Böcker utgivna av J. R. Bates

Welcome folks to volume two of 'The North-East Diaries - Batesy's Tale' and I hope you enjoy this ongoing story as much as the first volume. Volume one of 'The North-East Diaries - A Funny Thing Happened in Blyth' covered the early years of the nineteen-sixties. Set predominantly in the mining town of Blyth in Northumberland and following the trials and tribulations of a young lad suddenly thrust into a perplexing Northumbrian environment in the exciting formative years of the sixties. This volume (volume 2) follows the lives of the principal characters as they attempt the precarious straddle between teenage years and adulthood in the late nineteen-sixties and then follows them into the seventies and eighties. Some are successful and some find their attempt at adulthood hugely difficult. You will find many of the characters from volume one re-appear. Sid (Hawky) Brown, Titch Irving, Batesy, Roly, Raisbeck and the surprise re-appearance of Charlie Chuck in Hull of all places. New characters make an entrance too... in particular a funny old codger named Tug from New Deleval and his marras from the lonnen Taps Bob and Mordy. They are all real people and the book is as true as it can possibly be made. This is their story and the complete tale is neither autobiography, memoir nor a work of fiction but a fusion of all three. It draws a picture of the contrast between those years and life as we know it now. A time before mobile phones and the internet. A time when holidays were taken down the beach or at Butlins and not in Ibiza or Corfu. A time when a night out was at the local Working Men's Club or perhaps bingo at the Roxy. A time when Bates pit ruled and coal was king and working men were proud. But most of all a time when music was exciting, innovative and edgy... and bands sang about the ending of wars and the stupidity of life and made us all want to change the world for the better. We didn't of course but it is still a time that I wish the kids of today could experience. If they could then we'd all be 'Working Class Heroes'. Dialogue is written as best as can be remembered and in the vernacular of the day. I hope that if any of my surviving former teachers read this they will forgive the liberties taken with grammar and syntax and refrain from sending back the book covered in red ink and sarcastic comments. Once again names and events have only been changed to protect the innocent.

Blyth in the 1960s - a north-east town vibrant and bustling with life. With its crowded shops and a marketplace fed by the wage-packets of workers from the local mines and factories, the shipyard and busy docks - it's a perfect place to grow up in, and a great time to be a youngster...but not so easy for some. Sidney (Hawky) Brown is a ten-year-old Scottish lad suddenly uprooted from his home in Kirkcaldy, Fife, and relocated to Cowpen...a new council estate in Blyth, Northumberland. This is his story, and the story of his mentor, Charlie Chuck. It is a young boy's struggle for acceptance in a strange town, where a peculiar Geordie dialect is spoken and the way of life is poles apart from anything he has been used to. Encapsulating the period of summer 1961 until autumn 1963, this tale, predominantly true, is of his struggle for acceptance, his struggle to reach the holy grail of Grammar school, and of the outcast - the 'bad' man Charlie - who befriended and tutored him. The story is neither autobiography, a memoir, nor a work of fiction, but a fusion of all three. It draws a picture of the contrast between life in those early years of the sixties and life as we know it now. An underlying thread is the young lad's encounters with truth and falsehood, serious illness and loss, friendship and trust... and eventually joy and success. You almost feel as though you are growing with Hawky as his story evolves.