June's Showcase: Spotlight On Ron Hardwick

 

So far, I have showcased the talented authors Ruth Loten, Jane Langan and Beck Collett. This month I’m going to showcase another student from the OU Masters in Creative Writing cohort who graduated in 2020, comedy writer Ron Hardwick. Like Ruth, Jane, and Beck, Ron is also a valued member of the Twenty-Twenty Club, a group we set up for MA alumni to give writing feedback to each other. Since completing his Masters Degree, he has continued to write and has had work published, particularly on 2023 when he’s on a roll!  Ron’s style is light-hearted, humorous, delightfully silly, with a warmth and gentleness behind that that is very appealing. Scroll down to find out more about Ron and his writing, including one of his stories and an in-depth interview containing many insights into the life of a writer.

 

 

Ron, looking like he’s just sneezed!

Biography

Ron is an exiled Geordie, now living in the ‘Garden of Scotland,’ East Lothian, where he fetched up in 1986 after spells in Blackpool and Wallsend-on-Tyne, the former coal and shipbuilding town of his birth and upbringing, which now manufactures Meccano-like structures that are dropped in the sea to pump oil and gas. After a career in purchasing, Ron finished up as Head of Procurement at a large local authority until they eased him out for someone younger, whose head came to a point. 

He carried on with interim and consultancy work till 2019, when he ceased paid work for ever.  He has always written short fiction - he hasn’t the temperament for novel-writing.  He has clocked up well over two hundred short stories and pieces of 1,000-word flash fiction since 2019.  He writes humorous short stories, mainly, across several genres. 

His work has been published in several ezines, including Fission, Write Time, Pure Slush, Cranked Anvil, Fictionette, Secret Attic, Makarelle, Kiss the Witch, Leicester Charities and the York Literary Review.

Ron is married with a son, and grandson. 

 

Links to publications

 

https://www.fictionette.co.uk/monthlyvaried

https://www.secret-attic.co.uk/

https://writetime.org/home/

https://blog.yorksj.ac.uk/creativewriting/2023/02/13/york-literary-review-2023-submissions-guidelines/

http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/sein.html

https://bsfa.co.uk/fission

https://pureslush.com/

https://crankedanvil.co.uk/

https://wi4cleics.wixsite.com/anthology

 

 

Photograph by Susan Brocks

 

 

Here is an example of Ron’s work:

 

Saltmire’s Fall From Grace

 

by Ron Hardwick

 

 One thing disturbed Saltmire above all else. It kept him from his sleep at night, and he often woke in the morning lathered in sweat, croaking:

‘No, no, I’ll come clean. I’ll admit everything. I’ll push the envelope. Just not yet.’ 

It wasn’t the fear of some physical imperfection, for he thought that he stood next to Adonis in that regard. It was the fear that he would be revealed as an incompetent nincompoop of a project manager, who had abjectly mishandled not only the Oracle project, but several more before it. That was one of the reasons he’d been drummed out of South Africa. Saltmire had delivered a government project in Johannesburg eight months late at a cost three times the budget.

‘You have forty-eight hours to leave the country,’ the Finance Minister had told him, ‘or we’ll bring criminal charges against you for negligence.’ 

Saltmire had fled to London the next day. 

The Oracle project had been more successful, but that was mainly in spite of Saltmire, rather than because of him. He had a competent project team under Newby, who was a man who played everything precisely by the book, but who knew how to deal with risk.The way he handled Saltmire’s highfalutin nonsense was to ignore it completely and to follow his own instincts. Saltmire recognised Newby as a threat who might well expose him and duly engineered Newby’s sacking. He was left to take the credit for the completion of Oracle to time and to budget. 

Still he was troubled. Even with Newby, that turbulent priest, out of the way, Saltmire felt waves of discomfort, as do most people who cover up the truth in a spider’s web of lies and deceit. Newby had once said to him:

‘What’s the difference between you and a used car salesman?’

Saltmire said he didn’t know.

‘The used car salesman always knows when he’s lying.’ 

That thought often came back to him, and he couldn’t completely rid his mind of it. He managed to justify his actions by saying to himself:

‘After all, it’s difficult to remember the objective of a project is to drain the swamp when you’re up to your neck in alligators.’

