Drew Payne

At the height of the Second World War, millionaire Gordon Cloade marries the beautiful young widow Rosaleen Underhay. Two days after they arrive in London, Gordon Cloade’s home is bombed, killing all the inhabitants except for Rosaleen Cloade and her brother David. In 1946, Rosaleen Cloade has settled in the village of Warmsley Vale, where her late husband’s home is and she is surrounded by his relatives who all lost out on their inheritances when Gordon married her. Then a man turns up in the village who may or may not be Rosaleen Cloade’s first husband, who was supposed to have died. This reminds Hercule Poirot of a story he heard, in his club at the height of the Blitz, told by an old soldier. This Christie novel is set very firmly during the Second World War and in the immediate post-war Britain, and she uses those very changing times to the advantage of her story. The nightmare of the Blitz kills all the members of one household, in one night, save for two people. But it is post-war Britain, were most of this novel is set, which is a very different and changing world, and Christie captures that world, were so much of the old order has been swept away. All of the characters have been affected and changed by the war, whether they fought in it or not. There are people here who have lost all their money in the war, but being upper-class, they cannot manage poverty. A couple whose son died in the war. A woman who married her husband to protect her father, and now her husband isn’t the man he was. And the young lovers changed by the war. He stayed at home, tended his farm and stayed the same. She went to war, serving in the WRENs, saw the world and has returned to a little village that is too small for her now. Amongst these characters, Christie weaves one of her twisting plots, this giving a handful of surprises, and even the murders are not what they appear to be. She especially takes advantage of her setting, a world turned upside-down, were even a small English village is full of new people, people who have to be taken at face value. Christie takes her time with this plot, taking her time to introduce and set up her characters before her plot rolls into action, and this is all for the better. She takes her time setting up her characters and their situation, so when the plot starts the reader is involved with these people, but these aren’t the most likeable of people, these are people pathetic in their situations. The plot is classic Christie, there’s more than a few surprises here for Poirot to uncover, with a rather messy ending. Unfortunately, this novel does creek with some attitudes of its day. The worse is when a woman only realises a man truly loves her when he loses his temper and tries to kill her. For her usual understanding of people, this felt very uncomfortable. That said, this is a classic and engaging Christie novel, and one with a title as engaging as the book. Find it here on Amazon

Last week I saw my own heart beating. I have seen a human heart beating before, but not my own. Many years ago I did a post-registration nursing course and part of that involved watching certain operations performed. I was watching a spinal operation. The surgeons accessed the patient’s spine via their ribs and deflating their lung. I looked over one of the surgeons’ shoulder and down into the patient’s open chest. There I saw that person’s heart actually beating, its rhythmic, synchronised beating. The heart was so beautiful, a rich purple colour. Its movement was smooth but also strong, as it pumped blood, it contracted and expanded so noticeably. As I looked down into that patient’s chest, I saw the very spark of that person’s life. Their heart beating and driving the life that filled their body. It’s an image I have never forgotten. Last week, I had an echocardiogram, an ultra sound scan of my heart. These scans have revolutionised diagnosing heart conditions, and there is heart disease in my family. I have never had one before but I know how they work, I used to perform leg assessments on patients, using an ultra sound probe. I expected to lay back on an examination couch while a technician pressed an ultra sound probe back and forth across my chest, staring at their little monitor which I couldn’t see. My first surprise was that there was a second monitor, on the examination room’s wall, were I could plainly see my scan. As the woman performed my echocardiogram, I could see its images on that second monitor too. On the screen, I watched the actual beats of my heart, the padam-padam of it pumping my blood. I watched the blood rush into my right atrium, and moments later be pulled into my right ventricle. I saw that being repeated in my left atrium and ventricle. I saw my mitral valve, the valve between my left atrium and left ventricle, snap open and closed, like a stage trap door. I watched the outer muscles of my heart’s myocardium work, compressing and relaxing, compressing and relaxing, with their smooth but strong movements. I saw the blood pushed out of my heart, through a surprisingly wide artery, in a remarkably fast and strong wave. I watched my own life, beating away, on an oblong, flat screen monitor, in real time. Up there on the monitor, was the image of my very life, the thing that keeps me alive. This was the spark of life, my spark of life, my heart beating. It was fascinating and I couldn’t take my eyes off that monitor. I was watching my own heart beating, watching the very thing that is keeping me alive. The woman performing my scan explained each stage of it, what part of my heart she was scanning and what would be involved, always making sure I was comfortable. She was very attentive and caring, not just performing her task with no care about me except that she got the results that she needed to. Unlike so many other technicians I’ve met. To my shame, I cannot remember her name. She did introduce herself but I was far too focused on watching my scan, on that big monitor. At the end of the scan, she told me she was a nurse too. I left the hospital with a feeling of being alive, of new life breathed into me. I had seen my own heart beating and strangely it had energized me. I wasn’t firing on all cylinders, I didn’t skip along the pavement outside the hospital or rush along the street, it was an extremely cold day. But I have found I have more energy and impetuses to do those things I want to do, I am writing more again. I saw my own heart beating, saw my own life in front of me, on a flat screen monitor, and in return I got back so much. Drew

