Talking Ghost Stories with BBC Radio Solent
It was pleasure to be invited to speak with Lucy Ambache on BBC Radio Solent recently about When Reason Dreams. You can hear the interview by clicking below:
A Split Second Decision – was it the right one?
I know the winding road into Bath very well as my daughter and her family live in Bath and we often take the A36 past Limpley Stoke and onto Bath. I have often wondered whether a car could crash through the trees and descend the steep slope beyond and, if it did, how long it […]
A Chancy Business – life imitating art?
Having run an art gallery in London with my wife and having met many art dealers, I can admit that there is an element of autobiography in the story called A Chancy Business in Where Reason Dreams. All art dealing is a bit ‘chancy’ – will the picture you have spotted at auction be recognised […]
The influence of the Dead Man’s Penny
I admit to being haunted by the First World War, and I believe that many British share my fascination and horror of the ‘War to End All Wars’. We are constantly reminded about the War with the annual Remembrance Day in November (a tribute to all recent wars, but dominated by the memory of 1914-18), […]
Official Launch of When Reason Dreams
I was delighted that so many people attended my book launch at the Butterfly House at Sherborne Castle’s Garden Centre on 1st February. Jenny Newman asked several questions about how I had written these ghost stories and what had inspired me. She then posed the difficult but important question as to whether I believed in […]
Review of When Reason Dreams
I was delighted to receive this excellent review from Mark Pender from the Sherborne Times: Do you believe in ghosts? Moreover, do you have to believe in ghosts to enjoy a ghost story? The answer to the second question from my reading of Julian Halsby’s enthralling collection of supernatural tales is emphatically not. This […]
Loggia dei Lanzi – happy memories to inspire a ghost story
Between school and university I spent a year in Florence, initially attending a course in Italian and then teaching English as a Foreign Language. It was a wonderful year – a new sense of liberty away from school and parents, many friends both English and Italian, my first job and the most wonderful surroundings. I […]
Dawson – a faithful servant
I have a passion for old photographs and often buy books of old postcards which I study intently. There are often photographs of stately homes and their staff – parlour maids, kitchen staff, butlers and garden workers. I sometimes reflect upon the life of gardeners in such an establishment. They usually spent their entire lives […]
The Maid – fact or fiction?
Some of my ghost stories in When Reason Dreams are pure invention prompted maybe by a place I have visited or an idea that has come to me while driving home from a lecture or sitting on a train. Others are developed from a ‘true’ ghost story which I have been told about. Of course […]
