MATHEWSONS ARE THE BUSINESS!

If you have watched Bangers and Cash on TV’s Yesterday you will know what I mean. I am about to have dealings with them (So – if classic vehicles are not your thing, then switch off now…)

Still with me? Previously, my blog posts have been mainly about writing. I am a published author. I am also a retired chartered engineer and engineering geologist. My writing was interrupted by Covid – not because I caught it (I did. But luckily, unlike tens of thousands of others, it was relatively minor) but because my writing suffered because I did 95% of my writing in coffee shops. Understandably, that came to an end.

Not only do I love writing, I love restoring old motorbikes. Well, I used to. I suppose that like all good things, favourite pastimes come to an end. Been there, done that (haven’t got the T-shirt, but my son and grandson bought me one with Honda on it – they couldn’t find one with Triumph. Obviously not TOMCC* members).

So what’s all this about Mathewsons? Well, they are a family of auctioneers based in Thornton-le-Dale in East Yorkshire (known as the East Riding when I was a boy. I am a Yorkshire lad, but not since I was around 2 years old). WW2 was in full swing and the port of Hull was definitely not the place to be for a mum and her baby boy.

Not only do Mathewsons auction classic cars, they also auction motorcycles. I have four to sell. The sale is scheduled for May 1st and 2nd, and for me it’s going to be an emotional separation – no, more like a divorce – from four much loved bikes – particularly the three I stripped down to the last nut and bolt and rebuilt (over twenty or so years and at great expense. Well, that’s what you do with hobbies, isn’t it?).

The auction is scheduled for 1st & 2nd May (2024). In the unlikely event that you are interested, or know someone who might be, I am about to list details of the four bikes, complete with photos. If you have read as far as this despite not being the slightest bit interested in classic motorbikes, then thank you. I promise I won’t do it again.

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1969 500cc Triumph T100P Mercury

The Triumph Mercury is a little-known model produced by Triumph for the police and military. It was based on the Triumph T100S, but with 7:1 ratio pistons instead of 9:1. Research shows that this is possibly an ex-City of London police bike. I can’t prove that, but in 1969 the Triumph Meriden works supplied this bike to dealers Harvey Owen in London. In the same year, Harvey Owen supplied the CoL police with several Triumph 500cc bikes.

I bought it in 2003 and stripped and rebuilt it. I spent around £3000 on parts and fettling (that’s around £6,000 today, how stupid was that?). It has new (9:1) pistons, a reground crankshaft, new valve guides, valves and non-leaded fuel seats. Also a new SRM clutch assembly, quick-detachable rear wheel, all bearings, seals and bushes. New stainless steel bolts were used wherever practicable. The mileage on the speedometer is 17,403. It has travelled less than 100 miles since the rebuild. This is an awesome beast of a bike and I shall miss it! Note: Slight paint run on tank. I scratched the paint, so had to repaint the tank two days before I sent the bike it to Mathewsons. No time to check and buff out the run!

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1961 500cc Triumph 5TA Speed Twin

This is the ex-Bristol Police bike ridden by me in the early 1960s during my ten years in the force. I bought it 2006 and completely rebuilt it to its original appearance. All the original radios were destroyed by the Home Office, so mine is a faithful replica that is modelled on police photos. The bike now has a new 12-volt Sparks alternator, a Morgo oil pump, new wheels, new seat, an Avon screen, twin spark ignition and 12 volt ‘Power Box’ electrics. The speedo was reconditioned (by H.Woods) and the mileage reset to zero. Since the rebuild, completed in 2018, the bike has done less than 200 miles. Latest: Mathewsons auction video – they have trouble starting this bike. Turn on ignition, open fuel tap, flood carb with ‘tickler’ and kick over with throttle closed. This is Amal’s recommended procedure for monobloc carbs. (Don’t use the choke/air valve, it’s useless on these bikes).