Against the backdrop of 1972 London, four lost souls collide. Pearson has just lost his lover, O'Connell committed suicide. The activist Nina feels her ideals slipping away from her as she also watches the trial of the Angry Brigade, the anarchist group accused of a spate of bombings. Sweet Thing, a streetwise rent boy, can make anyone desire him, but who or what does he desire? Johnny Chrome is on the verge of his big breakthrough as the next big thing in glam rock, a breakthrough he has been working for far too many years. The 1960s are over and the world is changing as the new decade begins. Jake Arnott’s novel captures the changing world of early 1970s London. The hope of the 1960s has gone but the anger and unrest of the 1970s is only just beginning. People are beginning to protest and to push back. Arnott captures the changing society these people are living in, the shifting and uncertainty of these times. He also captures the displaced nature of the characters here, all of them trying to find a place for themselves in this changing world. Arnott’s strength is his feeling for characters. He gets under the skin of four, very different characters here. He gives each one the same degree of insight and development here. Often with multi-character novels, a writer will favour one or two characters, the ones they like and/or identify with the most. Here Arnott gives equal attention to all his central characters, showing no favouritism. The big drawback with this novel is there is an abundance of riches. Arnott has chosen several, big plots here, covering different themes and subjects. There is enough plot and subject-matter in this novel to fill two or even three stories. This did leave some of the plot with less room to breathe and develop. This might seem a quibble, but I did want Arnott to fully develop the plot strands that didn’t get enough space. This novel not just captures the feel and atmosphere of the early seventies; it draws the reader into the lives of a mismatched group of people living around the edges of this society. Arnott also draws a very accurate portrayal of living in a squat, a way of life gone now. Like so much of Arnott’s writing, this novel is well worth spending time with. Find it here on Amazon

Thank you but I HAVE to finish this story so I can start writing my next one.

Thanks. This relationship has been so enjoyable to write.

Thank you. This started life as a 1,500 short story about the lack of support for young people released from the British prison system (Liam is in a hospital but it falls under the prison system). It was set solely in Liam's B&B room after he was released. When I started to re-write it, I thought it would only be a 20,000 word or so story. Well, I got that one wrong. There was just so much story to tell here. I will be writing more, I am coming to the end of the story (But I am hopeless at measuring how long a story takes). I just need to sit down and write those chapters, which I doing. Hopefully, the next chapter should be up soon(ish).

Thank you. I don't want to give anything away but I know where Liam and Ed are headed. I wanted to write a slowly evolved relationship between them. I didn't want hearts and flowers the moment they met. The actual moment of their meeting bombs somewhat. But these are two boys whose friendship is running far deeper than they thought.

