Bookshelves

 

So, Christmas has been and gone, and you’re left with book tokens you don’t know what to buy with or, far, far worse, the dreaded One4All card that allows you to spend in hundreds of different stores but none of which seem to allow you to or have anything remotely worth buying.

This is where I come in.

Maybe.

You see, I’ve got books for sale. Not the ones in the photo above; technically they are mine, because I own them, but they’re not my books.

You can buy my books from any bookshop, online or physical, including Waterstones for whom the One4All card is acceptable. You may need to wait a week or so as they may not be in stock, but you can still buy them. 

But which to buy?

Well. 

‘The Broken Bottle’, ‘How Green Are Your Eyes’ and ‘This Is Not The End’ are a trilogy of books aimed at readers from 12 to adult. Indeed, most of the readers seem to be adults, so you’ll be in good company. They tell the story of Wilf, a teenager in Croalworth, near Manchester, as he goes to school, forms a band, falls in love, gets scammed, gets involved in gun and drug crime, goes to Ireland, searches for an awol alcoholic, stumbles across an arms dump, is befriended by a mysterious girl, meets the most drunk stop/go sign holder in the world, goes home, goes to university, makes some new friends, finds his flatmate is a bit weird and unhinged, finds his bag mistaken for an unattended package by the bomb squad, is the victim of mistaken identity and rings his sister to take him home. 

https://books2read.com/b/3nBzEP

https://books2read.com/b/bPGOPl

https://books2read.com/b/m00DAA

‘Capturing the Wry’ and ‘Welcome To The Underachievers’ are memoirs of my time in actual real bands writing and recording actual real music and playing actual real gigs. Across the two you can read the trails and tribulations of nearly being signed to record labels, the highs and lows of playing in youth clubs, restaurants and universities, and marvel at just how many venues I have played gigs in which have now closed down and become housing developments.

https://books2read.com/b/3LVWp1

https://books2read.com/b/b5JlqO

‘Seasonal Adjustments’ is a poetry anthology. I once wrote a poem that came in the top 0.17% of a national competition, and still didn’t win. But it shows the potential quality, even if it is up to you to decide the actuality of it. ‘Out of Tune’ meanwhile is the cleverly-titled collection of lyrics presented without their tune. Do you see what I did there?

https://books2read.com/b/49LEaw

https://books2read.com/b/b5W5wk

‘The View From Orlando Bridge’ is another memoir, this time about supporting Bolton Wanderers in the 1980s and 1990s. Yes, it’s that bleak.

https://www.lulu.com/shop/john-hartley/the-view-from-orlando-bridge/paperback/product-m5z964.html?srsltid=AfmBOopiLnNATy_RPJS1AEiE2eEbyl3Ghqjk84MvuYSWnweTsQmh8kgm&page=1&pageSize=4

You can get all of these anywhere, really, including Amazon. You can also get signed copies of most of the titles directly from me at www.brokendownrecords.bandcamp.com/merch

So come on, don’t be shy. Spend those vouchers, or just your hard earned cash, and you too can have my books on your bookshelves (but not the ones in the photograph for reasons already established).

(The Making of) This Is Not The End

 

The ringing of an unanswered telephone. The clink of a dropped spanner. The muffle of footsteps, unidentified in the dark. The flapping of a letterbox. The unsolicited door knock, close to midnight. The wailing sirens closing in on the park. The thud of a back, thrust against a wall.

We started Wilf's journey with the awkward, spotty teenager from Lancashire falling in love for the first time, beginning to dream about pop superstardom and having his first real awakening to the harsh unfairness of the real world. That was 'The Broken Bottle'.

A year or so later he was enjoying his first taste of parent-free adulthood in the deep south of Eire. Admittedly, it was still under the watchful eye of his aunt but that didn't stop him from getting unwittingly mixed up in the messy complexities of other people's lives. That was 'How Green Are Your Eyes'.

Now we find Wilf in the North East of England, without any responsible adults to guide him along his way and, frankly, life doesn't ever get easier, does it? This is 'This Is Not The End'.
All three stories are very loosely based on some sort of reality. It's hard to write about things without having at least some semblance of fact upon which to base things.

