TERRY PATTERSON LIKE MOTHER LIKE SON

 

How to order

LIKE MOTHER LIKE SON

PRICE SOFTBACK £9.99                    HARDBACK £14.99      & p & p £4.50

By Post: Mail to Lynn Davidson, The Memoir Club, 34 Lynwood Way, South Shields, Tyne & Wear, NE34 8DB cheque payable to Lynn Davidson.
Cheque payable to Lynn Davidson

By Email memoirclub@msn.com   OR mOBILE 0755 2086888

By bank transfer: Lynn Davidson, Barclays, 20 83 69    83948145

Elizabeth Watson is eighteen and from North Shields, a small fishing town in the North East of England she moves to work in Yorkshire during the Second World War.

 It is whilst working as a telecommunications operator that she meets Buzz Beurling, a tall handsome Canadian Spitfire Squadron Leader. She falls madly in love with him. Buzz is sent on a dangerous mission and his plane is shot down. Is he alive or dead? Elizabeth doesn’t know. After six months of receiving no news, Elizabeth is resigned to thinking the latter.

 She returns home and it is there that she meets Charlie Millsap a shipyard welder and pigeon fancier. Elizabeth finds herself in a convenient relationship with a man she doesn’t love. She is forced to marry Charlie when her staunch catholic parents discover she is pregnant. Elizabeth enters a loveless marriage only on the condition that she makes all the decisions.

 Elizabeth is determined to give her daughter Laura everything that she never had. Laura is warned from a very early age never to allow a man to have a controlling influence over her. Laura is ambitious and wants to get on in the world. She lands a highly sought-after job in the perfume department of Fenwick’s in Newcastle.

 It is there that she learns how the other girls have men drooling over them. She is on her way home and awaiting a bus in the Haymarket when a young man taps her on the shoulder. Albert Kinnear is a librarian who has moved from Devon to live on The Ridges estate with his parents after his father lands a top engineering job at Parsons.

 Albert likes the young girl and asks her out on a date. Laura likes him too but remembers what her mother has instilled in her and she treats Albert with contempt.

 Elisabeth Millsap leaves behind a secret that is only revealed after her death.

 

AUTHOR

Terry Patterson was born in North Shields in 1956 and went to Ralph Gardiner secondary modern school. He left with no formal qualifications and began his working life at fifteen years old as an apprentice fish filleter on North Shields fish quay. Terry was bullied at school because of his disability. He wore a calliper and had one foot considerably smaller than the other. Termed a congenital talipes or claw foot. He joined the North Shields Boys Club Boxing Team in 1967.

It was there he was taught how to box by Joe Myers, a black ex-professional.  Terry's boxing career would last twenty-two years with him winning national honours as a schoolboy junior and senior boxer. He boxed several times as an international. A veteran of over 200 bouts he passed the advanced ABA Coaching exam in 1982 and was involved with coaching youngsters until 1986.  Until Terry sustained an industrial accident.

Terry undeterred tried his hand at another sport; Snooker and won the area DSE Disabled Sport England Snooker Championship five years in a row. In 1996 he qualified as a professional snooker referee and travelled all over the country refereeing matches. He refereed at the PIOS tournaments in Prestatyn in Wales and got his England call up to referee the Maltese open in 1997. In 2002 Terry became North Tyneside's first World Professional Snooker Coach. He'd been coaching youngsters on a regular basis at Wallsend Supa Snooker for disabled and able-bodied youngsters. He formed the combination challenge trophy whereby able-bodied players could team up with disabled players and then compete against like-minded competitors. He also created the Six Ball Shootout for disabled and beginners so they could finish a game. Many wheelchair players found it too exhausting to play a full game. Terry has given thirty-two years of his life to coaching two different sports.

Terry threw himself into college work at North Tyneside taking A-level fine art and design, English literature, history, sociology, and psychology. He also did health social care courses 1.2.3 then went back to work as a volunteer at Percy Hedley training centre working with clients who had Cerebral Palsy. He stayed there for over a year and got to meet HRH Prince Andrew when he came on a visit.  He spent five years working in various care homes until the injuries he sustained over the years got the better of him and he had to have a pacemaker fitted. To fill the void Terry who had always done bits of poetry and short stories as a young boy began to write.

To date Terry has written forty-eight novellas and two novels, Like Mother like Son and He Who Rides a Tiger.  He has written twenty-four plays and continues to write every day. 

REVIEWS

Jennifer Maughan - I've started reading the book Terry and looking forward to reading the rest I used to live on the Meadowell estate when I was a teenager I lived in Ripley Avenue so I can relate to your past and I hope you go far with your books.

Mawreen Hood - Well done for yesterday Terry. I enjoyed your talk and am so pleased I came. It was very interesting and I believe you had your audience captivated. I purchased your book and look forward to reading it.