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1953 123cc BSA D1 Bantam

This bike was exported to New Zealand in the mid-1950s and returned to the UK around 2000. I bought it in 2005 and stripped it, rebuilt it, and converted it to 12 volt electrics. It has been stored (unused) in a dry garage since the rebuild. When the bike was first registered in the UK in 2005, by the last previous owner, the speedo read 873 miles. Since my restoration it has done less than 50 miles. Recently the speedo was reconditioned (by H.Woods) and the mileage reset to zero.

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2002 125cc Honda CG125

This is a genuine 172 mile bike. It was first bought for commuting by a businessman in Bath. He didn’t like riding in city traffic so he dry stored it, in a brand new garage, for four years. I bought it in 2006 for my son, who, soon after, became unable to ride it due to injury from a physical assault. The bike has been dry stored since 2007 and is almost as good as new. It is an absolute bargain. Where else can you buy a 2002 125cc Honda that has been ridden only 172 miles?

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*Triumph Owners Motorcycle Club

TOP REVIEWS FOR “THE MAN WHO PLAYED TRAINS”

I have republished my novel “The Man Who Played Trains” because my publisher, Urbane Publications, has ceased trading. Paperback and Kindle versions are available on Amazon –

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07WCYTS3W

The Urbane version was a last minute publisher’s rush job that went out improperly proofed, with typos. My reissue has rectified these minor imperfections. Despite these, the novel received eighteen 5-star reviews!

Unfortunately Amazon cannot copy these reviews over from their old Urbane page. I have repeated them here:

Top reviews from United Kingdom

Mark Slaney

5.0 out of 5 stars Seriously good

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 August 2017

This is a seriously good read. The narrative set in the last days of the Second World War from the German perspective is thoroughly convincing and the characters very well crafted. The sections of the book set in the present day far north of Scotland are spot on too – I’ve lived there. The word count is high but the skilful plot construction and narrative flow makes for a really good read. The ending was not what I expected; it was better than the possible endings I’d anticipated. There’s a lot of thought and substance in this book and I found it a hugely satisfying story from the first page to the very last.

——————–

Nigel Adams

5.0 out of 5 stars A throwback to the style of Hammond Innes and early Robert Ludlum. Loved it.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 June 2017

The Man Who Played Trains. Richard Whittle
The style of writing, and the story, took me back to my days reading Hammond Innes and early Robert Ludlum in the late 70’s early 80’s. Grown up boys own stories. Stories of ordinary men pushed into unusual circumstances in subtle ways that are totally realistic.
In the modern day Mining engineer, and consultant, John Spargo, receives a phone call to tell him his mother is in hospital. Rushing to her bedside he finds she has been beaten up in a home raid. Sadly she dies and John sets out to find out what the person that raided her house was after. The house is in the little run down mining village of Kilcreg, a cul-de-sac town on the Scottish coast. The town used to have a mine, run by Spargo’s father, but since it closed there has been no work and the elderly population wouldn’t be responsible for the attack.

Meanwhile in 1944 a German U-boat captain, Theodore Volker is trying to get home to see his young son. He is a good man whose wife had been killed during an air raid, he looks after his crew, and speaks his mind about the state of the German war effort, and the way they are beginning to lose the war.
When Volker is confronted on a train, by a stranger, and taken to a Luftwaffe base in Berlin, it becomes obvious he is being recruited for a secret mission. A mission to the UK.
As things start to gather pace Sparo’s daughter is kidnapped and he takes on his own mission, to find his daughter and discover why his mother was killed, by who, and why.
It’s no supplies that the happenings during the end of World War 2 are connected with the happenings in modern day Scotland, but how.
This book blends the two story-lines together in an intriguing novel that has been an absolute pleasure to read.

This style of book has gone missing over the last few years in favour of unrealistic adventure thrillers. It’s good to have it back

Thank you Richard Whittle.

——————–

Kate

5.0 out of 5 stars The Man Who Played With Trains – Review

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 December 2017

One look at the description of this book was all it took for my interest to be piqued, I love WWII thrillers and anything that involves a bit of espionage, secrets and danger is always going to grab me!