The real person he was based on was so arrogant that he had his head up his own a-hole. He tried to bully me into changing a statement I had made. I was an adult at the time and refused to do what he wanted. When it came to creating this character, someone who bullies a vulnerable teenager, that man lept to mind.

It was so easy to be friends with Ed. Ed liked to talk, but it wasn’t all one-sided. Ed would ask him questions and expected him to be just as involved as Ed was in the conversation. He wanted to hear Liam’s side of things too. Ed was also his constant companion around the ward. They would sit at the same table together to eat their meals. They always sat together in the Common Room, whether they were on a sofa together, watching television, or sat at the long table there doing their homework, o

Growing up as an Evangelical Christian, gave me a great insight into the prejudice/hatred towards "the other", those not like you. If there are those who are wrong, whose life is wrong, then that means your lifestyle is "right". If you can look down on others, be prejudiced towards them, or even hate them, then that means the life you're living is right and "better". It's the moral superiority of having someone to look down on. Also, if you can change "the other" to live your lifestyle then you are the really powerful one, and Evangelical Christianity is all about power. The ultimate power is turning the "sinful" homosexual into a "Godly" heterosexual. Hence the obscene conversion therapy. This is all wrapped up in "caring" for "confused" children. I don't believe any of this, it is such a dangerous lie, but I understand where it comes from. It doesn't value people, it values conformity and social power. And it is so harmful to people. I don't intend to stop shouting against conversion therapy, it is so harmful and such a lie. Thanks for your support, it means a lot.

Thank you. We have so much evidence of the harm it does, no reliable evidence it works, and yet this government still refuses to ban it. What will make them take action?

Yes, it worked for me. But there are so many Christians out there who aren't homophobic and see conversion therapy as the abuse it is, I know because I know some of them, but they never get the publicity.

