BOOKS

Crookham author spotlights the 1960s pop legends.
 
THERE was a time when stars like Jimi Hendrix, Cat Stevens, The Walker Brothers and Engelbert Humperdinck strutted their stuff before fans in Aldershot.
In fact, that diverse collection of pop talent shared the very same stage at the ABC cinema in High Street, Aldershot, on the very same night in April 1967 when they were in the middle of a month-long UK tour.
The cinema staged seven shows between 1965 and the end of 1967 featuring the top names on both sides of the Atlantic and those concerts provide the central spine of the book Legends On Tour - The Pop Package Tours Of The 1960s penned by Martin Creasy, who has lived in Church Crookham since 1988.
The book follows those seven tours across the country with anecdotes from 21 pop stars and dozens of local fans who attended the shows. The stories are illustrated by dozens of previously unpublished photographs from the files of the Aldershot News of stars like Hendrix, Roy Orbison and The Small Faces, both on stage and relaxing in their dressing room at the cinema.
Legends On Tour is published by Tempus Publications of Stroud www.tempus-publishing.com  and is also available from  www.amazon.co.uk 
More information is available on Martin’s website at www.martincreasy.co.uk.
Martin is pictured at a signing session at Maher the Bookseller at the hart centre in Fleet. Picture taken by David Searchfield
The following books are available from amazon.co.uk. If you wish to purchase them simply click on the appropriate link and you will be taken to the exact page 

Back to '66

Local Author Bob Cox's book "Back to '66. 

Fleet Street Map
Family Walks Around Fleet, Crookham, and Crondall (Family Walks Series)

Written by Bob Rose.

Ashes Book from Local Journalist Rob Wightman

Rob Wightman’s exciting new cricket book has been published to coincide with the Ashes. Match of My Life - The Ashes relives 12 classic matches from past series through the eyes of the men on the pitch.

 

The book features exclusive contributions from 12 Ashes heroes: 2005 Ashes winner Ashley Giles, Geoff Boycott, David Gower, Glenn McGrath, Justin Langer, Merv Hughes, Bob Willis, Ray Illingworth, John Emburey, Mark Taylor, Jeff Thomson and Neil Harvey.

 

Match of My Life - The Ashes, edited by Rob Wightman and Sam Pilger, (Know the Score Books, £16.99), is available from www.amazon.co.uk and major bookshops, including Maher and WH Smith in Fleet. 

 

 

                                                          Blog: http://ashes200607.blogspot.com/

                                                          Website: www.RobWightman.co.uk

 

About Rob Wightman

 

Rob Wightman has lived in Church Crookham, Fleet, since 2002. His first book, a biography of footballer Eric Cantona, was published by Virgin Books in the same year.

 

Rob was brought up in the village of Long Sutton, Hampshire, and returned to the county in the late 1990s after spells living in Exeter, New Zealand, Spain and Hertfordshire.

 

His latest book, Match of My Life - The Ashes, is the product of a summer of toil.

Local Author Malcolm Noble

Author Malcolm Noble spent his teenage years in Crookham Village (Veronica Drive -- then a new house) and kept close ties with the place until his parents moved away in the 1980's.  He spent his wedding night in the Oatsheaf

 

Malcolms first novel "Liking Good Jazz" has been taken by a number of libraries in the area -- Fleet, Aldershot, Yately and Farnborough -- suggesting something of a local readership.  

fleethants.com thought that his readers would find it useful to keep in touch with the series of books -- 

 

 

Timberdick is back in Malcolm's second novel "Piggy Tuckers Poison"  She's living in a church vestry and working nights in the Curiosity Shop, when a stranger is murdered at the top of the stairs. Timberdick's girls are the likely suspects.


Setting out to find the real killer, she is soon on the run herself from the Police and the pavements of Goodladies Road offer no hiding place. It's 1965 and the world has gone crazy... her favourite policeman is moonlighting as a DJ on a pirate radio ship, and Bugger McKinley's ghost is loose on the town. Timbers is arrested, but she has no time to waste in a police cell -- she has a murder to solve... and a bun in the oven.

 

 

 

 

In Malcolm's book "The Case of the Dirty Verger" the story has some extra Hampshire ingredients -- a night ride down the old Meon Valley branch line and the ghost of Sweet Fanny Adams from Alton!

1947 brings no peace to Goodladies Road. Men without a war and girls without homes is a cocktail for murder...

When Ned Machray, an out of work policeman, is dispatched to help an old soldier flee the country, he finds that the old tavern has been bombed, Ma Shipley is working her girls from a smutty tearoom, and the manor is controlled by an embittered Chief Inspector who works from the back of a taxi office. 


A body is found beneath the railway arches... the Dirty Verger holds the key to the mystery, but who would deal with a man like that?

Well, Timberdick might. A teenage runaway, who can't escape the lies and treachery of her childhood. "Every grown up comes with a cakeload of cruelty," she says, and the Case of the Dirty Verger is no different.

This latest Timberdick Mystery explores our protagonist's first nights on the Goodladies Road, and offers clues to many of the characters who have already appeared in her later murder cases.

Malcolms latest book is another Timberdick novel and is called The Parish of Frayed Ends


Malcolm would like to thank local residents for their continued support.

To check out Malcolm's books visit his website at www.bookcabin.co.uk/news or amazon.

Basingstoke Canal - a new book by Dieter Jebens and Roger Cansdale both from Church Crookham.

Priced £12.99and available from local bookshops - also from Amazon click here