the Hotel on Mulberry Bay by Melissa Hill - a warm-hearted novel set in Ireland

The two sisters in the Hotel on Mulberry Bay by Melissa Hill couldn't be more different: Penny is happy to stay at home in this beautiful Irish seaside town and help their parents, Anna and Ned, run the popular hotel where the locals have celebrated engagements, birthdays and weddings for many years, whilst Elle couldn't wait to leave for a career as an architect in England.
But the death of their mother, who has been the driving force behind the business, brings Elle back to find the old building falling apart and the family having to decide whether to make a go of it, or sell their treasured hotel with all its memories.
She also finds Rob, the boy she promised to return to (but never did all those years ago, after leaving for college in Dublin) is as gorgeous as she remembers; but the two of them find it so hard to tell each other their feelings after all this time.
As a subplot, Penny has always thought that Ned favoured Elle and discovers from Anna's diaries that he sold his beloved Beatles collection of original LPs when she was born to provide some money for the business, so she sets out with Colin, an English writer who turns up to stay at the hotel, to buy back the vinyl records and win back her father's love.

I like that because of this, Melissa Hill has given the family names inspired by The Beatles: Anna from the song on the album, Please, Please Me; Elle from Eleanor Rigby; and Penny from Penny Lane. However, I couldn't remember any Ned at all, until I Googled 'Ned + Beatles' and came up with Ned Flanders' Beatles collection which he keeps in his basement! That's brilliant, Melissa!
I really enjoyed this warm-hearted novel which explores the relationships between sisters; between couples; between a man and his daughters; and lastly between the people of a seaside town and the hotel which has brought so much joy to all their lives.

Step Back in Time with Ali McNamara

I've always loved adventures in space and time, from when Lucy found Narnia in the back of a wardrobe, so I was really pleased to discover Step Back in Time by Ali McNamara.
Jo-Jo, a career girl in 2013, gets knocked over on a zebra crossing and taken back to 1963. Of course, that was the year The Beatles really became famous and, lucky girl, she gets a job at EMI records! But that is not the end of it, she travels on again to the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties.
Each time she meets George who owns a shop called Groovy Records, whom she knows from the present. He doesn't change, apart from ageing, but her other travelling companions, Ellie, from Liverpool, and the gorgeous Harry do, from decade to decade. ( I couldn't help but see Harry as a younger version of Colin Firth!)
George seems to know some of the answers to why she is travelling through time, but is not letting on, so Jo-Jo must try and find out for herself and somehow get back to her life in 2013, but will it be the same?
I loved this story, having lived through all those decades(!), and Ali has created the atmosphere of each one really well.
It's a great magical mystery tour which kept me reading to find out what happened next, how she would manage to get home and whether she would ever get it together with Harry!
I enjoyed looking out for all the fab Beatles' references too!
I think it would make a great film!

Do you have a favourite time travel book?

How Paul McCartney, CS Lewis, and Reading on the Toilet got me into Writers' Forum this month!

It's been a good writing week for me in Writers' Forum: I've been mentioned three times!
Recently, Paula Williams was asking for writers to tell her about how their day job had inspired a story or a novel for her 'Ideas Store' column.
I wrote in and told her how working at a hotel where The Beatles had stayed in 1963 had prompted me to write about fourteen-year-old Molly who wanted to tell Paul McCartney that she loved him. (You can find out what happened in my collection of summer short stories, Postcards and Suntan Cream!)
I was really pleased to see that Paula had included my story. It was quite funny because a few years ago, I heard about her column and how it could inspire you to write and so I became a subscriber to the magazine. Now here I am in it myself!
There has also been a series by Douglas McPherson, helping you to break into non-fiction article writing. I never thought that I could do it. However, one day I watched The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on TV, and remembered that CS Lewis had died 50 years ago, in November 1963, so began to write an article for practice. I saw that a free magazine had a few articles each month of local interest, and so, because Lewis lived in Oxford for many years, I pitched it to the editor. I was thrilled to be asked to write 500 words and afterwards told it would be in the November issue. On the back of this, I decided to write a letter to the 'Writers'Circle' letters page about it, and they printed it as well!
Lastly, I saw an article in the Metro newspaper reporting on a survey that said that one in 10 men and one in 30 women read their books on the toilet. It also went on to talk about the British people's lack of knowledge of Shakespeare and Dickens. I wrote it up for the 'Newsfront' digest and got it published too with my own byline!
I just shows what you can do, if you look for opportunities and act on them!