He tried to rationalise his fear of failure. In a rare moment of clarity, he confessed to his wife:

‘Failure is an emotion I can’t stand to feel, because all my adult life, I have conditioned myself not to fail. Failure takes me back to the feelings of inadequacy I grew up with, as a stammering, isolated child.’ 

She replied: ‘Salty, dear, I’ll support you. You’ve nothing to fear but fear itself,’ to which Saltmire replied, reverting to his usual business management gobbledegook:

‘I know, but I need to manage the optics of this and square the circle.’

 

 

It was nine ‘o’ clock in the evening. Saltmire had changed into a black rugby shirt and dark grey trousers. He sported black sneakers on his feet. All he needed to complete the picture was a face-mask and a big sack marked ‘swag.’ 

He gained entrance to the office by way of the side door, to which he had a key. That way, he could circumvent the security men who were on duty, prowling restlessly about the place, pretending to be policemen. He had a purpose in being there and a purpose in no-one else seeing him. 

He made his way stealthily to the office on the third floor, a vast cavern of a place. That night, there was absolute silence. He booted up his computer. He entered his password and clicked on the folder in which the Oracle project files were held. He opened a sub-folder named ‘Reports’ and searched for ‘Newby.’ Another list of files appeared. He clicked on a report that said ‘post project report – confidential.’ This was the one he wanted to see. Because the organisation used a shared drive, all files were available for viewing by any authorised member of staff.  Saltmire had the top level of authority. 

Suddenly, he froze. In the distance, he heard footsteps, saw the flash of a torch. Security! He extinguished his desk lamp, folded his laptop shut, and held his breath. The noise of the footsteps grew louder. Saltmire was about to get up and bolt out of the office, hoping that he wouldn’t be seen and recognised, when the flashlight beam changed direction and the footsteps faded away. He could feel his heart pounding and he took several deep breaths before once again opening up his laptop. He found the requisite file and double-clicked on it. A message flashed up on the screen. ‘Encrypted file, password protected. Can only be opened by the chief executive.’  

Sweat poured down Saltmire’s face. Newby. The crafty bugger. He’s ensured that I can't read the end-of-term report. I can't see the things that he's said about me. I can’t redact anything. I'm powerless to act. Has the chief executive seen it? Has the Board? What'll happen to me?

Then the telephone rang.  Saltmire stared at it in disbelief. How can the phone be ringing? I'm not supposed to be here. He let it ring six times then, with shaking fingers, picked it up. A voice said:

‘Good Evening, Mister Saltmire. It’s Newby here, remember me?’

‘Newby! How did you know I was here?’

‘Watched you go in. Been watching you for a while. Knew you’d have to try and open my file pretty soon. You’ll have found out by now that you can’t. This call is to tell you that you’re going to get your come-uppance at last. It couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke. Goodbye and good luck.’ 

 

 

The boardroom was long and narrow. The walls were panelled in oak. A teak table occupied the middle section of the room. Behind it, seated on a faux-leather chair, sat the chief executive, Sir Barry Judge. He was tall, lean and imposing. It is said that one thunderous look from him could melt ice-cubes. 

On the other side of the boardroom table, on an uncomfortable chair set so low that Sir Barry could look down on all his agents, including the six-foot-three-inches tall Saltmire.

Sir Barry had a sheaf of papers in front of him. After what seemed to Saltmire to be an eternity, Sir Barry spoke. He had a voice as cold as the north wind.

‘You know why I’ve sent for you?’

‘N-n-n-no, I d-d-don’t, really.’  Saltmire felt his whole body give way. He had to put his hand on the top of the desk to steady himself.

‘Do you recognise this?’ Sir Barry held up the sheaf of papers.

‘N-n-n-no.’  Saltmire replied in the negative but he knew perfectly well what the papers were.

‘It’s Jack Newby’s final report about Oracle.’

‘Is it?’ replied Saltmire, miserably.

‘It is. I liked Newby. He was a good man. Solid. Reliable. Been with us for years.’

‘I liked Newby, too.’  Saltmire had the enviable ability to believe in his own mind that all his lies were in fact plain, honest truths.

‘Is that why you conspired to have him fired?’ The question came like a steel barb aimed straight at the chest of the hapless Saltmire.

‘I n-n-never did,’ he stammered.

‘I had words with the Finance supremo. He says you did. Are you calling him a liar?’

Sir Barry’s withering look could have sliced through rock.

