It's a while since I wrote . . . how easily the time flies by when you are busy. The launch date for my new book is 31.08.15 and it's taken a lot off effort to get Prophecy of Peace into its finished state along with everything else that's been going on around here lately.
Anyway, this post is about something else:

I don't go on many vacations mainly because with a family my size there is always something on that prevents us being away from home for too long – (usually sporting activities that play a prominent part in our family life.) But, when summer comes we try our best to take our children somewhere – so, just last week my wife and I took some of our younger children down to the south west – to Devon, where we had been invited to stay in Paignton with my youngest son’s best friend’s family.

Well, what a holiday it was. That part of England is just beautiful – it was just like being in the Mediterranean with the weather holding up so fine. My youngest son Gabriel had travelled down with his friend’s brother a few days earlier and met us cheerfully on our arrival. As soon as we arrived, we were shown around the house which was beautiful with the best views on the street. Have you ever visited somewhere and felt that it is bound not to quite live up to your expectations? As we approached and could see all the nice houses, slowly looking better and better, we thought to ourselves it can't possibly be the best house on the street! Well, just as luck would have it, it was the best house we came to. Built as an upside down house into a hill. It had views overlooking the beautiful surrounding south coast of England, and we could even see the animals in the nearby zoo.

On theTuesday, we took a short drive out to Brixham, the nearby town. We looked around and my wife and daughter did some shopping before we decided to explore the rocks and coves and nearby beaches.

My children and friend’s children set off exploring the rocks and they decided to snorkel and dip their heads underwater. They kept lifting their heads out in excitement for spotting all manner of sea creatures. I undertook another passion of mine and began photographing butterflies, including one of the Silver-washed fritillary – a species clearly having a good summer in the UK, and not usually found on beaches.


A highlight of the holiday had to be the visit to splashdown – one of the biggest and best water slide attractions in the country. I did not personally go in, our friends took our children with theirs while my wife and I took a bit of time to ourselves and wandered into the village. However, my kids told me about it all afterwards, telling me the rush of adrenaline they felt as the bolted backwards on a water slide.

Another amusing incident happened involving a seagull, a baguette, and my 16-year-old daughter. There she sat eating a baguette that we had just bought for lunch, when a seagull swooped down and pulled it out of her hand and onto the floor with its beak leaving the wrapper entirely intact. My daughter, with her face held in an expression of sheer shock, could not believe what had happened.

The next couple of days were filled with exploring beaches and coves and walking the cliff tops as we enjoyed the company of one another and eating the local ice cream.

To continue the exploring theme right until the end, we decided to go a different way home. I hate driving on the motorways so to change the journey up a bit, we went another way home. We travelled up through the south west and across the middle of England, passing Stone henge – a piece of history that all of us in the car wanted to see. We headed through Wiltshire to Oxford and then drove the country route back to Peterborough, arriving home some eight hours later.

It felt very strange to be away from home, not doing my usual work or following a routine, but then, that’s the beauty of a holiday – no routine, no work, just time spent entirely devoted to loved ones.

As a writer, real eperiences give me the inspiration and allow me to develop my ideas. They are the food and drink, the seeds of inspiration for me. When I got home I looked up that little ruin on the edge of Elbury cove, Devon, what a quaint old history it actually has – you never quite know the mysteries of the past – who might have lived and died there - what their lives were like . . . until you bother to find out that is, and then, let your imagination loose . . .

This bank holiday weekend was the 'Anniversary of my inspiration'
It's one of those things that you tend to remember, I've told quite a few people this story but  I thought I'd share it - there is always something needed to light the spark for all of us whatever we do.

Four years ago my local football team, Peterborough United won a play-off final to win promotion. it was a big day for sports fans and the match was live on TV. That same night my son, then 18, came home in the early hours and reckoned he'd seen a ghost under the Botolph bridge which is to the south west of the city centre on the outskirts of Woodston. The Oundle road leads out of Peterborough to the west and that was the route my son was walking home in those early hours to our house in Orton some two miles further away. To settle my little ones later that evening I found myself pouring out this adventure story more or less off the top of my head. It combined these two recent events.

I hadn't planned any of this at the time, I just had the ghost story idea on my mind having talked with my son that morning and seen his genuine reactions to the experience whatever it was he saw. We love football in my household so it seemed a natural thing to do - combine events and make it exciting. My elder daughter listened in and noticed how gripped the boys were  and suggested I should write it all down, stating that some of the stuff she'd had to study for A - Level wasn't half as interesting . . . thus, my idea for writing ghost stories in a real 'what if' type contemporary setting was born.