Let's get this clear from the start though: I am not Wilf, nor is Wilf me. However I did grow up in Lancashire, spend a summer in Cork, and go to Polytechnic in Newcastle. That much is true. Indeed, some of the things that happen in 'This Is Not The End' are very much based on my experiences in the north east; others, meanwhile, are definitely forged in the mind. Which are which? I'll let you decide.

The cover is designed once again by Ruby Hartley, and captures many cameos from within the book - see how many you can find once you've read it. Various shots of the cover provide the visual content for the song 'Scotswood Terrace', the video for which is below. I wrote 'Scotswood Terrace' a few years after leaving the North East behind, with my late teens and early twenties very much in mind. It could be a great place to be when things were going well; when they weren't it was far from ideal.

Since completing 'This Is Not The End' I have found myself, in idle moments, wondering what will become of Wilf when he becomes a fully-fledged adult. 'The Broken Bottle' was always supposed to be the first book in a trilogy. Now I'm not so sure ...

How Green Are Your Eyes

 

Growing into my teens I worried I might never not feel homesick. That was despite evidence to the contrary. Some evidence, anyway. The first time I was away from home was a couple of nights in Ambleside with my primary school. I survived, but missed home. A year later the lure of a week in the Isle of Man proved greater than the fear of missing my parents and sister. I had a whale of a time. I managed a couple of secondary school trips away which by and large passed without incident (though listening to Live Aid in a tent as lightning danced around the trees surrounding the school campsite in Saundersfoot is quite a memory). I even managed a French Exchange fortnight, but the yearning for home was much stronger that time. However, I baulked at cub and scout camps and could find any raft of excuses not to join them.

In the summer of 1990 I decided that, with the prospect of three years away at University looming increasingly large, I had better prove to myself that I could be away from home for a sustained time. I'd tried the year before, but tearing a ligament in my ankle half way down a mountain overlooking Grasmere sort of put paid to that particular plan.

So anyway, in summer 1990 I went to Ireland; County Cork to be relatively precise. I didn't know the family I was staying with, although I had been writing to one of the sisters for a couple of years. The plan was to work in the family pub/hotel/bed-and-breakfast/take-away/restaurant and enjoy a part of the world I had never previously visited. The alcoholic father nearly put paid to that, but when he went awol the family instated me in employment where I could be found working in the fish and chip servery at the height of a blistering heatwave.

'How Green Are Your Eyes' draws inspiration from some of the experiences I had and the people I met. It is, however, very much a work of fiction. Indeed, very much the lived experience I imagine Wilf might have had once he had left school in Croalworth, and is the follow-up to his adventures in 'The Broken Bottle'.

The novel can be ordered in ebook here: https://books2read.com/u/bPGOPl

It can also be ordered in paperback, signed by me, here: https://brokendownrecords.bandcamp.com/merch

How Green Are Your Eyes

 

And there, as if by magic, the cover for 'How Green Are Your Eyes' was revealed to the world, one click at a time.

'How Green Are Your Eyes' is the sequel to 2023's 'The Broken Bottle' which, as I am sure you will remember, featured young Wilf from Croalworth as he joined his school friends in forming a band called the Sally Cinnamons. At the end of the story Wilf was ... well, I'm not going to tell you here am I? No spoilers; you might be reading about 'The Broken Bottle' for the first time. 

The cover was designed, once more, by the very talented RubyGoesBananas who can be found under that title on Instagram and TikTok. You can also see and buy her artwork at her Etsy shop   and on RedBubble. 

'How Green Are Your Eyes' will be published worldwide in early October in both paperback and ebook formats. You will be able to order it from any bookshop, online or bricks and mortar. Signed paperback copies will be exclusively available from the Broken Down Records online shop, where you can also get signed copies of 'The Broken Bottle' as well as other books and music. 

Details of how to order and pricing will come soon, very soon; there will probably be a bundle offer for copies of both books at a slightly discounted price too.

Until then, here's some Lego Minifigure images of the Sally Cinnamons, as featured on social media.

Pauline, Neville, Maureen and Kevin

 

‘Welcome to the Underachievers’ is officially published on Friday. Hooray! This means you can now get it from your favourite ebook store, from your local bookshop, and also A*@%on should that be your preferred location.

