, Liverpool and the West Midlands as well as glimpsing life on the road. Music Box of Tranklements is testimony to the depth and range of talent among West Midlands authors.
More books in the Tranklements series will follow, and more new writers.
Industrial Biography – The Black Country Chapters – Samuel Smiles
Samuel Smiles’ Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers was first published in 1863. In this volume are the chapters on the lives of Dud Dudley and Andrew Yarranton which will be of particular interest to anyone with an interest in Black Country history.
That Dud Dudley claimed to have invented the means of smelting iron from sea coal is fairly widely known. Details of his life are more obscure. His capture by parliamentarians during the civil war, and his daring escape on the eve of his scheduled execution are described here.
Andrew Yarranton was an iron founder who set up a furnace using Forest of Dean ironstone at Worcester, a project only possible because of the river Severn, but he is best remembered as a navigation engineer. He saw the potential in making the Stour navigable down to the Severn to in effect open up the Black Country. His project ultimately failed and it was a hundred years before the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal made a water connection to the region a reality. Andrew Yaranton’s life and visionary endeavours are described in detail.
A Pocketful of Memories: Rowley (Milestones of Memory) – Irene M Davies
"Once, houses, cottages, villas, all nesting cheek by jowl with one another in disorderly array and reaching out from the Church down the hill to the Sir Robert Peel pub was officially Rowley Village"
IRENE M DAVIES describes her childhood and youth in the village of Rowley. Written originally for her family as “Milestones of Memory” she set out to record a place and lifestyle that would otherwise be lost forever. In so doing, a vivid picture emerges of people and pass times; through Christmas and bonfire night, Rowley Wake and the chapel the Rowley of the 1920s is brought back to life.
Echoes of Foiano Di Valfortore – Billy Spakemon and Angelo Guidotti
1955:
Foiano Di Valfortore, a backwater in the Italian province of Benevento, where men toil in fields on picturesque hillsides to eek out a living.
Oldbury, in the heart of the Black Country, where men toiled night and day in smoky factories to maintain the post war boom.
Echoes of Foiano Di Valfortore tells of Guido Guidotti’s journey from the rolling hills of his forefathers to the rolling mills of the Black Country, a region which at first seem satanic, but will ultimately become a new home and provide a new life for his family.
The Black Country, formed and forged over two centuries by the determination of families from th’off to come in and work in the industries..
Top Black Country poet Billy Spakemon joins Guido’s son, Angelo Guidotti to tell a tale of Black Country Italians, proud of their new land but for whom, there will always be Echoes of Foiano Di Valfortore