Set over two timelines, The Man Who Played With Trains is a very cleverly written novel. There is the story of John Spargo set in the present day, the tragic death of his mother following a horrific attack in her home has left him utterly distraught. And whilst he is putting her affairs in order and sorting through her belongings he discovers a collection of journals written in German. But this is only the beginning of the problems for John, his daughter is kidnapped and he must work out who killed his mother and why as well as find his daughter Jez.
Running parallel to this is the story of Theodore Volker, a German U-boat captain during WWII. Theodore is a good man and good captain, he cares about his crew and doesn’t hold back when speaking his mind. On his way home to be reunited with his young son he meets a stranger on a train who recruits him for a secret mission in the UK.

The writing is brilliant, you get a great sense of the settings and the characters with the great descriptions. Although I initially felt more drawn to Theodore’s story, as the pace picked up I found that my attention was being drawn back to John in current day, and despite this being quite a hefty read it’s thrilling and exciting right the way through. I particularity enjoyed seeing how the two timelines ran alongside each other, and it made this a very enjoyable read. The plotting is clever and well thought out, its apparent from the details woven into the story that time and care has been taken to ensure that readers get a feeling of authenticity and feel immersed in the story.

Highly recommended for fans of historical fiction, mysteries and thrillers!

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GinaK

5.0 out of 5 stars A thoroughly enjoyable read……

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 June 2017

I bought The Man Who Played Trains to read to my Dad, who has Alzheimer’s, hoping the subject and setting would ignite a spark of interest for reading again. It did this and more. I watched his head nod slowly as he remembered his passion for WWII stories, the words bringing back memories of his own childhood and his recognition of the modern tale that is cleverly woven together along with his excitement of becoming immersed in the mystery and intrigue.
I thoroughly enjoyable read, from Dad…and me!

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Caroline

5.0 out of 5 stars A cleverly plotted, gripping thriller!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 March 2018

‘The Man Who Played Trains’ is a cleverly plotted thriller, spanning half a century with its two tales – one set in WWII, where U Boot captain Theodor Volker has no idea what he is getting into when a high ranking officer seems to take an unusual interest in him. The other is set in the present, introducing John Spargo, a man without a clue to the precariousness of the situation he is about to encounter… his daughter, Jez, desperately tries to make her father see sense but little does she know the dangers lying before them…

I love this gripping thriller, I only wished I had not read the blurb previously as it gives something away which it should not have. That having said, it was a fascinating story in which the intricate plot moves forward and back in time: we find ourselves at the end of WWII with U-Boot commander Theodor Volker, when the Nazi’s are desperate to either get away themselves or to ‘relocate’ the treasures they stole, as well as in the current days with Spargo and his daughter, Jez. I loved Jez, the author has created such a strong, intelligent and feisty character in her. Even her father is lost without her! Their bond is strong and it is the backbone of this gripping thriller – I could easily picture them in real life.

Imagine ‘The Man Who Played Trains’ to be made into a film? Old mines in rural Scotland set against the history of the fall of the Third Reich with a little bit of sunny Spain in between, with several plotlines cunningly woven together. There were a few scenes.. I could easily picture them on the big screen (I cannot go into this as it would give away the plot but they would make for action-packed and gripping scenes, set against the dangers of nature!). ‘The Man that Played Trains,’ is an intriguing and engrossing story combining a whodunit with historical facts and fiction and dark criminals and devious organisations with a treasure hunt whilst the red thread consists of a poignant family history.

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Jacob Collins

TOP 1000 REVIEWER

5.0 out of 5 stars A gripping read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 June 2017

The Man Who Played Trains is the gripping new novel from Richard Whittle. I don’t usually read this type of book but I found it a really enjoyable read. If you’re a fan of crime and if you’re interested in the Second World War I would definitely recommend this book.

The novel is told across two timelines, in the present day and towards the tail end of World War Two. In the beginning of the novel we meet John Spargo whose mother has just died after a horrific attack leaving Spargo distraught. Whilst searching his mother’s property he uncovers a collection of old journals written in German and he wonders if the journals have a connection to what happened to his mother. We also encounter Theodore Volker in Germany, a German U-boat captain in the Second World War. Theodore is desperately trying to reach his son who is living with his grandparents. On his journey he is reunited with an old friend of his and is soon caught up in a dangerous situation which he has little control of.