‘Yes, er, no.’ Saltmire could not have been more frightened if Sir Barry had threatened to insert lighted sticks of bamboo under each of his fingernails.

‘Make your mind up. I understand that you broke into these offices late one night to try and get your hands on this report. Is that true?’

‘I-I-I…’

‘You don’t need to answer that. Have you never heard of closed circuit television?’

Saltmire gasped.

‘Now, let us get to the bones of Newby’s report,’ said Sir Barry, in a more businesslike fashion. ‘Is it true that you failed to attend seventy per cent of all project meetings?’

‘Well, the project practically ran itself. I delivered to time and budget.’

Saltmire felt he was on safer ground here. His fingernails would remain intact for the time being.

‘Is it true?’ Sir Barry repeated his question. Saltmire shuffled his feet.

‘Yes, but I was content to leave it to Newby. I wanted to decomplexify the process.’

‘You wanted to what?’ Sir Barry was bemused.

‘Decom…simplify it.’

‘Did you place a contract for hardware without following the normal tendering procedures?’ asked Sir Barry.

‘We needed speed. I thought up the idea off piste and made it happen.’

A measure of pride had returned to Saltmire and his Adam’s apple had momentarily stopped going up and down like a department store lift.

‘Without telling the project director?’

‘Well, he’s a busy man.’

He is busy man, to be true, but utterly useless, in my view.

‘Did you show a complete disregard for every element of project management, fail to communicate properly with the board and the project team, take backhanders from local suppliers for procurement favours, and perpetrate another sixty-three misdemeanours outlined in Newby’s report?’

Saltmire bristled. From somewhere deep down in his solar plexus, he found a soupcon of fighting spirit.

‘See here, Sir High and Mighty Barry Judge. A project manager is an organisational leader, dedicated to the imposition of order upon chaos, even if chaos is always the status quo. You gave me three objectives – “good, fast and cheap” – and I delivered them to you, to time and to budget. Now, if that’s all, I’m leaving.’

‘Not so fast, Saltmire. I've called the Police, and they are anxious to speak to you. I will also instruct the Board to bring a civil action against you for negligence, misrepresentation, and any other misdemeanour that might fall out of Newby’s report. That should remove most of your assets and leave you where you belong, on the corner of Praed Street selling matches.’

Saltmire unglued his feet from the carpet and flew out of the room with surprising celerity for such a big man. He could see a police sergeant and a constable approaching from further along the passage. He dashed down the fire steps and pushed open the fire exit door. He hailed a taxi.

‘Where to, Guv?’

‘Heathrow and quick.’

Saltmire bought a one-way ticket to Australia. He took a Qantas flight to Perth at one-fifteen that same afternoon. 

After the fifteen-hour journey, he stepped off the plane at Perth Airport, one p.m. the next day, local time. His clothes were rumpled as a scarecrow’s and his chin was coal-black with stubble. It was so hot he felt like he had stepped directly into a watchman’s brazier.

A steely-faced man was waiting at the bottom of the aircraft steps. He stopped Saltmire.

‘Is your name Saltmire?’

‘Who wants to know?’

‘My name’s Harris. Western Australia Police. We’ve had a request from the Metropolitan Police in London to hold you until their representatives arrive here to take you home. It seems you’re due at Bow Street Magistrate’s Court in a few days.’

‘My name’s not Saltmire…it’s Hogan…I mean Logan.’

‘Show me your passport,’ said Harris.

‘I’ve lost it. I must have dropped it in the plane.’

Harris looked up at the pretty air hostess standing at the top of the aeroplane steps and was momentarily distracted, so Saltmire made a bolt for it.  Unfortunately, he ran straight into the path of the airport bus. He got away with a broken leg, three months in the Royal Perth hospital, two years in Leyhill open prison and a payment to Sir Barry Judge and the Board of half a million pounds.  His wife supported Saltmire by divorcing him, gaining custody of the children and most of the rest of his money. 

Saltmire is presently waiting on tables in a Stroud restaurant, anticipating the day he can move back into project management. That day will be a long time coming.

 

The End

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally we come to The Big Interview, where Ron kindly answers writing-related questions and lets us into some of his writing secrets...

 

 

1. How old were you when you first knew you wanted to be a writer, and what set you off down that journey?

When I was a pupil (not a student) at Wallsend Grammar School in the sixties, we had a fabulous English teacher, Mr Pinkerton. He liked my stories and I have written, off and on, ever since then.