You may also choose, like the wonderful folk who pre-ordered print copies that came with a free CD, to order direct from the author - ie me - at the Bandcamp store. You won’t now get the CD, but you should get a digital download of the songs soundtracking the book, along with a print version or ebook version depending on your choice.

Hard sell over, let’s move onto the video. It’s another home-made affair, again using analogue technology with essentially no training, and is for the song ‘Pauline and Neville’. The song began life as ‘Maureen and Kevin’ after I saw some graffiti in Harrow, NW London. When I discovered that this was the name of a band, I renamed the track. Susie Woo Marsh sang ‘Maureen and Kevin’, whilst Ria Foxette sang ‘Pauline and Neville’. We did a full studio version of the latter version, but I think the video version is possibly our lo-fi version.

I hope you enjoy it, whatever.

Welcome to the Underachievers

So, here we have it: the follow-up to 'Capturing the Wry'. It's taken a long time to get this out into the big wide world - not that it is completely there yet - and even after the pre-sale launch I've been correcting errors so you get the best possible reading experience. That said, I refuse to rule out any more errors being discovered, but like wrong notes in a piece of recorded music and heavier-than-intended brush strokes on a painting, we'll just have to live with them. I am human after all, and if there's one thing humans are good at it is making mistakes.

I feel privileged to be including a foreword written by Richard Blackborow of the band BOB. BOB have been a source of continual musical pleasure for me since I first stumbled upon them in a 1989 Peel Session. I was lucky enough to write the band's official biography, and very much appreciate Richard taking the time to write the introductory words to  'Welcome to the Underachievers'.

'Welcome to the Underachievers' picks up from where 'Capturing the Wry' left off. Meeting Jacques Cachecarte was a significant marker in my social life; he was the first person I can remember sharing the love of similarly obscure bands as I did, other than my newly-acquired extended family. He could (and still does) write terrific songs and was (and still is) a really talented musician. I may have written the songs, made the videos, done the posters, written this book, but his role in the story cannot be underestimated.

In keeping with its predecessor, 'Welcome to the Underachievers' is being published with an accompanying CD. This time, however, you will have to be quick to get a copy, as only the earliest purchasers from the pre-sale at Bandcamp will get one. 

Here's the link

The Broken Bottle soundtrack

Stand down, relax; it’s not a whole load of jangly stuff I have concocted in my head purely for the purposes of self-promotion.

No, it’s a whole load of jangly stuff I have collated from professional musicians for the purposes of self-promotion.

Music is, of course, a hugely important theme throughout ‘The Broken Bottle’. As well as the songs written by the band there are songs the friends reference, songs they cover, and songs that crop up naturally during the course of the story.

One afternoon I idly contemplated what a soundtrack album might be, if the novel were ever to be made into a film. The results are the Spotify Playlist linked at the end of this post.

Not all the songs have obvious links to the narrative… take ‘Berth 24’ which opens proceedings for example. It’s an instrumental version of the early Sea Power single ‘Childhood Memories’. I can picture this soundtracking the opening shots of the film, starting with an overhead view of the UK, zooming in towards the north west and the west Pennine moors, before the drone footage sweeps through the moors, over the reservoirs and the cemetery before closing in on the red sandstone school in which the group of friends are gathered one lunchtime. 

‘Childhood Memories’ features the line “God help us if the radiation leaks/God help us if nobody knows for weeks”. My mam used to fret about us living downwind from Sellafield; not in a particularly neurotic manner, just in the way she would fret about about many things, like whether she switched the iron off before we went on holiday. I think Wilf’s mam might be able to relate to that too…

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/34BLxJomE3zp2Dv4ZtW8V1?si=lyweKaAITTatd5Gg06WzrA&pi=e-HdOafGYPRl68

Copies of The Broken Bottle are available here, £10 for signed copies… https://brokendownrecords.bandcamp.com/merch/paperback-the-broken-bottle-signed

And if you prefer your reading on an electronic device, the ebook can be found in several stores. Take your pick: https://books2read.com/u/3nBzEP

Beyond ‘Capturing the Wry’

 ‘Capturing the Wry’ is a musical memoir of being in an indie band in the early to mid 1990s. At the time it felt like came and fortune were both a single song and a million miles away. I mean, who would really be interested in the songcraft of an unemployed twenty year old from the periphery of Bolton? Would the bass guitarist really find his golden ticket away from the Royal Mail in a jangly indie band as lacking in confidence as they were riddled with daydreams? Would the band be enough to keep my cousin away from a proper career? Would it be sufficient to persuade one of my best friends to put his profession on hold?