I felt as though I really connected with the characters in this book. I found Theodore’s story slightly more interesting than John’s but towards the end of the book, John’s story picks up pace. I really wanted Theodore to be reunited with his son and I liked how Richard built up tension in his story as he made the journey there, particularly when he met up with his old friend. There were some surprising twists in this book which I didn’t see coming.

I really liked how Richard pulled the two timelines together in this very intricate and intelligently plotted plot. A really enjoyable read, thank you to Richard for sending me a copy to review.

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Mark Knowles

5.0 out of 5 stars Very clever page-turner

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 January 2018

Despite being a veteran of many thrillers, I still made the mistake of wondering where the author was going with the opening description of Spargo’s troubling dreams and whether or not I was going to care enough to get to the end. I’m certainly glad that I did because I really did not see the story returning to these visions in the very moving way that it did. Yes, it takes a few pages to get going and really to grab your attention but it is well worth the engagement. The dual narrative – not always easy to read and a real pig to write effectively – was woven into the modern narrative intricately and very intelligently. I note that it took the author a fair while to settle upon rendering the scenes set at the close of WW2 into the vivid present but I think he made the correct decision. It varies the tone and pace very nicely and creates tension throughout as the reader steps blindly – and simultaneousy – into the same dicey situations as does the U boat commander Theo Volker. The two narratives converge at express pace as the story moves towards its gripping climax and I did have problems putting the book down until well into the night. Also, as a former cop myself I was glad that he police procedural elements were plausible and well observed but not at all distracting or overplayed (as they can sometimes be in this genre). Because this book combines elements of a detective-led whodunnit, historical fiction and WW2 material, not to mention a healthy dose of conspiracy theory, it casts a broad appeal.

My only gripe is with the editing of the text: there are quite a few omissions of single words and one or two misspellings (e.g. ‘feint’ for ‘faint’).  Fortunately, these don’t notably impede the story: I only had to re-read two sentences to ensure I had the sense right. That said, the proofreader might have done a slightly better job because the book is otherwise nicely presented. This is the only factor preventing a full 5… 
4.8 * for a hugely satisfying page-turner! 

Richard replied – Sorry about the typos etc, Mark. Unfortunately Urbane published an incomplete and unproofed version.

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daniel stubbings

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy this book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 July 2017

This book is a delicious blend of modern meets the past, in a gripping thriller that will have you begging for more. It not often after 500 plus pages I am screaming for a book not to end but this book had me from the first page. Set against the backdrop of the dark conspiracies of world war 2. This book can be enjoyed by both crime and history lovers alike. Mystery and drama just ooze off the page and I cannot put it down. I just loved it

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b a

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent thriller

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 August 2017

The best novel I have read for a long time. John Spargo, mine engineer, is drawn into a story which started in Germany at the end of World War 2. The plot moves back and forth in time revealing the machinations of powerful SS officers, and modern day underworld dealers in a ruthless search of the stolen art that the Nazis had hidden away.
The tale of how ordinary good people both suffered and sometimes survived these awful times plays a major part in Spargo’ s unravelling discoveries.

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THE MAN WHO PLAYED TRAINS RECEIVED ANOTHER SEVEN, 5-STAR, SHORTER REVIEWS.

Cutting my own hair

I never thought I would be blogging about hair. It’s my own fault, I should have visited my barber before social distancing started. As usual, I left my (intended) visit to him as long as possible. It was a decision I have since regretted.

So… I bought an electric trimmer, on line. To be sure it wouldn’t fall apart I bought a good one, a pricey one. It came with instructions I can only describe as basic (see diagram), instructions that deal mainly with trimming beards and nose hair, problems that are of little concern to me.

To be fair, the instructions are written in thirteen different languages. Which means that thirteen different nationalities will be as baffled as I am.