 

2. Tell us about the books and writers that have shaped your life and your writing career.

I am by nature a bibliophile. My number one favourite author is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with his Sherlock Holmes stories. Holmes’s dry-as-dust sense of humour is intoxicating - ‘The next few minutes were delicious. It was a straight left against a slogging ruffian. I emerged as you see me. Mr. Woodley went home in a cart.’  

For monologues, no one is funnier than Patrick Campbell, and his creative non-fiction essays are as fresh today as they were fifty years ago, and Alan Coren, whose short story about James Bond in his dotage mistaking his dressing-gown for a SMERSH agent and shooting it is hilarious. I love Raymond Chandler’s ‘Philip Marlowe’ novels, with his sparse, direct language and wisecracking style, plus his wonderful metaphors and similes - ‘I belonged in Idle Valley like a pearl onion on a banana split.’ I laugh uproariously at PG Wodehouse’s novels, and I also adore the travel writing of Paul Theroux, Colin Thubron and Eric Newby. As someone who rarely goes anywhere, travel writing can be summed up in the words of the immortal Don Partridge in his song ‘Breakfast on Pluto’ ‘Go anywhere without leaving your chair/and let your thoughts run free/Living within all the dreams you can spin/There is so much to see.’

 

3. Have your children, other family members, friends or teachers inspired any of your writing?

My mother thinks I should receive the Nobel prize for literature, but mothers always have rather high-flown ideas about their sons’ talents, don’t they? I used to write stories for my children when they were little - ‘Gumboot and the Church Roof’ and the ‘Newville Monoclonius’ come to mind. My mentor was Mr Harry Pinkerton, my English teacher, who I mentioned earlier, who was funny and gracious and full of energy.  He made me want to write.

 

4. Does the place you live have any impact on your writing?

I have lived in three places - Wallsend, Blackpool and Haddington.  I have written short stories about them all, Wallsend (‘Booger Wonderland,’), Blackpool (‘Seaside Shuffle’), and I kept a blog until 2018, which featured Haddington in virtually every entry. Each has had a definite impact on my writing.  London inspires me, though it is many years since I used to chair meetings there quarterly and my thirty ‘Mr Lemon’ short stories are mainly set in Shoreditch.

 

Robert Adam’s 18th century Town House and Haddington High Street

 

 

5. How would you describe your own writing?

I am old-fashioned. I don’t think I’ve read a novel newer than twenty years old. I write in an old-fashioned way. I make no apology for that. I write to draw out elements of humour and absurdity in my stories, especially from unequal relationships. I have written stories in genres such as science fiction, cosy crime, action, romance, fantasy, and feel comfortable in them all.

 

6. Are there certain themes that draw you to them when you are writing?

One theme that does recur in my work is the relationship between an inadequate, gauche, shy male and an imperious female. There’s a rich seam of comedy there. Looking over my short stories, there are around three dozen in that mien. Because I love uplifting and happy endings, the relationship always works out in the end. I avoid politics, religion, sport and current affairs - there’s not much to laugh at with them.

 

7. Tell us about how you approach your writing. Are you a planner or a pantser?

I start with an idea. I’ll give you an example from last week. I was in Haddington library and I saw a chap leading a reading group of about half-a-dozen folk. I thought, why don’t I write a story about a chap leading a reading group with a number of people who need help with their English - maybe they’re foreigners? Thus was born ‘The South Durston Reading Group.’ I write notes about how I might structure the narrative, what research is needed, if any, where the opportunities for comedy might be, development of the characters and a stab at a likely denouement (happy ending, of course).

 

8. Do you have any advice for someone who might be thinking about starting to write creatively?

They all say ‘write what you know.’ In my view, that’s too limiting. Readers do not want an exposition on the arrangement of bogies on a steam locomotive, or the material used in constructing a car dashboard. They want to be entertained. Start off with an idea. Take a notebook with you on the bus and listen to two elderly women in front of you having a conversation. Dialogue (direct speech) is so important in a story, and listening to conversations not only gives you experience in writing dialogue, but the opportunity for plot development. For example, I was once in Glasgow Central Station when I overheard two men discussing how much it would cost for them to travel to Thurso. I thought why not write about a man so sick of London life he asks the ticket clerk at Euston to sell him a ticket to the furthest place away on the British mainland - Thurso. Thus was born ‘Journey With No Return.’ The possibilities are endless.

