COOPER Wilson is a man who knows horses. In his intriguing first book, he tells of how the apparition of a stag led to him becoming known as the ‘Yorkshire Horseman’.
The True Story of the Yorkshire Horseman lifts the lid on the life of a man with the “rare psychic gift” of being able to understand and help troubled horses.
The son of a hunt servant, and a boy who went to school in his wellies, Cooper began to realise at an early age that he had extraordinary powers of being able to communicate and work with ailing horses. Now he’s in-demand, internationally, as a horse psychic. He travels throughout the UK and around the world and horse owners bring their animals to him, like a pilgrimage, so he can tell what’s wrong with their animals and what should be done and to put them back in good health.
Co-written with Chris Berry, The True Story of The Yorkshire Horseman is published by Great Northern Books, £9.99. Call (01274) 735056 or visit gnbooks.co.uk
* WHEN Chris Berry came up with some bedtime stories for his two young sons, he developed a character called Milkman Mike. Now Mike, his dog Spike and pal Farmer Cream have come to life in a new series of children’s books.
Chris’ little boys, Russell and Stewart, contributed to the Milkman Mike stories, for youngsters aged two to seven. Chris, who lives near Leeds, says they’re “ideal for bedtime reads with parents and for when children can read themselves”.
Milkman Mike lives with his “big daft dog” Spike in the idyllic village of Dairyville and collects his milk from Farmer Cream every morning. Each of the four stories sees Mike and Spike out delivering milk - along the way they chase after runaway bottles, encounter a spaceship, get stuck up in a tree and burst a football. Everything is solved by Mike with a bottle of milk and a cup of tea.
The books are playfully illustrated by Yorkshire-born Nicky Mills, who was endorsed by Kirstie Allsopp as one of her ‘New Makers’ and has appeared on the BBC’s One Show with her illustrations.
The stories are the first in a series, with more Milkman Mike adventures planned for this year. There’s also talk of an animated series.
The Milkman Mike stories, priced £5.99, are also published by and available from Great Northern Books.
* GUISELEY author John Metcalfe is currently writing the final book in his hard-hitting trilogy set in 1970s Yorkshire.
John, 62, who works in Otley, had five-star reviews for his first two novels works about a fictional ‘difficult’ child called Chris Roberts. John drew on his East Yorkshire roots to anchor the first part of Chris’ story, called Running Away. Follow-up novel, Defective, features Otley and surrounding areas.
John became “wholly immersed” in the character of Chris and his various problems. “I had written Running Away as a film script in the early 1980s and although it received some attention, including being a runner-up in a national competition, nothing came of it. I continued to believe in the story but when my partner, Gina, said I ought to write it as a book, my thinking changed,” says John.
“I’d always wanted to write a book, but they always morphed into scripts. I felt a massive sense of achievement when, aged 59 and about 40 years since I first thought of the story, I put Running Away out on Kindle Direct.”
John, who writes in his car for 20 minutes every morning before starting work - for a lead generation company in financial advisor, book-keeping and legal sectors - has now begun the third instalment, with working title Corroded.
He warns that the books contain bad language and graphic descriptions of violence. “They’re set in the 1970s and reflect a young boy’s journey through grief and sudden changes that catapult him into an alien, dark world,” John adds.
“That world is extremely challenging for one as strange as Chris.”
Running Away (99p) and Defective (£3.99) are available on Kindle Direct.
* LAST year the T&A featured a book with a new take on the Beatles’ legacy. The Songs the Beatles Gave Away by Colin Hall (Great Northern Books, £19.99) is an in-depth look at songs written by the Fab Four, never recorded or released by them, but made famous by other artists. Featured in the book is a recording made by Paul McCartney in Saltaire. On June 30, 1968 Macca, accompanied by his Old English Sheepdog Martha, spent a morning in Saltaire’s Victoria Hall recording an instrumental tune called Thingumybob with Queensbury’s Black Dyke Mills Brass Band.
Colin’s book brings together interviews he and Bob Harris, former Old Grey Whistle Test presenter, conducted in 2008/9 with Sir Paul McCartney, Sir George Martin, Cilla Black and others.
Writes Colin: “Throughout the Sixties it seemed everything the Beatles touched turned to gold. Every new single and album marked a startling progression that took the group and its fans in new, exciting directions. Through it all Lennon and McCartney rarely wasted a song. Tunes that somehow didn’t work for the Beatles would be stored away, to be returned to some time in the future”...”to offer to other artists for whom they were deemed better suited.”
John and Paul, says Colin, were encouraged in this by Brian Epstein, to keep the Beatles brand going: “John and Paul were well aware that the ‘pop’ scene of the late 50s and early 60s was notoriously fickle. Journalists would frequently question how long they thought the Beatles would last. Lennon and McCartney were eager to establish their reputation as composers, so when the bubble finally burst they could continue to earn a healthy income as writers.
“During the Sixties, many artists ‘covered’ songs the Beatles had recorded and released, but not as singles. Beatles albums were seized upon and songs were turned into hits by acts such as Marmalade with Ob-la-di, Ob-lada and Joe Cocker with With a Little Help from My Friends.
“The singles featured here, however, were not ‘covers’. For want of a better expression, they are tunes John, Paul and George ‘gave away’. They are a separate Beatles songbook: a body of work released by other artists fortunate enough to be gifted original tunes.”
Adds Colin: “My story also encapsulates the amazing journey the Beatles made from the early days as the Quarry Men and Silver Beatles to the heady days of Beatlemania and beyond, to the years when they ceased touring.”
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