Terry Christie - Terry Patterson is a pure gentleman. I met Terry when I was only about 11 years of age when I boxed for North Shields East End Boys Club and Terry gave up so much of his time to pass on to us the great boxing skills and knowledge he gained over the years. I don’t even know if Terry realises how much of a great impression and ambassador/mentor he was to us young boxing hopefuls. So many great fighters who did brilliantly are a credit to Terry.

I wish Terry all the very best with his book sales.  Terry my friend you are a legend.

Ralph Mason - Sometimes, once in a lifetime comes one person, one man. A man who I have the privilege of knowing, and a dear friend. Terry Patterson. A man who loves his roots, a man who writes these wonderful stories of everyday people, living everyday lives in and around North Shields. His stories portray events in the lives of fictional people, but also uses names of the friends he knows in the wonderful little town we all hold dear.

Dedication is a really special word. For a really special man...My good friend. A treasure living amongst us...

Carla M Junghans  - Was lovely for my mam Joyce Junghans to see her and my dad's old time friend Terry Patterson. I love hearing their stories from the 'olden days'. Well done Terry I look forward to reading the book after mam.

Mary Hodgson - I am halfway through this book and absolutely love it and brings back memories of Bridge Road South and The Ridges the club on stilts, Collingwood youth club and various other clubs that have been mentioned in your book. An absolutely brilliant read and I definitely recognise people and places.

Shawn Fenwick - You gave a great talk today, Terry. You’re a very powerful storyteller and you may not have noticed, but we all sat in silence listening to every word you said. Your memory is amazing! Maybe you should start writing your biography.

Christine Harris - Absolutely fantastic just love reading these.

Margaret Tait - I'm on the edge of my seat

Alan Hassell - Wonderful read, thank you.

Jackie Davis - Brilliant, this story would make a fantastic film.

 

A DIPLOMATIC LIFE John Harrison

                                 A DIPLOMATIC LIFE

John Harrison

Softback £11.50 & £3.00   P & P   UK 

How to order  

 By Post: Mail to Lynn Davidson, The Memoir Club, 34 Lynwood Way, South Shields, Tyne & Wear, NE34 8DB cheque payable to Lynn Davidson.
Cheque payable to Lynn Davidson

By Email memoirclub@msn.com

By bank transfer: Lynn Davidson, Barclays, 20 83 69    83948145

John Harrison was born into a diplomatic family. His father and maternal grandfather were both diplomats. He therefore developed a taste for foreign travel at an early age. Adventurous journeys to visit his parents in Brazil and Iran provide a forerunner to his subsequent career.
He carved out his own route across the world with postings to Burma, Laos, Ethiopia, Turkey, Luxembourg, Nigeria, Pakistan and finally as High Commissioner in Mauritius. All these assignments were interspersed with important jobs in London in both the Cabinet Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

He was witness to a number of military coups and their aftermath. Political drama was never far away and living conditions were often difficult. Amusing and untoward incidents abounded, as did opportunities to meet people from different cultures and travel to exotic and rarely visited parts of the world. Personal and family life are woven inextricably into his various professional roles, including the huge support received from his wife Jenny.
Since retirement in 1997, he has lived in Hampshire enjoying gardening, golf, more travel and family life.

INTRODUCTION

When my three children all got married within the next few years, and then grandchildren started coming along, I began to realise that none of them had much idea about my early life apart from snippets picked up in random family conversations. The children had no choice but to blend into the slightly unusual way of life my wife, Jenny, and I were leading. Being largely overseas meant that they did not have the firm roots that other UK-based families had.

The same had applied to me, having been born into a diplomatic family. We seemed to be regularly packing up and on the move. Not that I minded too much. I enjoyed the travel opportunities and I was fortunate to have the fallback of a welcoming wider family based mainly in Sussex.

Our four grandchildren were born within five years of each other. When they were young I had great fun reading and telling them bedtime stories. I invented a little pink pig that had strayed into our garden and had various meetings and adventures with the likes of Peter Rabbit (we had a vegetable area), Squirrel Nutkin and the Gruffalo with his mouse (who all lived in our small piece of woodland). I was always being asked for more, but I was running out of ideas and they were getting older.

It then occurred to me that I had actually myself had some quite exotic real-life adventures around the world, which might in due course be of interest to them. So I started writing up some of my early life experiences, mainly travels, but without really thinking at the time that this could develop into a full scale memoir. I had periodically kept a diary, and indeed quite a detailed one of travels to interesting places. I then began to join the dots; boarding schools, university life, holiday periods with kind relatives, joining the Foreign Office and first posts overseas. There seemed to be plenty of material from Burma, Ethiopia and Turkey worth writing about, not to mention what happened thereafter.

There would be a long road ahead requiring some detailed research and memory racking. But with more leisure time and long winter evenings it seemed feasible. So I persevered and dug deeper into my official life. Lockdown from coronavirus in early 2020 helped to increase the momentum. I received encouragement from friends and former colleagues, particularly Sir Jeremy Thomas, my ambassador in Luxembourg, and Sir Nicholas Barrington, my boss in both London and Pakistan.