 

9. Are you, or have you been in the past, a member of any writing groups, online or face-to-face?

I’ve never belonged to a writing group, apart from, of course, the wonderful 20/20 Club, but I wouldn’t dismiss their usefulness. It’s just that I like to write alone. I think such groups are useful in the cross-fertilisation of ideas, for support and encouragement and for valuable feedback on narratives.

 

10. You have an MA in Creative Writing from the Open University. What do you think you have learned from such courses?

Before the MA, in 2010 and 2011, I did a Diploma in Literature and Creative Writing with the OU, which was useful, because there were face-to-face tutorials, and we covered poetry and plays as well as fiction. In the 1990s, I did a trio of SCOTVEC modules in creative writing, which were basic but gave the opportunity for one’s work to be assessed and marked.  In 1999 and 2000, I gained an MA with Distinction in Literature, which massively increased my ability to conduct literary criticism.

 

11. What do you think about getting feedback on your work from other writers and/or non-writers?

I think it is vital to receive constructive feedback on one’s work. When I say ‘constructive’ I do not mean ‘I like this, it’s rather good,’ but detailed feedback on plot, characterisation, setting, dialogue, endings etc. I’ve had a lot of feedback on my writing both from the MA (I made a point of undertaking each activity in A802 and A803) and the 20/20 Club, most of it positive. I take note in my notebook of every comment, every suggestion, and I religiously see whether that particular part of my narrative would be improved by replacing my text with the suggested text, or a recommended change in the story’s structure.

 

12. You have experience of self-publishing, so what have been its challenges and rewards? 

I have self-published five volumes of my short fiction, through Amazon Kindle. It was very hard work. One has to read and re-read each narrative to ensure that there are no grammatical errors, for no one will proof-read them for you. One has to decide on the cover for the book, the charge for the book and learn how to upload the book, once it is ready, to Kindle. One has then to decide how much to spend on marketing through Amazon. Finally, one has to understand that there are around 750, 000 books self-published in the UK each year, so the chances of success are absolutely minuscule. My advice? Do it, because you can be sure your mother will buy your output or, alternatively, find yourself a good literary agent.

 

 

13. Where do you get your ideas from?

I’ve mentioned some sources of inspiration already, but I get ideas from all over. For example, I was re-reading ‘The Final Problem’, a Sherlock Holmes story in which Professor Moriarty falls to his death in the Reichenbach Falls, and I thought, what if a wet-behind the ears journalist interviews Moriarty from a jail cell where Holmes put him before the fight that ended in his death? Thus was born ‘Professor Moriarty’s Sentence.’ Another source is newspaper and magazine articles. I read somewhere that prison officials were thinking of sending prisoners on courses for mindfulness. I had myself been to a number of rather silly team-building courses when I was an economic member of the commercial community, so what if I wrote a story about prisoners attending a team-building course? Hence was born ‘Team-building at Crestkeep Retreat.’

 

14. They say that successful writers need to be selfish. How far do you agree with this? 

I’m not a successful writer but those who are say that one must be utterly selfish. Patrick Campbell wrote that he sat from ten till six every single day, regardless of family pressures, and Stephen King wrote something similar. I try to write every weekday morning for about two hours and to give myself the weekends off. I can write a thousand words an hour. I write in my study, a small room, the walls of which are covered with pictures of steam locomotives and framed copies of the front covers of Practical Motorist from the 1950s. It’s soothing and enhances my writing experience. Since my wife had her new knees and isn’t quite as mobile these days, I do all the cooking, cleaning, gardening and dog-walking, so two hours a day is all I can afford!

 

My writing room

 

15. Beyond your family and your writing, what other things do you do?

I am now fully retired. I was head of procurement for a large local authority until they threw me out because I was too old. I then carried on with consultancy and interim work until 2019, when I wrapped it all in. I play tennis and badminton, or at least I lumber round the tennis and badminton courts, I play the guitar (badly), I have an extensive (value-less) stamp collection and I am an aficionado of old buses and steam locomotives. I watch television, though nothing more current than ‘Hi-de-Hi.’ I like cooking and I tried my hand at painting, but the results were worse than Bob Dylan’s self-portrait on his eponymous album. 