I have some experience of cutting my own hair. By that, I don’t mean good experience, or professional experience. Back in my thirties (I don’t mean the nineteen-thirties, I am not that old) I travelled internationally for work. Being unable to speak any language other than English, and therefore unsure about having my hair cut in, for example, Togo, Ethiopia or Sudan, I bought a small trimmer, a non-electric one that consisted of a scarily sharp razor blade sandwiched between two pieces of white plastic. Somehow I mastered it. Perhaps, back then, people were less fussy about hair than they are now. Or was it just me?

Then things went wrong. With an overconfident and overenthusiastic swipe of the thing I shaved right down to my head. Not all of it, but a very noticeable patch above my right ear (don’t look at the photo to see it. No way would I have photographed myself after what I did that day – the photo is simply to show you how thick my hair was back then).

I panicked. I had an important meeting the next day. At the time I was on the UK Department of Energy’s Geothermal Energy Steering Committee, a meeting I didn’t want to miss. In desperation I painted the bald patch above my ear with my wife’s mascara. That wouldn’t have worked these days. Back then, with my dark hair, it seemed to do the trick.

The disguise was so effective that I forgot all about it – until, well into the meeting, I decided to scratch my head. It itched, just above my right ear. I didn’t notice the mascara on my fingers until I saw what appeared to be black ink, all over the Department’s briefing notes. I don’t recall anything else about the meeting. I was too concerned about hiding my right hand. And the briefing notes.

All seems well today. I Googled “hair trimming men” and then clicked on “videos”. There are plenty of hints and tips there. I suppose the greatest challenge was to actually switch on the trimmer and watch what looked like handfulls of hair fall to the ground around me. I do have a problem cutting the left and right sides of my head. I can’t do it with my glasses on, and I can’t see what I’m doing with them off.

 

 

GROUND RULES Blog Tour

Until this year I didn’t really know what a Blog Tour was. For my last novel, The Man Who Played Trains, a very nice blogger posted her review and my guest post on her blog. This year it is happening again for my latest novel, GROUND RULES – except that this time there will be twelve bloggers, posting their reviews and my answers to their questions – something I enjoyed doing, despite not being that keen about writing about myself!

The tour starts on 11th May. Thanks to –

Portable Magic | booksbehindthetitle | PuzzlePaws blog | Books’n’banter | Jessica Belmont | B for Bookreview | Hooked From Page One | Beneath A Thousand Skies | Avonna Loves Genres | A Lot of Pages | donnasbookblog | The Magic of Wor(l)ds | #prdgreads | Curled Up With A Good Book

You can read the first few pages of GROUND RULES on Amazon CLICK HERE

NOT Corona Virus….

Back in the day we had no radios, just ‘police pillars’, special emergency phone boxes with orange flashing lights on top. When they flashed, the beat police officer (usually on foot or on a bicycle) answered them. Some forces had police boxes (like Dr Who, but without the spacious interior and abilty to travel through time). Officers lucky enough to have these Dr Who boxes (now turned into tiny coffee dispensing stations in cities like Edinburgh) could unlock them and step inside for a warm or a sit-down. We had pillars, like those in the photos. No sitting down for us. In bad weather we simply froze. Or got soaked.

But I am deviating from Corona.  Corona, back then, wasn’t Mexican beer or a virus, it was a fizzy drink, delivered in glass bottles by lorry (in a similar way to delivered milk) by the Corona man.

The day the Corona lorry exploded – yes, that’s what this is about – I answered one of these police pillars. I was on the beat, riding one of our station’s many upright, gearless push-bikes (the one with gears was reserved solely for use by the duty inspector, who never rode bicycles anyway, because he had the Inspector’s Car, an unmarked, black Morris Minor). The message passed to me via the pillar was that ‘something had happened to a lorry’, outside a row of shops I knew well. 

The message was wrong. Something hadn’t happened to the lorry, it was still happening. I arrived after pedalling fast, expecting a road accident but encountering one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen. An orange Corona lorry, loaded with thousands of bottles of drink in hundreds of orange coloured crates (unlike the one in the photo, which looks almost empty) was blasting away like bangers on bonfire night, fizzy lemonade foaming across the road and running down drains. Every few seconds another lemonade bottle burst, triggering machine-gun-like bursts of bottles as flying glass from one bottle burst others close by. Then silence. Then another ripple of bangs as more bottles exploded.

