Your Life Story
EVERYONE HAS A STORY TO TELL
I’m passionate about people and the stories they have to tell.
Have you ever browsed the shelves of your local book shop and seen them groaning under the weight of the latest celebrity life story?
Hurriedly produced and poorly written attempts at the autobiography of the latest ‘in thing’, someone whose five minutes of fame has come about as a result of their being the latest product of cheap television and marketing suits out to exploit both them and the public at large into thinking they are the next big thing.
Until someone else comes along that is.
A book inevitably follows. Here today, gone tomorrow and, by day three, at the bottom of the bargain bin and forgotten.
It’s how the entertainment industry works. Wannabe stars are here and gone in the twinkling of an eye.
The books that follow are very much a case of here today and gone tomorrow. By day three they’re usually at the bottom of the bargain bin and as forgotten as the person whose story they purport to tell.
Yet, all around us, people with real stories to tell never have the opportunity to do so. People who live in your town, your street or your house. That person might even be you. People whose lives really do deserve to be celebrated and documented. You’ve probably said it yourself of a friend or family member, you may even have heard it said about you…
“You’ve led a really interesting life. You should write a book about it”.
I’m fascinated by social history. Stories about the world that we live in and the people, places and organisations who helped shape them into the society we know and share today. Because the most remarkable and worthy lives are often those that have been lived and led by the sort of individuals who are often disparagingly referred to as ‘ordinary’ people.
Ordinary people. But extraordinary lives.
I want everyone to have the opportunity to tell their stories. Men like Tony Beasley whose submarine was nearly ran down by a Soviet battleship whilst on a covert operation during the Cold War.
He and the rest of the crew of HMS Turpin were not even officially on that clandestine mission in the Barents Sea having been advised, before their departure by the MOD that, if anything was to happen to them, the official response would be that they’d been lost at sea. No further explanation was deemed necessary. They were expendable.
Then, as I looked, that same radar contact returned although noise and trace were still weak. It was enough for me.
“Dive dive dive!” came from my otherwise silent lips.
I cannot remember shouting ‘dive’ or even, amongst the anxiety that was prevailing, if I even shouted anything at all. It was, however, later communicated to me that I did, indeed, shout “Dive!”
We crash dived. Doing this was nothing short of suicidal. The snort mast and after periscope were both raised as the diesel engines pounded away, sucking in life giving air. As we then proceeded to head into the depths, water began pouring into the control room through the snort intake…
A story that was never meant to be told from a mission that never officially happened. Yet Tony Beasley felt compelled to tell it. And he was able to do so thanks to the Everyone Has A Story To Tell service that I run in association with Tidbury Media.
Joyce Spencer was another person whose life has been extraordinary rather than ordinary.
Born in 1925 as the youngest of her Father’s twelve children, Joyce excelled at school and wanted to stay on beyond the age of 14 in order to further her education. Some hope. She was forced to leave and get a job in order, like so many others at the time, simply to help keep her family just under the breadline, food on the table and a roof over their heads.
She eventually trained as a Nurse and vividly recollects her time working at a Portsmouth hospital.
Every patient had to be woken up at 4am. They then all had to have a thorough wash before each and every bed had to be made up clean and fresh-with the patient still in them if necessary.
You soon learnt how to do that.
Then, just as all of that was finished, every patient would need to have their breakfast trays made up and ready at the end of their beds. And so on and so forth, all of these regular duties taking us up to 7.30am which is when, thankfully for us, the day shift would come on with all their patients awake, washed and fed.
Tony and Joyce’s recollections make compelling reading and are both wonderful stories that have now been recorded and documented so that future generations can read them and learn about these so-called ‘ordinary’ people who lived their lives in times, situations and circumstances which, for most, would now be regarded as completely unacceptable.
But those were society’s standard at the time.
Do you know someone who has a remarkable story to tell?
Might it even be your own?
Everyone Has A Story To Tell is for anyone wishing to record their life story, or part of it. I will work with you to develop and put into place a bespoke programme that will ultimately see your story being ghostwritten before being carefully typeset and presented as a collection of twenty copies of your book that you will be able to share with your family and friends.
How Does It Work?
The first step is to get in touch with me in order to arrange an informal and no obligation first meeting.
This gives me the opportunity to explain the whole process in detail whilst you can ask any questions and make a few basic decisions with regard to your proposed book that will help me provide you with an accurate cost quotation.
If you then decide to proceed, I will conduct a series of detailed recorded interviews with you, your friends and family in order to gather information and references with which to expand and begin to rebuild your story. The writing can then begin with you being fully able to read through the manuscript as it develops throughout the process.
That manuscript will follow a strict system of proofreading and final editing before heading over to my creative team in order for its design to be worked upon with proofs of that, including the front and rear covers made available for you to see. The narrative will have been typeset in an attractive and easily readable typeface with the content of your book also including a selection of pages dedicated to any photographs and other images you wish to include. Once this has all been done, a proof copy of the finished book will be made available to you to look through and approve. Once you have done this (and any alterations or corrections can still be made to the text at this time) the book will be ready to be submitted for print.
Your completed commission will be professionally printed and beautifully bound into a hardback or paperback book which I will deliver to you myself. You may, at this stage, opt to have a little get together of family and friends to mark the launch of your book.
From here you can enjoy reading and sharing your very own book.
Thereafter your book could, if you choose, be made commercially available through both traditional booksellers as well as through online stockists (eg) Amazon. If you decide you would like to do that, we will provide you with all the assistance and expertise needed in order to do that.
I look forward to hearing from you.