William Forde

I grew up on my mother's stories. Although an Irish woman of small stature and imaginative mind, stories didn't come any 'taller' than those tales told by my mother. They would stretch the bounds of one's credulity beyond the realms of possibility, and yet, she always made me 'want to believe them'. I have taken the germ of her fact and added a bit of my fiction with a dash of author licence. This seventh volume of 'Tales from Portlaw' tells about the life and times of Liam Lafferty. It is a story involving being reared without the benefit of parents, a life of hard work and a marriage with one's first love. The story also touches upon bereavement and its effects within the life of various family members. The tale is a story of hope for the future in the life of any good person.

I grew up on my mother's stories. Although an Irish woman of small stature and imaginative mind, stories didn't come any 'taller' than those tales told by my mother. They would stretch the bounds of one's credulity beyond the realms of possibility, and yet, she always made me 'want to believe them'. I have taken the germ of her fact and added a bit of my fiction with a dash of author licence. This sixth volume of 'Tales from Portlaw', 'The Alternative Christmas Party' is the story of two Portlaw Christmas Party events that are booked by the same social events secretary for Boxing Day of 2012. One event was for the Catholic Church of Portlaw which is attended by priests, nuns and Catholic parishioners and the other event is for the 'Portlaw Rugby Club.' When the secretary of these two institutions makes a small mistake, the consequences for the people of Portlaw are enormous

Geographic Perspectives on Disaster Risk Management examines the essential role of geospatial data and analysis throughout the disaster risk management lifecycle, addressing how we understand, prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. It brings together approaches, data sources, and analytical tools from diverse sectors including international development, disaster management, emergency response, insurance, defence, and commerce. By comparing methodologies across these fields, common challenges and best practices are identified that can inform future risk management strategies. Structured around the disaster risk cycle (preparation, response, recovery, and mitigation) the book covers four key areas: the representation of assets at risk through exposure and vulnerability mapping; risk preparedness and mitigation strategies; response mechanisms including event monitoring, damage assessment, and resilience building; and effective approaches to risk communication and decision-making. It includes practical case studies that illustrate real-world challenges and solutions, highlighting current capabilities while considering future developments in data availability, analytical techniques, and climate risk assessment. Designed as both a practitioner's guide and academic resource, Geographic Perspectives on Disaster Risk Management serves those working directly in disaster risk management as well as researchers seeking to understand how geographic perspectives can enhance our capacity to manage disaster risk in an era of increasing environmental uncertainty.

This is a love story is about a travelling Romany who visits the home of Lizzy Lanigan in Portlaw during the year of 1955. Lizzy is a newly-wed, who was married a mere three months earlier. The peg-selling gypsy persuades Lizzy to have her palm read for the cost of two shillings. The Romany fortune teller then informs Lizzy that she will give birth to a girl child within the year who will be named 'Mary'. Lizzy is informed that she will give birth to a total of seven children during her life, but that her firstborn will be a 'special' child, who, when her time comes, will also give birth to seven children, of whom the firstborn will be a 'special' girl, also named 'Mary'. The Romany also reveals that the Lanigan legacy of 'specialness' will be passed down for generations, providing that mother and firstborn maintain its secret. If the secret is kept as instructed, the Lanigan family will be blessed, but if the secret is told to another; the Lanigan descendants will be cursed!

This is a love story is about a travelling Romany who visits the home of Lizzy Lanigan in Portlaw during the year of 1955. Lizzy is a newly-wed, who was married a mere three months earlier. The peg-selling gypsy persuades Lizzy to have her palm read for the cost of two shillings. The Romany fortune teller then informs Lizzy that she will give birth to a girl child within the year who will be named 'Mary'. Lizzy is informed that she will give birth to a total of seven children during her life, but that her firstborn will be a 'special' child, who, when her time comes, will also give birth to seven children, of whom the firstborn will be a 'special' girl, also named 'Mary'. The Romany also reveals that the Lanigan legacy of 'specialness' will be passed down for generations, providing that mother and firstborn maintain its secret. If the secret is kept as instructed, the Lanigan family will be blessed, but if the secret is told to another; the Lanigan descendants will be cursed

This love story is about a dying man and his personal assistant in his haulage firm. During the last fourteen days of his life, the dying man's lover strikes up a new relationship in the hospital ward with a patient in an adjacent bed. After her lover's death, she disappears and the new patient, who is infatuated with her, pursues his dream across the Irish Sea, only to discover that love is never smooth.