Over the next week or two I honed the story, changing it quite a bit but basing it on the events of the football match and a similar event that had taken place in the city two decades earlier. I dropped the ghost under the bridge bit and gave that the full treatment for another story some months later. All the places and references are real although as a reader you don't need to know the area to appreciate the story.
A month or so later with the story typed up and approval from family members my mind was racing away conjuring up possible similar ghostly adventures. Over the next few months I researched historical events, interesting local facts, visited supposedly ghostly sites and continued to write. A year or so later my book was complete.

So, you see, we all have our starting point, we all need that little spark of inspiration to get us going. Once you nurture it - give the flames a little time to grow - who knows where it might lead you!

What has ever inspired you to create something? I'd love to know. click to tweet

You can read my other books here:    The Spirit of Peterborough
                                                                    I'll be there for the replay

Coming soon . . .  'A Prophecy of Peace'  The first in a new series of mysterious adventures  . . . subscribe to keep up to date.

We live in an age where almost anything is possible. The technology available to use is enormous and developing all the time. Almost monthly there comes a new way to be able to do something and reading to that end is no exception.

The first thing to get clear is that it’s not one size fits all. In spite of what you might have read anywhere else, people do still like to read in many different ways.

Printed books are now far less popular than e-formats perhaps, but there is still a strong market for them. Printing is not what it used to be, the industry has moved with the times and, as a trade printer with experience in the industry over many years, I can tell you that prices have dropped dramatically. There are many POD (print on demand) services available to prospective publishers and there is quite a difference in the precise services offered.

As for digital formats it doesn’t just stop at the Kindle, Nook or any other e-reader . . . a couple of beta readers for my latest first draft actually requested a PDF format because they wanted to be able to look at it on more than one device and didn’t want it to be tied to their regular e-reader.

The choices available for methods of producing material for people to read are endless, and it is down to the reader to be discerning in how he or she gets the most from their reading.

Are you the person that likes to have your whole library on your e-reader and takes it with you everywhere? Do you sit and read while your kids are at their sports club of an evening? Do you take it with you to the Spa and utilise that extra thirty minutes when you would otherwise be just relaxing?  Or, do you ‘collect’ ebooks? - you’ve got them in many different formats on your computer - your favourites are on cloud drives as well so you can get them up on your mobile or tablet whenever you want. Maybe you are more the ‘curl up on the sofa with a good book’ type? You probably want a physical printed copy - you like to pick it up and feel the pages, gaze at the cover, smell the print - a book for you is a possession of comfort. Or, you’re a paperback addict and you feel satisfied as you know you’ve taken in another chapter and can see the thickness level of pages read increasing by the hour - for a few days this book  goes with you everywhere!

We are all very different in our habits.

Here is an observation I have made first hand over the last couple of years:

Twice a week I run my daughter down to athletics, I tend to socialise with a few other parents while we watch but a good proportion, between 25% and 35% read. What do they read? Virtually always fiction. How do they read it? 60% /40% split slightly favouring e-reader devices over print books. Who reads? 99% are women. (There are parents, men and women in equal numbers).

Getting the best from your reading experience

I’ve talked to a lot of people about how and what they like to read and it’s clear that we all have a different take on almost everything that we find in front of us to read. Some read fast, some read slow, some of us focus better under pressure and some of us struggle.

To get the best experience from reading anything requires two things: knowing what it is you want/need to read and applying the skills of mind to most effectively digest the experience. This may sound a bit of a clumsy way of putting it . . . did I just say you need a certain skill set to read? Yes, reading is as much a skill as the writing is in the first place. Think about this for a moment, we can all read and write to a greater or lesser degree, but the outcome, experience or knowledge gained by any individual is going to differ greatly. It’s not just because of what is written on the page in front of you, it’s about what you understand from what’s written on the page in front of you.

Reading is the most important skill

Of course, reading objectives are going to vary greatly  in accordance with what the requirement is; if you are reading non-fiction you might scan through a section to get to the bit of information you require, there may be no requirement to have known what comes before or after. The ability to concentrate, focus, and often re-read a small part over and over are necessary skills in this case. An example would be an instruction manual.

If you are reading to find out about a broader subject presented as a whole and that points to a particular theory or philosophy, then you can take the dip in and out approach. However, you will get the best experience by reading from start to finish, then re-reading parts relevant to your requirements. This book and thousands of others like it are examples. This is probably the most common mindset with which people approach reading in general.