Fortunately my mother had kept and returned to me most of the letters I had written home from overseas as well as Jenny’s very full newsletters. Between them they contained first-hand accounts of, and comments on, activities, events, visits and so on. They also provided valuable source information on names of places and people plus dates which might otherwise have become a little hazy. It took time sorting out the ephemeral from the more substantive items, which often then had to be related to the wider local context. But it was absorbing work, and a far cry from the original bedside or family stories.

Special thanks go to my wife, Jenny, who has been such a support since we first met at a UN Conference in Geneva in 1966. She has had to put up with periods of hardship and difficulty, both in England and overseas but, as will be apparent, we have shared many good times as well. She has helpfully remembered for me some of the stories and incidents I have described and, where necessary, corrected points of detail.

I would also like to thank my brothers Bruce and Michael, and also my cousin Bina Arbuthnott, for letting me describe some of the adventures we had together, particularly in the early part of my life. I am grateful too to friends and former colleagues who have encouraged me to tread this path.

More special thanks of course go to my three children James, Carolyn and Sarah who have shared the trials as well as some of the high spots of this long-running saga since they arrived on the scene. I have written this partly for them and their respective spouses Doreen, Dominic and David.

Nor do I wish to forget my parents who started me on this journey into diplomatic life and supported me along the way. I was never going to match the distinguished career of my father, Sir Geoffrey Harrison. A pity he did not put pen to paper in his retirement apart from a few lectures. But I may have derived some inspiration for this book from my mother who, in her nineties, published some memoirs called On the Fringe under the name of Katherine Harrison describing her experiences living in the realms of Hitler and Stalin.

REVIEW

Warmest congratulations on your book, which I have bought, read and much admired. Good cover picture, clear print and full of information .... and so concise. I would recommend it to anyone who might be interested.                   Sir Nicholas Barrington

Really enjoyed reading your memoirs .... the places visited, the people met
 
I couldn’t put it down. So well written
 
Really enjoyed your book. You write so well and fluidly. Some amazing travels
 
Greatly enjoyed reading your book .... gives helpful insights into the life of a diplomat
 
Most interesting .... a life lived to the full and often at full tilt
 
I was instantly hooked. Especially enjoyed reading about all your adventures
 
A good read

 

SEEKING AN HONOURED PLACE IN THE WORLD

A memoir of a Japanese diplomat,  1945-97

Masamichi  Hanabusa

HOW TO ORDER

£15.00 & P & P UK £3.00

 Bank transfer contact Lynn Davidson at memoirclub@msn.com or Telephone: 07552086888

By Post: Lynn Davidson, The Memoir Club, 34 Lynwood Way, South Shields. NE34 8DB

Cheques payable to Lynn Davidson

Paypal send to memoirclub@msn.com

This memoir is the first ever written by a senior Japanese professional diplomat in English. The author candidly and clearly describes what he did and thought during his forty years of diplomatic life from 1958-97. During this time, Saigon fell, a Cold War was fought and ended with the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Japan became the top aid donor and entered into bitter economic rivalry with the USA.

 The book allows readers to have an insight into the Japanese mentality and working methods and consists of two parts. The first deals with the author’s fascinating diplomatic and family life. The latter part is an epilogue, based on his historic viewpoint and his own diplomatic experiences. He  proposes a long-term future path for Japan to pursue, between the hegemonic USA and emerging China. His ideal of a non-aligned, independent Japan with its limited but effective war deterring military capacity is worthy of serious attention for the students of Asia‘s future.

 For the reason of both insight into Japan and the uniqueness of the author‘s views, this book is recommended for the students of Japanese diplomacy.

 Author

Hanabusa Masamichi was born in Tokyo in 1933. After graduating from Keio University, he joined the Japanese foreign service in 1958. For forty years he served various posts both at home and abroad. As Japan recovered from the destruction of the last war and grew fast into a major economic power, Hanabusa witnessed the enormous changes in Japan’s position in the world and the world itself.

Throughout these turbulent years the author endeavoured to find an honoured place for defeated Japan in the world society true to the ideal enshrined in Japan’s post-war Peace Constitution. Much of his efforts in the service focused on the economic development of the developing world and the presentation of Japan’s true figure to the world. Reflecting the unique vicissitudes of his motherland in these years, Hanabusa encountered a variety of situations rarely experienced by diplomats.

 After retirement in 1997, he promoted various non-profit activities such as the English-Speaking Union of Japan, Japan-Italy Association, Giuseppe Verdi Association of Japan, etc. At the publishing of this memoir he was eighty-eight.eighty-eight in a

REVIEW

Japanese diplomats very seldom publish their memoirs. In this sense, this book is a rarity. It is hoped that such efforts would heighten transparency of Japanese diplomacy. 

M. Nishikawa, visiting senior editor on the website of the Mainichi newspaper