I grew up on my mother's stories. Although an Irish woman of small stature and imaginative mind, stories didn't come any 'taller' than those tales told by my mother. They would stretch the bounds of one's credulity beyond the realms of possibility, and yet, she always made me 'want to believe them'. Having been persuaded to return to writing, I decided to recount some of the stories told to me by my mother long ago. Being a person with my own imagination, I have taken the germ of her tale and elaborated it with the aid of 70 years of wisdom and a splash of literary licence to come up with the final result. This love story is about a dying man and his personal assistant in his haulage firm. During the last fourteen days of his life, the dying man's lover strikes up a new relationship in the hospital ward with a patient in an adjacent bed. After her lover's death, she disappears and the new patient, who is infatuated with her, pursues his dream across the Irish Sea, only to discover that love is never smooth.

The story of 'Maw' is suitable for any reader over 8 years. It is written in the style of the 1950s when the sport of boxing and football tended to dominate the world of growing boys and some girls. Because its story theme focuses on the sport of boxing and football, some girls may not feel it to be suitable for them. Maw is born exceptionally small and enters secondary school life to face the school bully. He confronts the bully and challenges him to a boxing match. On the very start of his fourteenth year of life, Maw makes a wish upon a shooting star and from that moment, his life changes. He awakes with super human powers, but quickly learns that with all power comes a responsibility to discharge such power humanely. Later, the school loses its striker from the football team at the semi- final stage of the School League Football Cup and Maw is asked to stand in as the striker. A super story told in the adventure style of writing that was more common in the 40s and 50s.

'The Love Quartet' is a book of four romantic stories that include, 'The Tannery Wager', 'Fini and Archie', 'The Love Bridge', and 'Forgotten Love'. All four stories are a mixture of 'love won', 'love lost' and 'love found'.

Musically talented 10-year old Nancy loves to explore the nearby woodland and feels at home with all aspects of nature. The story tells how Nancy and her mother cope with the news of her father's terminal illness. The author addresses the subject of bereavement in a sympathetic and realistic way while successfully encouraging the young reader to accept death as an inevitable stage of life itself.

Bes is a story suitable for the New Millennium reader aged between 9-13 years. It tells a story that loosely links with the three character types I introduced in 'The Bear with a Sore Head', 'Solo and Solomon' and 'Elephants Cry Too.' It is the first day of a New Millennium and the 'maker of all time' who is disappointed with the humans of the earth, sends a three dimensional spirit to the earth in the form of a strange looking animal. that is part bear, part sheep and part elephant. The three-dimensional spirit is 'Bes', whose form is in the shape of part bear, part elephant and part sheep. Bes is given 40 years in which to spread a message of peace and love to all of the earth's creatures. If Bes can persuade the animals to live in 'peace and love' its purpose will have been served and as a reward to the animal kingdom, the 'maker of all life' will give all animals supremacy and rule over all humans.

'Tales from the Allotments' is my favourite story that I have ever written from the 50+ books I've had published. It is suitable reading for any teenager and adult. Although set in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it is a timeless story that is just as relevant today as it was 150 years ago. It tells the story of a mining village where the local pit is the sole employer. The pit is closed down and the miners are made redundant. Many of the villagers move in search of new homes and jobs, but the families of 18 miners who own an allotment refuse to leave their homes and village. After months and years of unemployment, increased poverty and the onset of hopelessness, all 18 ex-miners begin to work their allotment plot which become their saviour and provides them with a new purpose in life as well as fresh produce for their family tables. My dearly deceased father, Paddy Forde was an ex-miner in West Yorkshire and I rededicate this story to his memory.