If you are reading fiction you need to read it all . . . nothing is ever gained by guessing the ending or skipping the middle. But here lies the real crux of the matter:

You need the right mindset for whatever is in front of you

The human brain works in a way that naturally adapts to its environment. If you want to find something out you will concentrate when reading that important instruction, if you don’t really want to be bothered with the story you are reading then your mind will drift off and scream ‘boring, boring’ however good the writing or content in front of you might actually be.

So once you’ve decided you are going to read something you need to quite simply keep an open mind, start on a level playing field and kill off any preconceptions you may have at the back of your mind as to what you might already be thinking about the story. It’s only too easy to see from Amazon reviews when readers had already made up their mind that they were expecting something else from the story.Too often a low rating review contains revealing information that tells a discerning observer that perhaps the reader hadn’t really accepted the story at face value in the first place. Some of these reviews are actually just plain comical.

As a real ‘live’ experiment I just broke off for an hour whilst writing this to randomly pick out such an example from the amazon store. I didn’t sift through, I just went three pages in and looked for the first novella that caught my eye that had a handful of reviews that ranged from low to high. The results back up what I am saying perhaps even more than I expected! Here is what I found:

Now I’m not going to reveal exact details of the story, it’s not relevant. I will just tell you that it was a simple mystery story with an easy to understand but slightly unusual plot. It was also a debut novella to be the first in a series. I have changed the exact wording of the review comments to protect any obvious identity.

One reviewer gave it a low rating saying simply that they found it very unusual and after reading a quarter of it they gave up because it showed no signs of improvement!

So . . . ‘unusual’ - is that not a good thing in the mystery genre? If anyone read only a quarter of any of my short stories then gave up I would not have expected them to have been able to give a considered opinion about it. Yes, we know that first page has to grab the reader’s attention but surely it’s worth giving it more than ten minutes if you are bothering to leave a review at all!

Another said, ‘I skipped to the last page to see how it ended up as I gave up in the middle’

‘It wasn’t my type of book and would have suited a teenager rather than an adult’ (the sales page states a reading age of 7 - 11 years!)

I gave it a higher rating review, and the book thankfully has received some good reviews but you can see from this how easily many readers find themselves getting sucked into that ‘preconception’ state of mind whereby they are already expecting a very specific result from the experience of reading a particular book.

Reading doesn’t work best this way. Keep an open mind, always prepare to be taken on a slightly different journey each time.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and must be allowed the platform to be able to give it. You expect any book to be as described, and, there are some shockers out there that fall well short of the mark, but this random choice I made was certainly not one of them. It was well-written overall and the review criticisms were in my opinion somewhat unjust.


How and what do you like to read? I'd love to know


A story with a twist . . . read here

   I got involved with a couple of things at my place of work this week that got me thinking about how Christmas is the ideal time to put some effort into something and really grab people's attention. Now I'm sure you already know this,  the school plays and performances, putting up the decorations, preparing wonderful meals etc. they're all opportunities to really go to town and show off a bit. 

There have been an endless number of Christmas films based around the competitiveness the season can bring . . . Jingle all the way, starring Arnold Shwarzenegger, The Home Alone series, and there was a great depiction of rivalry in a TV drama Christmas Lights a few years back starring  Robson Green and Mark Benton. But what I experienced this week was a slight sense of panic when I realised the time to have bought my secret santa present has now nearly come . . 'What the hell do I get? Will what I chose for the person come up to the mark? Will everybody else manage to get something a bit 'cleverer' than me? . . . in short, while I feel stupid? I can get over this one because it's 'secret' so no one's going to really get embarrassed, but the other thing we had to do . . . woah! - competitive or what!  

We were all asked to decorate our classroom doors with the students creating the ultimate piece of 'Christmas art'. Now you are talking. It's been fascinating to observe how with a couple of days left we have all developed the tactics of  international espionage, sending out our spies (dressed up as students) to bring back information on how neighbouring doors are developing. . . and it got me thinking . . . what we are all really trying to do is just to be a bit different. We are trying to come up with something a little 'outside the box' - there aren't any plain snowmen or Christmas trees! - that's pretty cool really.

Then there's christmas presents, every year someone in my large family manages to come up with something pretty unique and we are all gobsmacked and full of instant awe at their creativity. But here's the thing . . . there's nothing wrong with plain tradition, but isn't it just great when you can be a little different?  and I believe everybody can. 

Those who know me know that apart from being a part time author nearly everything I do is a bit different from the next guy. I don't make much money for a start! and I'm constantly 'doubling up' on my business activities, how many authors do you know that also run a printing business in their spare time? We are all capable of being a bit different, a bit special and are certainly capable of surprising others around us.