In 1995 I moved to the outskirts of London and began a new life. It took me a couple of years to find a kindred musical spirit again, and when I did it was in a unit of an industrial estate in the darker reaches of Southall, where a day service for adults with autism and extremely challenging behaviour was located. I didn’t really want to form a band again; my heart was still wrapped up in the Irony Board even though we had been out of commission for a good while by then. However, once you push a cartoon snowball down a cartoon mountain it quickly gathers animated pace and ends up chasing Yosemite Sam through a canyon or something daft like that. And that’s sort of what happened with Echolalia.

The sequel to ‘Capturing the Wry’ will be published shortly. It tells the story of Echolalia, and how I got even closer to the dream of one day holding in my hand a 7”single of my musical wares. ‘Welcome to the Underachievers’ - for that is the title - will be published in early summer. A strictly limited edition print run will be accompanied by a CD containing the songs that soundtrack the story. An ebook version will also be available. Advance orders coming soon.

In the meantime, here’s a video for one of the songs…

 The Broken Bottle

Paperback published by BrokenDownBooks via Draft2Digital, 2023 ISBN 9798223432487

Ebook published by BrokenDownBooks via Draft2Digital, 2023 ISBN 9798223276418

Order paperback (signed)

Order ebook with additional original music

Order ebook

A novel, for the Young/New Adult (or indeed any adult really). My first novel to boot, and the first of a trilogy featuring Wilf Hughes. Set in the fictional town of Croalworth, Lancashire, the novel tells the tale of a mid-teen, his school band, his first girlfriend and his first taste of the perils of adult life in the late 1980s.

A video trailer for the book can be viewed here:

The story revolves around Wilf's school band, and original music for the story was written and recorded. This can be downloaded with ebook copies of the book if you want to hear it. There is also limited edition art available, including the cover art for the band's cassette and individual sections of the six-part artwork inspired by the novel as seen in the trailer video.

I'll write more about this novel in future posts, and its sequels as they arrive.

The View from Orlando Bridge

Paperback published by Broken Down Books via Lulu.com 2020 ISBN 9781716632686 

Order print copy here

Following the success of 'Capturing the Wry' I published 'The View from Orlando Bridge' in 2020. The book recounts memories of supporting and watching Bolton Wanderers during the 1980s and 1990s, tracking the club's fortunes (and misfortunes.) 

Each chapter focuses on one specific game, although several others are detailed throughout the tale, which is as much about growing up in the north west of England as it is about football. Chapters are arranged as a starting eleven with a substitute for good measure (there was only one allowed in the days the 10-year old John first went to watch Bolton play). Whether you choose to read the book in a 4-4-2, 4-3-3 or 5-3-2 formation is entirely up to you.

 

Capturing the Wry

Paperback published by i40Publishing via Biddles, 2018 ISBN 9781999582784

ebook published by Broken Down Books via Draft2Digital 2022 ISBN 9798215725719

Order copy (ebook only)

Order copy (ebook with digital soundtrack)

This was the first book published by the micropress i40Publishing, an offshoot of the Everything Indie Over 40 social media community, and the first book I had written to be formally published. Telling the factual story of Bolton-based indie band the Irony Board between 1993 and 1995, the book was accompanied by a 15-song CD containing all the band's studio recordings. 

I launched the book with readings and live song performances at the LP Cafe in Watford. 100 copies of the paperback were printed and the edition sold out within weeks. I say 100 copies were sold, one was given away in a competition, and another was left out in the wild to be read and then passed on. Who knows where that one resides now?

Due to subsequent popular demand, an ebook version was published. This is available to buy via the links above, with or without the songs.