Horace Catchpole and Two Crude Dames is one of my most favourite stories. It gave me enormous pleasure to write and it is suitable for any reader from twelve to adulthood. It is set in Wigan in the early 1960's. The two monstrous women in Horace's life are a composite of every horrible and obnoxious woman that any man has ever come across. Imagine the worse kind of mother a chap could possibly have and the worse type of wife he could ever marry and then imagine trying to live under the same roof with each monstrous giving out their contradictory orders. That is what Horace Catchpole had to tolerate.

'Four Crude Dudes and the Land of Hope' tell the story of how the lives of a thief, a bully, a cheat and a liar negatively impact upon each other during the days of the 'Californian Gold Rush'; leaving the hero of the story, Farmer Hope, with all the wealth, despite him having never sought it. The story essentially shows that when greed becomes one's god, then all goodness goes out the window. The victory of the God-fearing Farmer Hope who seeks only to look after his family and his neighbours while all around are abandoning their contented lives to seek gold and increased prosperity in the land of plenty. It is a vindication and endurance of the 'good' in mankind over that of the 'bad.'

The worlds of 12-year-old Axel Tyler and 73-year-old Brigadier Butterworth couldn't possibly be farther apart. While one is content to live life to the full in the fast track of 1990's Britain, the other yearns for the day when the country regains its senses and returns to those pre-war values that made Britain 'Great'. When events conspire to bring the 12-year-old rebel and the madcap Brigadier face-to-face, conflict becomes inevitable as the irreconcilable values and beliefs of two widely different worlds collide. The war between the two combatants is fought within a privatised, concentration camp, which is situated deep in the heart of Arundel Forest. Who will win the hearts and minds of the 59 teenage-rebel prisoners who have all been expelled from their schools and imprisoned in Arundel Forest: Axel or the Brigadier? At stake is nothing less than the future of Great Britain and the values of its young.

'Greed' contains two stories: one set in the days of 'The Californian Gold Rush' and the other in Wigan during the 1950's. Both stories illustrate the triumph of the good person over that of the greedy one who seeks to get what want through thieving, cheating, lying and bullying. The stories have a thief, cheat, liar and bully and an honest person as characters whose lives impact on each other.

'Greed' contains two stories: one set in the days of 'The Californian Gold Rush' and the other in Wigan during the 1950's. Both stories illustrate the triumph of the good person over that of the greedy one who seeks to get what want through thieving, cheating, lying and bullying. The stories have a thief, cheat, liar and bully and an honest person as characters whose lives impact on each other. In 'Four Crude Dudes and the Land of Hope', the story is set in the days of the Californian Gold Rush. It tells how the lives of five characters who are strangers, impact upon the lives of each other and how the thief, cheat, liar and bully get their comeuppance and how the honest and God-fearing farmer of selfless disposition is rewarded.The story is set against the backcloth of a mining town in California and it provides a good taste of what the prospectors of the time would have experienced as they strove to strike it rich. In the second story of 'Two Crude Dames and Horace Catchpole', the setting is in Wigan during the 1950's. It tells of the life of Horace, a wimpish and downtrodden man who endures a life of cruelty, humiliation and bullying at the hands of two monstrous women; first his mother and then his wife, whom his mother sells him in marriage to for the princely sum of 1,000. Horace's life becomes more and more unbearable, especially when all three start living together in order that the two greedy women can save money on housekeeping by pooling their resources. Eventually, our hapless hero has had enough and he starts to assert himself. The worm eventually turns and the two monstrous women get their comeuppance. Both stories are suitable as a 'cross-over' book and can be enjoyed by any reader between the ages of 9 and 90 years of age.