So, my challenge to you this season is to do something differently from everyone else this Christmas. It might be making your own Christmas card (I received one from a relation today - it was excellent) or a decoration, or invite someone round for a drink - someone new or different. If you have children read them a Christmas story in the lead up to Christmas and make it a tradition to then follow - I did this 30 years ago and am still doing it . . . even as recently as of tonight.

So what did I do? Well I wrote a Christmas ghost story, and yeah . . it's different. I put lots of seeds in there for you to think about, sewed lots of threads together to make what I've been told is quite a cosy tapestry of a tale that will leave you in just the right mood for the season. You can read all about how I did this here

I'd love to know what unusual creations you might now be planning. Please leave a comment, and If you are a fellow writer I'd love to hear about what your writing over Christmas . . . particularly anything really different or unusual! and certainly any other new Christmas ghost stories out there.

 . . . The opening words to my story for halloween. I'm sure you'll have heard this phrase before but i make no apologies for that. Sometimes when we write we have  to use 'old favourites'.
I'm not going to ramble on about this story in this post, just read it and let me know what you think, but remember, if you are planning on going out for a freaky halloween jaunt, things don't always go as planned!
this blog has it's name for a reason and I love to write stories that might make you look at things from a different perspective. . . . enjoy.

It got me to thinking how fiction writers in the main  follow this plan whether they realise it or not.
Okay, there are going to be some that tell you that the whole idea came in a flash and that all they had to do was write it down . . . I can understand that.
There will be some that tell you that they were visiting somewhere - sitting in a cafe perhaps or somewhere similar, and someone came in and did something and that gave them the idea . . . I can understand that too.
But, all these aspects are really just starting points, there are still a lot of blanks to fill in and that takes work. It takes a lot of thoughtful development of what you've started.

J. K. Rowling has said that when she got the initial idea for the Harry Potter books it came to her quite quickly whilst on a long train journey. This doesn't mean that the whole thing was planned out in her mind on that same day, but it does mean she had the seeds of a strong (as it turned out quite genial) idea to develop. She also said that the final chapter of the final novel was actually sketched out after the opening chapters of the first! The final novel wasn't published until seven years later so that tells you that there was a clear structure to  the whole thing right from those first seeds . . . but still her journey took her many different directions as she went through that meticulous process of developing it.

So, what does this tell us? 

Well, as my Granddad used to say to me 
'There's more than one way to skin a rabbit' . . . but the final result needs to always reach a similar level of success - the skinned rabbit must be edible!

Creativity takes you on a similar journey from a single point - a seed of an idea to the final product that bears the fruits of your labour of love.

Going back to myself here then, where does my inspiration come from?

Well, it's never exactly the same, the process seems to vary  from project to project - sometimes things just come to me quite quickly to start off the story and then it just flows, sometimes I get a strong seed of an idea but then get stuck. Whatever route it leads me down I don't force it, I let things happen naturally. If it comes swiftly and engulfs my creative brain then it means it must happen quickly - if that means a little desperation to get things done then it's going to mean late nights  - perhaps lots in quick succession!  If I get a 'slow burner' then that's cool, slow burner's are good, but - they either flare up at some point or they don't. To me this doesn't matter. I don't get hung up if my idea falls on it's head. If I have to force it I know that it probably wasn't a strong enough idea in the first instant and the best place for it anyway is really just the archives of my sketch notes.

When writing The Spirit of Peterborough and some of my short stories, the ideas came from the strangest of places and at the strangest of times . . . (I like strange!)
An idea I am working on now came directly from a dream I had one night about a year ago . . . I hurriedly wrote down the basics at 7.30 that morning before I went to work, knowing that the details might well become blurred during the working day and that later that evening might just be too late!  This idea became a quirky short story a week or two later but has now grown from it's initial seeds into possibly something much bigger. . . I have developed it, but I have not  forced it.

I wrote one of the stories included in The Spirit of Peterborough the day after a famous local football match and related it back to another match several years earlier, the story is not about football but it is about a ghost. 
On the same night my son thought he had seen a ghost locally. Whether he had or not is irrelevant but the two things happening together that weekend inspired me to write the entire story in the following 5 days . . . and it's not been altered very much to this day. 
I also wrote e second story - completely different but inspired by where my son had seen that supposed ghost and what might have happened!  That one didn't make the first book - maybe in the sequel?

These are just  examples from personal experience, I could go on but I won't because getting ideas is an endless process but it is a process that everyone can partake in. There are no hard and fast rules as long as you don't just plain copy someone else's exact idea.   