My government has let me down, again. Am I of any value to them? They certainly don’t seem concerned about me. They made me a promise, told me to wait and wait, but never kept it and now… In July 2018 prime minister Theresa May promised to ban conversion therapy. In 2019, Boris Johnson repeated the pledge during that year’s general election campaign. Yet here we are, November 2023, and again there is no sign of the promised ban. This month’s King’s Speech, were the government outlines the legalisation they plan to present to parliament, saw no mention of banning conversion therapy, so it remains completely legal to carry on abusing LGBTQ+ people in the name of conversion therapy. I’ve made no secret that I survived conversion therapy, in my late teens, but the harm didn’t end when I broke away from it. I suffered from depression, flashbacks, problems accepting my sexuality and severe difficulties making and keeping relationships throughout my twenties. I lost my twenties to the depression caused by the emotional abuse I just couldn’t shake off. It wasn’t until I was twenty-eight, and a wonderful counsellor called Gale Simon helped me put my life back together. “I refuse to acknowledge that so-called ‘conversion therapy’ is therapy in any way. It is mental and physical abuse. Some would call it torture,” said 76-year-old transgender woman Carolyn Merce. And she is right, she lived throw it. But it isn’t just personal stories, like hers and mine. There is a great deal of evidence that conversion therapy doesn’t work, and actually harms people. A brief literature search, of two peer reviewed medical journal databases, on a Sunday afternoon, and I found ten references that conversion therapy doesn’t work and sixteen references that it causes harm. This was by no means a comprehensive search, I am certain that there is a far bigger pool of evidence of the harm it causes and its complete ineffectiveness. Why hasn’t it been banned yet, as we were promised? Brazil, Samoa, Fiji, Argentina, Ecuador, Malta, Uruguay, Spain, Taiwan and Germany have all banned it, so why hasn’t Britain? Earlier this year, Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the House of Commons, said that draft legislation would be published before the end of that parliamentary session. That parliamentary session ended and we are now in a new one, but no ban was put before parliament. In September, a spokesperson for No 10, the seat of British government, refused to say if the government had plans to ban it. Then loud rumours came out that the government had dropped plans for any ban. A government press release about the King’s Speech, issued on 4th November, made no mention of a conversion therapy ban. By many this was taken as an indication of the government’s plans, and they were proved right. On 7th November, King Charles delivered the government’s King’s Speech and there was no mention of a conversion therapy ban, again. “I am angered but sadly not surprised by the government’s decision to drop a ban on conversion practices. The prime minister has shown a callous disregard for LGBT+ lives of late and has chosen to prioritise listening to perpetrators over that of engaging with victims of abuse.” Jayne Ozanne, founder of the Ban Conversion Therapy Coalition. It quickly became clear the Tory Back Bench MP Miriam Cates had been lobbying other Tory MPs for prime minister Rishi Sunak to drop the ban. Her texts to fellow MPs claimed that the ban would “criminalise” parents and doctors who “council” children against changing gender. She also claimed that the ban will “split” the Conservative party and “anger” their base. Both claims were not backed by any evidence but 40 Tory MPs signed her letter. There are 350 Conservative MPs in Parliament, which means only 11.4% supported Cates, but Sunak gave into her claims. Miriam Cates is a notoriously Anti-Trans Evangelical Christian. She wrote an article claiming, again without any evidence, that banning conversion therapy will stop parents and doctors from helping “confused young peopl. However, conversion therapists prey on confused people, not helping them but damaging them, as the evidence shows. But Cates’s views are also shared by the Evangelical Alliance, who says they represent 3,500 churches, and argue a ban would restrict “religious freedoms”. More and more though, the support for conversion therapy is disappearing, especially as the truth of it emerges. The Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Royal College of General Practitioners have also called for a ban, both of whom promote evidence based healthcare. While the UK Council for Psychotherapy said of it: “Exclusion, stigma and prejudice may precipitate mental health issues for any person subjected to these abuses.” The Equality and Human Rights Commission says legislation outlawing conversion therapy is overdue. Their chair, Baroness Kishwer Falkner, wrote to Women and Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch, stating the legislation "is needed". The Church of England’s General Synod called for the government to ban it, in 2017, after hearing experiences of “spiritual abuse” practiced in the name of conversion therapy. John Sentamu, the archbishop of York, said conversion therapy was “theologically unsound, so the sooner the practice is banned, I can sleep at night”. And more than 370 religious leaders, around the world, are calling for a ban on conversion therapy. But isn’t it a practice only abusing a small number of people? The Government’s own