 

16. Would you describe yourself as a ‘cultured’ person?

I’m cultured in the sense that I never joined Hell’s Angels or the British National Party, or had my ears pierced for golden studs, but I’m not an opera buff, a theatre-lover, or a cinema fanatic. The last film I saw at the cinema was ‘The Fugitive’ in 1992 and I thought it was rather too loud. I read sedulously for an hour every day. I adore pop music from the sixties, especially Richard Harris’s vinyl albums ‘A Tramp Shining,’ and ‘The Yard Went on For Ever.’ You’re asking the wrong person about contemporaneousness and its importance to writers, although I suspect one will get nowhere unless one embraces the contemporary art and literary world. My wife says she’s never met anybody so entrenched in the past as myself and would I please, at some moment in time, return to the present and think about the future?  I have read all of Dickens’s novels (and loved them) and for my MA in Literature, I read literary novels by Defoe, Fielding, Richardson, Sterne, Mary Wollstencraft, Hugh Walpole, and Tobias Smollett. Told you I was old-fashioned.  

 

 

 

17. Are you interested in history and if so does it impact on your writing?

I love history - I’m fascinated by it. I’ve carried out plenty of research, mainly to trawl for ideas, but also to ensure that any short stories with a historical context reflect accurately the period in which they are set. I’ve written a few ghost stories, one of which required me to research the workings and the female labour force of a Yorkshire woollen mill in the 1790s. I love old buildings, especially railway architecture, though I’m less enamoured with looking at a field and being told that’s where the Battle of Prestonpans took place in 1749. I think it’s important for writers to shake hands with history, and I gained plenty of ideas reading my ‘Mass Observation’ book covering people’s day-to-day lives in WWII. If one writes political thrillers, a knowledge of politics and current affairs is useful; likewise, science fiction writers might need to be cognisant with science and technology, although Douglas Adams surely wasn’t when he wrote ‘Hitch-hikers.’

 

18. How did the Covid pandemic affect you as a writer?

I wrote more, because, during lockdown, there wasn’t much else to do. During that period, I opened up the MA’s A802/A803 poetry syllabus and wrote a poem for each activity. I’m no poet, but it was so refreshing to try something different, especially as one’s spirits were so low because of the situation and the anxieties one felt at that time.

 

19. There is a lot of talk at the moment about political correctness, about the Woke movement, about cultural appropriation, about diversity. What are your thoughts on this, with regard to writing?

You’ve touched a nerve there. I’m all for equality and racial harmony, but this business of wokery and political correctness drives me up the wall. How dare anyone rewrite Roald Dahl’s stories - what right have they to do that, except to placate terrified publishers?  How preposterous is it that some tuppence-ha’penny clerk is given freedom to change PG Wodehouse’s wonderfully funny ‘Jeeves and Wooster’ stories? What is the point of changing the ‘fat’ in the Billy Bunter novels to ‘enormous,’ especially as ‘enormous’ sounds worse?  Who’s next? - Dickens? (just read ‘Bleak House’ - Phil Squod is disabled and Dickens treats him with gentle humour, Madame Hortense is a crazy French murderess, and the rag-and-bottle man Krook an alcoholic who spontaneously combusts). Dickens probably causes offence to more than just the disabled, the feminist movement and the anti-alcohol people, but where will this all end? Writers must be allowed to write what they like - freedom of speech, remember, and old Voltaire’s wish to defend it to the death. 

 

20. Where would you place your own stories, on a continuum with PURE FANTASY at one end and COMPLETE REALISM at the other?

Of the 230 short stories I have written to date, some are fantasy stories and I’ve written right along the spectrum to something approaching realism. I love fantasy stories. One can let one’s imagination roam far and wide and one is not bound by normal writing conventions or mores. The possibilities for humour are endless. When I wrote ‘The Resurrection of Sage and Doctor Chronos,’ a science fantasy, I was able to dress the alien Sage in something resembling baco-foil, and give her a sort of wand that erased everyone in the vicinity’s memory for thirty minutes. Such larks! Incidentally, I cannot see the Bond stories as fantasy - I believe they are spy fiction and although not as accurate as Le Carre’s novels, they are surely grounded in reality!

Thank you very much, Ron!

July's showcase is going to be someone from outside 

the Twenty-Twenty Club, the creator of the 

magnificently-named Imperceptibility Happenstance – 

L.N. Hunter. 

Not to be missed!