I love what I do. I love the process of transmitting my thoughts, ideas, beliefs, emotions to others. Story telling is just one way I do this. Music and  art  I've also dabbled with and no doubt will some more at some point in the future. 
The point is anybody can do this. If you have the germ of an idea don't hold back  . . . DO SOMETHING WITH IT.

It's not always the quality of what you start with . . . it's how you develop it.

Everybody can do something creative that is different from the next person:

What creative talent do you have?

Do you write, draw, paint, play or make music?
Do you design stuff? Do you doodle on your notebook and sometimes people look over your shoulder and say 'Hey, that's pretty cool'?
Are you someone who walks into a room and 'ad lib's? - you have a flair for witty comment!
Can you rearrange furniture in a room to completely transform it? - that's creativity at it's most useful!
Can you decorate, up-cycle stuff, recycle materials to come up with something  quite crazy? - that's really 'in' at the moment.

Whatever bag your into I'd love to hear about it. Drop me a comment below and I will get back to you and help in any way I can

Peterborough is a dull, grey city where nothing happens? As it turns out, not necessarily. Tom Goymour proves that if you look well in the history of the place, there are always many interesting, and inspiring stories to be found. 
In his book, he has decided to share with us stories that are literally "out of this world." The Spirit of Peterborough is a book of ghost stories that are literary fiction, however, his basis for writing the book is that there are events that have really taken place in Peterborough that he felt he could combine with stories about ordinary seeming Peterborough folk of today going about their lives. Do you know what secrets are hidden behind the walls of the Cathedral, the Museum and many other places around Peterborough? We invite you to an interview with the author, after which i'm sure you will want to read this very unusual book.

                                                                                               * * * * *

When I saw your book, I thought to myself: Is it possible that extraordinary events like this could actually take place in Peterborough? Stories of ghosts in the background, scary things around us like we are used to seeing in the movies, surely that certainly does not happen in reality ....?

I realized some time ago that ghost's and the stories people tell about them are not just a figment of the imagination, in truth, strange things can take place in our lives. What's more, it might not happen to you but to someone in your family. Just as in my case, things happened to my sons. Actually, you don't have to look far, just look around your environment, find out about the places you go to. In the case of Peterborough, a lot of the paranormal past bases around the city centre. Some of these tales are really very interesting. So, I decided to take advantage of this fact, my creative mind started to work and I came up with the idea of intertwining stories of events that really have happened, with literary fiction, placing ordinary Peterborians as the main characters - as the heroes of our time. 

So, these are stories about people like you and me, to which happen events that place them in some extraordinary predicaments: Stories that have their roots in events of the past.


You mentioned that the centre of Peterborough hides a lot of just such stories.

Yes, it's true. Even now, when we sit at this very table in a cafe affording us a fine view of the Cathedral, many people walking past us right now don't know anything of it's hidden history. The first story, in my book is very much based around this. I do not want to reveal all the details but in fact all the stories you will find have one common theme; they should make you think: "What if something similar happened to me?" When someone tells a spooky story most are skeptical about it, I also was. However, when you become a witness to a similar event, you start to look at certain situations from a different perspective.


Ah! I understand that you might be referring to some specific stories, involving your loved ones?

Well, yes. One of my sons saw once while playing golf on Orton Meadows golf course what could possibly have been the spirit of a man who was trying to get out of the river. (The apparition was also seen by at least two others that were present.) When we tried to find out about the possible ghostly sighting nobody could enlighten us and there never appeared even a mention in anything we could find online that anything of the like had ever occured. Then, some three or four years later two of us found and browsed an old book of 'Huntingdonshire tales', and there came across a story perfectly corresponding to the mysterious experience had by my son. The story was of a young man who actually drowned in the river very near to that point in the1840's. I have since been able to research and verify it in old newspaper articles. This event has also become a kind of backdrop to one of the stories in the book. Everything fits perfectly. This inspired me to write a story that has some strong emotions embedded within. By reading it people may find that with open minds they may just become witnesses to a similarly extraordinary event at some point occuring in their lives. Who knows?


You mentioned that the stories you write about in the book have their roots in a true story, where the reader has to know when you are telling about things that really took place, and when presented situations are just a figment of your imagination?

At the end of the book there is a special section that points out the real events, which were described in the stories.  As you mention, I thought that people may need such an explanation. It's facts of truth embedded within the fiction, but there is always a strong element of the narrative based on real events. If people are clear about at least some of this, then it can make these stories even more interesting for them. (I don't give it all away though.)


So you believe that ghosts really exist and are among us?