I have neglected to say that it was a very, very hot day. I stood with the Corona man, a safe distance away from the carnage. ‘Never had this happen before,’ he said. Probably the understatement of the year. It took a while for things to calm down and for the crowd that had gathered to drift slowly away. We borrowed brooms from one of the shops (one whose window blew out in an explosion a few months later, but that is another story) and we swept the broken glass into a large pile.  

It was, I now realise, the nearest thing I got to a chain reaction until I had a trip around the nuclear power station at Oldbury on Severn, ten years later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Motorbikes – my Triumphs!

For the few motorbike fans that I have (and I do understand if you are not one of them) here is my 1960 triumph T100A, photographed back in the day when I still lived with my parents.

The other bike, the red one, is the police bike I usually rode. Ten years ago, in a moment of madness, I found it and bought it, stripped it right down to its parts and rebuilt it, bit by bit. Having done all that, I am thinking of selling it. I just don’t have the room for it. Sad but true!

True Tale – BACK FROM THE DEAD?

‘He’s dead! There’s no way he could still be alive under there!’

It was only three miles away but it was an emergency, a road accident at roadworks on a remote country road on the outskirts of the city – and believed to be fatal. Against a strong headwind it would take at least thirty minutes to cycle there. The police station’s motorbike, an unwieldy ten-year old monster fitted with a heavy radio on its rear, was not available. Nor could we persuade the force traffic department to send out a patrol car. The only transport available at the police station were police bicycles – big black heavy-duty things with no gears.

I kitted up in motorcycle gear and wheeled out my own bike. Five minutes later I rounded a blind bend on a narrow, winding road flanked by high hedges and encountered the road accident (encountered is probably the best way to describe my emergency braking to avoid the back end of a huge, stationary truck).

I soon realised that this accident was very different from the usual two-car smash. Firstly, had the truck not been there, I would have plunged into a metre-deep trench dug in the road. Secondly, there were no cars to be seen.

An ambulance arrived from the opposite direction and pulled up at the far end of the roadworks. The trench I would have ridden into was short, and completely covered by the stationary truck that straddled it. Workmen ran to me. That’s when I heard the He’s dead bit. I did the usual things, got the workman with the red and green STOP/GO sign to stand around the bend to stop anyone coming around it and then facing what I had faced. Then the true-to-life version of the  “Hello, hello, what’s going on here then…” so beloved of comedians of the time. “What happened?” usually does it.

The only casualty I could see was the truck driver, not physically injured but obviously distressed. He had seen the road works signs, he said. He had braked hard, come around the bend, and then seen the trench with a workman standing in it. Unable to stop, he’d driven right over the man.

Because the trench was covered by the truck there was no way to get into it. One of the men had tried to squeeze underneath but had failed, saying he had seen his colleague lying dead in the trench. The driver didn’t want to back the truck off the trench because that would be disturbing the scene. I made him reverse it.

There was indeed a man lying in the bottom of the trench, with a pickaxe and shovel beside him. He didn’t lie there for much longer though, because when he heard the roar of the truck’s engine he stood up, nursing his head.

It took a while to work out what had happened. These were the days before compulsory hard hats. The very second before the truck came to a stop over him he’d ducked down to shovel dirt. When he stood up straight to see why the world had gone dark, he hit his head on the truck’s engine and knocked himself out.

The ambulance crew treated the workman for concussion – he had a lump on the back of his head the size of half an egg. They wanted to take him away to be looked at but he refused, saying he would lose a day’s pay.

 

 

 

 

True Tale – INVISIBLE WIRE

‘Possible housebreaking, top end of Long Cross. CID on the way but delayed. Can you attend?’