research found 7% of LGBTQ+ people have experienced some type of conversion practice. While the Ban Conversion Therapy Coalition’s online survey, of the LGBTQ community, found 40% of respondents said they had undergone some form of it. Would any other form of “therapy” that abused people to the degree that conversion practice does, with zero success rate, be even tolerated? A YouGov poll found 62% of voters wanted the ban, a fact that any government facing a General Election should be taking notice of, but not this one. Rishi Sunak seems to be more interested in listening to a small minority of his MPs, 11.4%, then medical and church bodies and a large percentage of voters. Fortunately, there has been an outcry, in parliament, against this broken promise. Labour has promised to ban conversion therapy, with no acceptations, when they get back into government. On 7th October, Labour MP Anneliese Dodds, the chairwoman of the Labour Party, promised to ban conversion therapy, with “no loopholes”, if Labour are in power after the next general election. But Labour are still in opposition and there isn’t a hope for a general election until next year. The has also been an outcry from within the Tory party. “We’re looking at every possible opportunity and we’re definitely not going to let this drop,” said Tory MP Elliot Colburn in reply to the ban being dropped. This isn’t surprising. Only 40 Tory MPs signed that letter to Rishi Sunak and there are large and public divisions within the Tory party. But why weren’t Colburn and his supporters lobbying Sunak while they were writing the King’s Speech? A letter signed by only 40 Tory MPs swayed Sunak’s mind. On Thursday 9th November, two days after the King’s Speech, a bipartisan Private Member’s Bill to ban conversion therapy, the “Conversion Therapy Prohibition (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity)” bill, was announced. It was drawn first that day in the House of Lords ballot. It was introduced by the vice chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group, Baroness Burt of Solihull. The bill would set a blanket ban on conversion therapy. There will finally be a debate in parliament about banning conversion therapy but I don’t see this Private Member’s Bill going further than that. The Parliamentary session 2019-21, saw 192 Private Members’ Bills put before parliament, but only 7 received royal assent, became law. That is only 3.6% of Private Members’ Bills became law. The vast majority failed because they didn’t make it past the second reading stage. In a normal Parliamentary year, thirteen Fridays are allocated for debates of Private Members’ Bills, which take place between the 9.30am and 2.30pm. Even if a Bill is approved at Second Reading, MPs second debate of the bill, the progress beyond that to it becoming law is not guaranteed because the Government can veto it by refusing to introduce a Money Resolution or a Ways and Means Resolution, were the impact on the public themselves and the public purse is assessed. Unfortunately, there is very little chance this Private Members’ Bill will become law. This Tory government has already dropped the promise to ban it, why would they support a Private Members’ Bill banning it? The only chance of getting a legal ban on conversion therapy is to wait for a Labour government, which is probably a year away, and even then, will it be an immediate priority for them? They will have an economy that is in free-fall, under resourced public services, with poor staff morale, that are failing to meet targets, and a cost-of-living crisis effecting all but the rich. Will banning conversion therapy be top of their list of laws to get through parliament? I cannot turn back the clock and prevent my younger self becoming sucked into conversion therapy, I cannot change or prevent the hurt and abuse I suffered, and nor will a ban of conversion therapy do this. What it will do is prevent young and/or vulnerable LGBTQ people being abused and damaged in the name of conversion therapy, it will stop other LGBTQ people being driven to suicide because of what happened to them during conversion therapy. It will stop other people living through the nightmare that I did, and that thought gives me so much hope and relief. I want that to happen tomorrow, but again this government has let me down and ignored me, and there will be no ban in the near future. Alan Cumming, actor and writer, said: “It’s not just about banning conversion therapy, it’s about sending a message to young queer people that their government does not believe there’s anything wrong with them, and that they have no need to convert or change. Until conversion therapy is banned, the UK government is sending a message that it is inherently homophobic.” Many people still say that conversion therapy should still be offered if people want it, it’s that person’s personal choice. I question how much it is a choice, how many people are forced and/or pressurised into going into it. I didn’t make an informed choice when I went into it. But my response, to this claim, is different. As a healthcare professional, no other healthcare professional, therapist or professional should be offering it, because they should only be offering evidence based care. Care and therapies where there is evidence that they work and are beneficial. There is no evidence that conversion therapy works and a lot of evidence that it is very harmful to those who undertake it. It is very unprofessional to offer anyone conversion therapy. Drew