I recommend A 1960s Childhood From Thunderbirds to Beatlemania by Paul Feeney

I love the Sixties and was lucky enough to grow up in that magical decade when anything seemed possible, including landing a man on the moon. Fabulous!
So I was really pleased to find this book in a National Trust shop, although it's also available on Amazon.
Paul Feeney gives a nostalgic account of the Sixties starting on January 1st 1960, listening to Jack de Manio (remember him?) on the Today programme (no breakfast TV then or even Radio One) and moving through the decade.
Each page jogs a memory:
Remember party line telephones, Encyclopaedia Britannica door-to-door salesmen, and when postmen wore uniforms like Postman Pat, and not shorts in all weathers?
Remember School Friend magazine, outside toilets in the school playground, and playing two ball against the wall?
Remember Worzel Gummidge, The Clitheroe Kid, and Crackerjack?
'It's Friday, it's five o'clock and it's Crackerjack!'
And all the children in the audience would yell, 'CRACKERJACK!'
I adored Thunderbirds, Stingray, and  Fireball XL5 with Steve Zodiac too, however, Paul Feeney said he watched Laurel and Hardy, but would have loved to have some kind of recording device to allow him to see them all!
It's hard to believe that 50 years ago this week, The Beatles released their first single Love Me Do, which only reached number 17 in the charts, but Paul mentions that their second single Please Please Me got to number 1, and was the beginning of Beatlemania in the UK and America.
This is truly a fabulous book, illustrated by some atmospheric black and white photos of magazines, adverts and cinema posters, and whether you read it for the memories, or you are researching into those  times, or just curious about what it was like to be a child in your parents' time, it is well worth a read. The only thing that I would add would be an index to help look things up.

Happy 70th Birthday, Paul!

Sir Paul McCartney has been flying the flag for Britain ever since The Beatles put Liverpool on the map back in 1962 with Love Me Do leading to phenomenal worldwide success.
In the Sixties, I could only dream about going to a Beatles' concert, and had to make do with seeing A Hard Day's Night at the Odeon, just once, until years later, it was shown on TV at Christmas. No videos, DVD and Sky in those days!
One happy memory was buying about two feet of Beatles' wallpaper for my bedroom wall for one shilling and three pence (about 6p these days). The man in the decorating shop told us how to attach it to the existing wallpaper with dressmaking pins. I've just looked on eBay and a similar piece has sold for £27.99! I should have held on to mine.
Eventually, my dreams came true, and I got to see Paul at the NEC in Birmingham in early January 1990 in his tour Tripping the Live Fantastic. We all stood and danced in our seats as he sang songs from his time with The Beatles to Flowers in the Dirt, his latest album.

Three years ago, I finally visited Liverpool! Here I am outside 20 Forthlin Road, where Paul spent his teenage years. It is a National Trust property now (Fame at last, ha, ha!) and they do guided tours.  It was fabulous to see the actual spot where he and John Lennon sat to write I Saw Her Standing There, and walk round the house that would have been so familiar to him.
In 2010, I managed to get tickets for Hard Rock Calling in Hyde Park with Paul the headliner, WOW!
We got there at 12 and picnicked. By 2.30 it was filling up, and we stood until 7.30 with the temperature in the 30s. Then, there he was on the stage, and we didn't feel tired anymore. Neither did he, because he played for three hours without a break! Everyone joined in young and old, and amazingly everyone, young and old, knew the words. The top photo shows how close we got to him. It was unbelievable! Really, if you haven't sung Hey Jude with Paul and thousands of his fans on a hot June night, under the stars, you haven't lived!
On June 4th, 2012, Peter Kay introduced him in the Jubilee concert as 'the biggest influence on popular music the world has ever known  . . . they don't come much bigger than that!'
Happy Birthday, Paul! And many more of them!
Have you ever seen Paul McCartney or any of the other Beatles?