I noted the details, replaced the radio handset and kick-started my motorbike. The house wasn’t that far away, I could be there in less than five minutes. A quiet approach was needed, no point letting an intruder know you are on your way (not that we had blue lights or nee-naw horns on our bikes back then. The road traffic department superintendent believed that his officers’ riding and driving skills should be so good that they didn’t need such things). I approached the house, switched off the engine, coasted down the hill and put the bike on its stand.

It doesn’t take detective training to know that on busy streets like this one, burglars tend to break into the backs of houses rather than the fronts. This house was semi-detached, so instead of going to the front door I walked down the path at the side. All windows, and the front and back doors, were closed. There was no sign of a break-in. By the time I’d returned to the front of the house, the lady who’d phoned us was there, standing in the doorway. “More things have gone missing,” she said. “It’s just like last time.”

The more questions I asked, the more I realised that there was no evidence of anyone else having been in the house. The lady lived on her own and had mislaid things. Unable to find them, her only explanation was that someone had broken in and stolen them. I checked with neighbours. They confirmed that though she was generally a level-headed person, she was very forgetful.

I did my best to console her but she remained unconvinced. Then CID arrived, an experienced officer twice my age. He had been there before, he said, several times. Like me, he was convinced there was no break-in. When the losses mounted up she phoned-in, convinced she’d been burgled.

“Help me,” he said. “We’ll wire the place up…”

The only way to describe what happened next is to say that we mimed unreeling rolls of wire and tucking it behind the sitting room picture rails – that room and the kitchen only, because these were the rooms where things tended to go missing. My colleague convinced her that we were trying out a new device that would call the police if a stranger entered her house. It was invisible so the intruder wouldn’t see it. When we had finished wiring the rooms she insisted that we also did her downstairs windows and doors. I felt bad about it. I didn’t like deceiving people.

It was around a year later when the duty inspector called me into his office. He looked puzzled. It was in the days before computer records and he’d been looking through old journals. ‘Last November,’ he said. ‘You attended a break-in at Long Cross. Would you care to tell me about it?’  I could see that this particular bit of writing, an entry in a daybook, had my name against it (being able to read text from all angles is an asset that I probably learned during my time with the police). He also had a handwritten letter, addressed to the force’s Chief Constable. He read part of it out to me. It went something like this:

“… the man has not been back to the house since your officer came. I am sure there will be no more burglaries so I no longer need your invisible wire. Please will you send the officer to take it down so it can be used again somewhere else.”

“Invisible wire?” he said. “Care to explain?” I explained as best as I could, wondering if there would be disciplinary action of some kind. There wasn’t. “Better get on with it then,” he said.

“Sir? Get on with it?”

“You heard what she wrote. She wants you to take it down so it can be used again.”

I did what I was told. On my own this time, with the woman watching, I mimed going around the rooms, reaching up, coiling invisible wire over my arm as if coiling rope. Then I did the windows and doors. It felt like some kind of punishment and I still feel guilty about it. I suppose I shouldn’t. Because it worked.

GROUND RULES – Cover Release!

 

Here is the final cover for my latest novel GROUND RULES.

An alternative, black & white version was described as ‘rather scary’ and ‘not colourful enough’, so I decided on this one. I hope to get a proof copy of GROUND RULES back to me by the end of January, so hopefully a paperback will be in print (and also a Kindle version) during February.

A big thanks to all those reviewers that said they liked forensic geologist Jessica (Jez) Spargo. Because of you she has a whole novel to herself!

The Man Who Played Trains

I am relaunching THE MAN WHO PLAYED TRAINS

Why have I done this? Because my latest novel, shortly to be available on Amazon, is GROUND RULES, featuring Jez Spargo, the feisty forensic geologist from The Man Who Played Trains.

Feisty, because that’s what one reveiwer called her – “I loved Jez, the author has created such a strong, intelligent and feisty character in her. Even her father is lost without her! Their bond is strong and it is the backbone of this gripping thriller – I could easily picture them in real life.”

This one comment led me to write GROUND RULES.

— OOO —

Two of the many 5- and 4-star reviews of The Man Who Played Trains:

‘GROUND RULES’ by Richard Whittle will be available on Amazon in Spring 2020