Thanks. There's part of Liam that needs to be needed, God knows his mother didn't need him, and Ed needs someone, on many levels. More about that in the next chapters. I'm really glad you liked his book analysis, I got into trouble for making the same analysis (but for different reasons) when I was thirteen. I loved Alice in Wonderland because of the weird world it created. Maybe it's a book I should re-read, at some time.

Thank you. I need to show Liam growing up, that he isn't twelve anymore, and I need to show his character developing.

He hadn’t seen the lad Ed since he left him in the middle of the ward’s corridor that afternoon. When he returned to the Common Room, he’d told Pearl, the nurse, that Ed had gone to his room. “Thanks Liam,” she said, giving him a smile, though her smile just pushed up the corners of her mouth, it didn’t light-up her face. He’d sat down again on one of the sofas there and carried on reading his book. It was noisy, someone had turned up the volume of the television, but he just ignored i

They say prostitution is the oldest profession, therefore those men who visit prostitutes must be the oldest Customer Demographic, but what do we know about them? The majority of research done has focused on prostitutes, very little on the men who use their services. Sarah Earle and Keith Sharp make these men the focus of their research and raise some fascinating points. This book is written from a sociological study, looking specifically at men who use the internet to find sex workers. Earle and Sharp looked at attitudes to body image, intimacy and emotions, sexual acts and health risks with sex work among these men. Their findings make interesting reading, they deflate the myth that men only go to sex workers for sex and the image of the dirty old man. The internet has opened up the area of sex work but we know little about the men who use it, their motives and their health needs. Earle and Sharp have opened a window onto this subject but their work shows that there is a lot more to do. There are two main drawbacks with this book. Firstly, there is the authors’ style which is very academic and is not the easiest of reads. Secondly, it is expensive, over £40 for its Kindle edition; for a book 144 pages long this is a lot. This book takes a different perspective on this subject and is welcome for it, but at its price it might be a library read for most of us. (This review was originally written as a commission by the Nursing Standard magazine) Find it here on Amazon

I think I need to add something here for clarity. I'm a member of Newham Writers Workshop and have a short story published in this anthology. Saying that, my review is honest and there is so much good writing in this anthology.

Thank you. I learned to review books from a great guy called Roger Evans. He taught me that my job is to tell the reader if the book is worth reading or not. Christie is often dismissed as a lightweight writer, and many of her early books were more puzzle and plot than novel. But the books she wrote during and after the Second World War are so much better, she works on her characters and the plot coming from them. This is one of her best books but I needed to explain why. It was also eye-opening re-reading it.

It is such a good anthology and Paul's drabbles are also very funny.

This anthology is a collection from a writers workshop in East London. As such is has been designed to showcase the writing coming out of this workshop, and so is a very mixed anthology. This isn’t just a collection of short stories only, or just poetry or only essays. This collection contains many different styles of writing. There are short stories here, but also poetry, essays and even drabbles (100 word stories). The strength here is this collection’s variety. If you don’t want to read poetry or an essay, then the next piece is something different. And there is a lot of variety here, there’s twenty-eight different pieces of writing in this collection. There are certainly highlights here. Belgin Durmush’s short story is a surreal satire on dysfunctional committees, while George Tsappis’s story finds the humanity in less than a glorious time for the British occupiers of 1940’s Cyprus. The poems here span many different styles. Frank Crocker’s poems are pithy and humorous, revolving around one subject or another. George Fuller’s poems paint lyrical pictures of different events and places. Dharma Paul’s poems engage the mind and emotions. But the standout poems here are Deborah Collins’s, both lyrically and memorably, captures the strange and disjointed world of East London during lockdown. And there are Paul Butler’s drabbles. He uses 100 words to tell his concise and sharply funny stories. This anthology is full of different and new writing, it is a chance to find some new authors from East London, and is read that can be dipped in and out of, or read in one or two sittings. Find something original here. Find it here on Amazon

I read a lot of them as a teenager (Aunty Agatha did teach me the importance of plots), but coming back to them as an adult, I've found a lot more to them. This one was so dark.

Ruth Rendell was known for her dark psychological thrillers, but she also wrote many short stories, throughout her career. This was her first collection of them, many of which had been previously published in different magazines. At her best, she always had a feel and understanding for character, especially people caught up in events greater than themselves. Here are several short stories that showcase that ability. She captures characters both on the edge of society and those who are bastions of it. These are also the best stories here, were Rendell writes about a character caught up in a situation, with tragic ends. Rendell uses the twist-in-the-tale format for some of these stories, unfortunately it only sometimes works, other times the twist is so obvious that it is a wonder she completed the story. This collection was originally published in 1976, with the stories all written before then, and many of the attitudes in these stories haven’t aged well. Attitudes to mental illness, child abduction and sexism depicted here do creek with age. The pleasure of this collection, though, is in Rendall’s understanding of character, and at its best it is fascinating. Find it here on Amazon

And fortunately, Fountain isn't judgemental here.

Fortunately, Fountain doesn't take that attitude with the people he is writing about here, though several of those people seemed to be taking that attitude about themselves. That's why I found this book so fascinating.