Personally, I think that all the ghost stories people tell will always have at least grain of truth within them. Also, from personal experience I now have reasons to believe that ghosts really exist. They do not appear among us without cause – this is crucial to me. The question is, why are they here? Why at a certain place or time? Often we do not realize that some seemingly mysterious event may have another, more rational explanation, but so often there is no clear answer and this interests me. 

When you talk to the scholars of such spiritual entities, you'll find that there are seemingly different types of ghosts. The one that interests me most is the spirit that warns you of danger. Some call these spirits angels that stand guard over our security. It is said that they appear to protect us from something, from something which we are not able to predict and is always never something expected.


You mentioned about the historical event that could link to the experience had by your son, but you did not tell about any encounter you might have had with a ghost.

Ah, well, that's also mentioned in the book, and continues on from my last point, but I do not want to reveal everything and put it on a plate for the readers. When anyone decides to look inside 'The Spirit of Peterborough' they should be able to pick out a situation that happened to me that took place at a time when I was in danger but unaware. Then something happened out of the ordinary - perhaps saved my life and changed the course of events . . . who knows for sure? Now, here with you I sit and and talk about the subject for a very good reason, but maybe it could have been different? 

This is a slightly different experience though, some will say perhaps more to do with faith, but we can end up thinking too much about all of this if we're not careful. When you look back and you analyze certain events in your life you can see that they are or at least have become more important than they might initially have seemed to you at the time.


But when we read the stories that took place hundreds of years ago, there may be concerns that parts have been invented or descriptions coloured by people who have decided to pass these stories on.

Of course. It is very likely that has happened, especially when we find several different versions of the same event, but when we find information from a specific date and place and this information can be confirmed with solid evidence, we know a certain amount must be the truth. It is possible, of course, that many elements of the stories that are passed down are coloured, over-glorified, or even fictitious!



Some of the most interesting stories behind not only the Cathedral, but also the museum, and the centre of Peterborough can be experienced on a guided tour where you can even listen to ghost stories?

The 'City of Peterborough Ghost walks' are extremely popular and they run frequently. The stories that we hear during such trips are fascinating for discovering as close to the truth as is possible, which is why I recommend anyone who hasn't been to go on one. The walls of the Museum, the back streets of the town centre and the area surrounding the Cathedral to name but a few locations hide many secrets. Therefore, in The Spirit of Peterborough you will also find a story based on such an event. In the book you will find a story about a group of friends, who are go on the tour and even though they are aware that they will experience the powerful telling of some supposedly real ghost stories, they do not expect the equally unbelievable experience that awaits them!



The United Kingdom is known as one of the most haunted places in Europe. Therefore, are there other places you might be interested in where similar stories might have taken place, and are you going to write about them perhaps in the future?

I've lived in Peterborough for 46 years, that is why I have chosen the place that is dear to me and that I am familiar with, but maybe in the future I will branch out to other cities or places of interest in the UK. Since I started writing this book, many people have actually asked me this question so there would I'm sure be some interest . . . who doesn't enjoy a good local tale, spooky or not! Peterborough is the city that has inspired me. Besides, there are many such events, which are not yet written about, and which are in my opinion very much worth some investigation.



Personally, I still hesitate whether to believe supernatural stories or not, but certainly agree with your statement that the events of the past have a greater impact on the present than we might initially think.

Yes, that is a phrase expressed by one of the key characters in the first story of The Spirit of Peterborough. There are many such key moments in my stories where there forms a realisation within a character that what happened to them has its roots in situations that have occurred in the past. Characters are nearly always given a knowledge of the past, allowing them to better understand their current situation. Past and present are all the time intertwined, so it is important to know the past, especially stories of the city in which we live. 

We sit now in the centre of Peterborough before us with its beautiful Cathedral, which is the core of the history of this city, but, as I said before, I can bet that perhaps only one in a hundred people that pass by us actually know the documented history of this monument and it's relevant meaning today.



In the preview to the book you wrote: 'After reading it you'll never see Peterborough in quite the same light again.'

This is in fact the primary purpose for which I wrote this book. I want to awaken people's minds, I want them to think about the stories long after they've put the book down. I want people after reading it to not only have learned some little part about the history of their city, but also to be inspired to want to find out more.

If after reading the book the reader says to themselves; 'Hey! I never thought that something like this could happen in Peterborough . . . I never realised that such quirky and unusual events took place here' Or, they look at the Cathedral and begin to wonder if, just what if some part of all it's mysterious history could really be happening around them right here and now . . . then, I have succeeded.

Peterborough isn't as boring and grey a city as some of us might initially have thought . . . is it?




