Mike Williams

Grubdale was such a nice, quiet town before the witches came. Not your average witches with gum disease and chins like a bog brush, but thoroughly modern, respectable witches in tweeds and sensible shoes.They've arrived from a small planet a jiggle to the left and a tiny bit down from the buckle on Orion's Belt, and now all hell has broken loose. There are rats setting fire to the town, giant rats that'd be up and through your undercarriage like a doctor's thermometer. The dead and dripping are off for an evening stroll, while overlooking the town at Grubdale Towers, Rowena Carp and Bethesda Chubb are throwing seagull after seagull high into the air to find help.The problem is the prince. Now that Tarantulus Spleen - evil sorcerer with a face like a bluebottle - has discovered the poor boy's hiding place, he's sent his henchmen back through space and time to kill him. Only the Stately Wyrms of England can save the boy, but they've got more pressing concerns than rescuing a snotty little prince - making ickle bitty baby dragons being one of them, if only the Red Wyrm of Wales would wake up and do the business.The Allure of the Red Wyrm - the final part of 'The Trouble with Wyrms' trilogy. The comedy continues...

It's England in 1912 and a group of middle-aged women are causing havoc in the quiet Derbyshire village of Sodden-on-the-Bog.'They're not from round 'ere, ' as one villager whispered, and indeed they're not. These ladies are from a distant planet, a touch to the left and a little bit down from Orion's Belt. They've been given strict orders to find the Stately Wyrms of England, but have discovered sun, sangria and Suffragettes instead. There's the teeniest tiniest problem of them being mistaken for German spies too, not to mention being chased by giant rats who've taken over the village pub.'Lavender and Haddock' - the first of a comedy trilogy recounting the exploits of a group of witches in their search for peace, love and a good gin and tonic.

Grubdale in the year 1912 - a quaint Victorian town nestled high among the sheep and turnips of Northern England, boasting a regiment of Rifles, the Zoological Gardens and the most expensive and grandest of hotels this side of the viaduct, The Alpine Palace. But all is not as it seems. The Alpine Palace is overflowing with German spies and the latest addition to the Zoological Gardens is eating its way through the rest of the exhibits, breathes fire when it sneezes and is demanding to be called 'Your Majesty' when spoken to. All of this is nothing to the goings-on at Grubdale Towers, a school for orphans where a bad tin of sardines has created a vacancy on the staff for a certain witch and her pink 'poodle' to teach 'explosions' to horrid little boys. While the Sisterhood continue their search for the Stately Wyrms of England, Rowena Carp must guard the last Prince of Wyrm and keep his identity a secret from the other boys at the school. Educating Creatures - the second part of 'The Trouble with Wyrms' Trilogy - the comedy continues.

Starting with the dawn of what we would recognise as modern human thought, this book journeys through 35,000 years of our human past. It shows how our earliest ancestors learnt to enter trance states and the revolutionary effect this had on the way they interacted with their world. Moreover, by marrying the very latest research with vivid first-person reconstructions, the book will actually take readers back in time. In its pages we join Stone Age hunting parties, steal food from desperate, starving cannibals, sit eye-to-eye with a mouldy Bronze Age mummy and join the Celts for a feast where you truly are what you eat. The story of our past has never been told this way before and has never been brought to life with such vividness. This is the past as our ancestors would have known it.

Bridport is an industrial market town on the west Dorset coast which has played a pivotal role in the region's hemp and flax industry for over 700 years. The industrial heritage of this town is not widely known outside the area and very little has been published on the regional and national significance of Bridport. Hemp and flax was traditionally grown locally and used for the production of cordage, netting and sailcloth: this industry expanded from the 18th century onwards with the construction of new mills and warehouses along with the continued use of traditional rope and twine walks, creating a highly distinctive range of building types.