Interviewer: Malgorzata Prochal

Author's website:    www.tomgoymour.com

Well finally I got my book published. Words cannot describe that feeling of accomplishment and I would be lying if I said that at any stage it was easy. But if I can do it, so can you.

Whilst just surfing the web for ideas I came across this completely different way of writing. It's not one I would ever have chosen or even thought of but I can see how it might work and it got me thinking.

Anyway, after a successful acceptance of my book by Waterstones, I started, out of interest to browse their website. I came across this traditional method they suggest to get you in the spirit and mood for true creative writing. After all, it's all about true creativity.

(In this example I'm relating it to the sort of stories I write.)

Firstly they suggest focusing on your equipment. Use an old fashioned quill and ink, dim the lights or better still, use candles instead of artificial light. The light of the room helps curb your mind towards the dark, the unknown and basically inspires you towards thinking gloomy thoughts. (Sounds depressing I know but the idea is that it gets you in the right place for creating those dark tales!)

Then you choose a location. For those who have read my most recent stories will know that I chose an actual city, Peterborough, as I found in this case it gave the stories a more ‘it can happen to you’ feeling. If you chose a fictional city you can still make it relatable but  the benefit of using a real city allows the reader to identify and imagine the very spot where something sinister actually may have taken place.

Next, you'll want to decide how you are going to bring the sense of mysteriousness and create the mood and tension for your ghostly character. What's happening? What has actually happened? Who is this central figure of your story? Do you want it to be just slightly creepy? Or do you want it to really startle your readers? Are you getting across an underlying message?  . . .The choice is yours.

With these ideas in place you then focus on building the tension to reach the dramatic point of your story with an identified protagonist.  Characters must be sharp, rounded, gripping, exciting, and so always work on these until you are totally satisfied. Once you get these points sorted into a structured plan then your story will be underway.

Now just write it…and see where your imagination takes you...



This is all you actually need to do, but, be under no illusions that to do it properly requires hard work.

At some point the question is going to come, and in my case having written the story. . . that time is now!

This is the important question everybody should be asking themselves when they create anything of worth. This is the stage where you must evaluate and analyse what you have done. The most effective way for doing this is to get feedback from other people. When you do you will find that the things you have got right far outweigh things you might have missed. It is a basic truth that people will be naturally critical, but a good story will always arouse plenty of positivity.

Having written The Spirit of Peterborough, it makes me think and wonder; was there anything that I needed to put in to make it better or more exciting to read? But at the same time I know there are lots of things that people will like about it.

I put in an endless amount of time and effort into the work of this book, but as everyone knows there is always something to improve on and it will never be perfect. But that’s okay, writing is supposed to be like that.

I write from the heart, I always have done and hopefully always will do. Sometimes it's not about thinking what would people like to read, it's having the confidence that your imagination and ideas will be strong enough to capture people's interests.

So I would really love to know. . . if you were to give me feedback - what would it be?

Leave a comment, I would love to know what you think.  And, if you have read any of the book, The Spirit of Peterborough, please find time to leave a short review.

You can find 'The Spirit of Peterborough '  at  http://www.tomgoymour.com/ 

The Spirit of Peterborough on Amazon 
and . . 
The Spirit of Peterborough on Smashwords


Review:
Email:  [email protected]
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/TomGoymourAuthor

One of England’s most endearing legends if perhaps not the most endearing is that of Robin Hood. A fictionalised character embedded in every child’s mind, but looking back in history we know there are many facts which can suggest he was real. A well-known link to ‘the real Robin Hood’ by some historians is as Robert of Locksley, Earl of Huntingdon. This link is thought to have derived from the epitaph of a ‘Robin Hood’ buried near Kirklees Priory in Yorkshire written as followed;

Robert Earle of Huntington
Lies under this little stone.
No archer was like him so good;
His wildnesse named him Robbin Hood.

Full thirteene yeares, and something more,
These northerne parts he vexed sore.
Such out-lawes as he and his men
May England never know agen.

This small poem seems to tie nicely with the famous character we have a picture of today, suggesting that he was a real Earl. Of course, he must have been a good guy – all the stories tell us so . . . don't they? Well, other historians have identified a farmer called Roger Godberd who was described as a thug that robbed the rich - he was even captured and held in Nottingham Castle. Could he have been the basis for this well-known character? A publication of a book called Robin Hood: The English Outlaw Unmasked in 2011 leads you to believe this is the guy! Or, could he be one William Robehod as other historians have claimed? Having found evidence to back it up where he is listed for a crime as being part of an outlawed gang suspected of robberies. The truth is we will never know, but it still compels people today to read about it and speak the legend to their children of the do-gooder who stole from the rich to give to the poor.

There are many others too, Such as that of King Arthur. Was he a real hero? An individual? Or could his legend be built on a string of seven or eight different men who conquered battles and are known by same name over a span of a 100 years or so?

There are the many historical events and legends that writers repeatedly explore, such as the lost Princes in the tower (time of Richard 3rd), – what happened to them? Did they both die? Or just one? Was a serving boy used instead disguised as one of the Princes and the real Prince escaped unscathed in disguise? How did this part of history find its way to us?

So why am I tellling you all this?

Well, it's simply to open your mind to the possibilities. Even today we have unexplained occurences that may hold their secret forever but that doesn't mean we can't delve deep into our imagination to create possible scenarios for ourselves. Legends like these are often what inspire me to write, and as you begin to read my books you will see that in areas of my writing I include true facts. I love to incorporate elements of the truth to cement realism and create stories with a twist. (This will be no more obvious than in my forthcoming publication The Spirit of Peterborough). Such as the story of Robin Hood has been twisted and altered as it’s passed down through the centuries to create new tales and ideas about the legend, I like to do the same.

Over the years I have heard many tales relating to the numerous ghosts that apparently reside or have made their mark in the Peterborough area, with each and every one of them stimulating me to ask questions; what actually happened here? What was the trigger? And Why? This would then provoke me into researching as much as I possibly could about anything that could have played a part in the birth of this tale. And when I say this I don’t just mean ghosts – I am intrigued by all types of mysterious aspects such as UFO sightings, local historical legends, the unexplained or the paranormal, or even just purely unusual or quirky facts or events.

Just last year my family and I had a day out at Rendlesham Forest near Ipswich in Suffolk where there was a now famous UFO sighting reported in December 1980. (See my account of the very unusual day) Dozens of service men had witnessed flashing lights and saw apparent unidentified craft flying at an impossible speed on three consecutive nights. They also reported strange markings on the ground, with no explanation of how they came about. Now at the forest, there is a tourist attraction that has grown from the legend, there is a small account of what happened on a board ahead of the paths. My boys read this before we started walking the trail and were excited at the thought that aliens may have landed here years ago . . .

When something like this happens it makes you wonder – is there life out there? Something must have happened to cause this but, precisely what? Where is the truth? How much is exaggeration or the embellishment of well-meant rumours?

Numerous authors such as Dan Brown; T.H White; Mary Stewart; Philippa Gregory and even the writers behind the Doctor Who series get inspiration from true history, myths, and legends. They turn some strand of well-known historical truth and turn it into a great piece of fiction. They use fact to help make their writing more believable, persuading us into thinking that it was really like that. It then creates a circle of appetising reading as it evokes in readers a feel of wanting to find out more about that period or event.

So, the fascination for me is always to ask that question: What might have really happened? How could a particular scenario really have panned out?

Has anything strange really happened to you? Have you ever been intrigued or mystified enough to do your own research? Has there ever been anything that has compelled you to look deeper?

I'd love to hear. You never know, you might have the basis for a good story!

After all my research there is something I take with me now every time I write. No matter what you do . . . always look over your shoulder, and you never know what’s round the corner . . .  

How many of you have been on a Ghost walk?

A couple of summers ago my family and I went on The Peterborough Ghost walk led by Stuart Orme. It was a scorching hot evening but the stories we heard were enough to send shivers down my spine. The tour started outside Peterborough Museum with some interesting accounts of numerous spooky sightings.

When you hear the word ‘museum’ what springs to mind? For most people they just think of the old historical artefacts and unless you like history then there is nothing for you there. That’s true to a point – but history is important by the way it shapes our future. We all know this, so why then have I enticed you to this page? Well, some of you may know about the ghosts of Peterborough Museum and some of you might not. How many of you know for example that there have been at least 8 reports of different ghosts there?

The most well-known ghost is that of the soldier Sergeant Thomas Hunter otherwise known as ‘the lonely ANZAC’. He was a First World War soldier that didn’t make it home. During the Battle of the Somme in 1916 he was injured. He was then taken to Portsmouth then transferred to a hospital in Yorkshire. However, on the journey his condition severely deteriorated and they made an emergency stop at Peterborough station. He was taken to the infirmary (now the museum) but all efforts to save him were in vain. He died July 31st 1916. There have been several sightings of a grey figured in an army suit appearing to climb the stairs then disappear. This is thought to be the ghost of the lonely ANZAC soldier who never made it back to his home in Australia.

The ghost of a little girl who is heard but not seen is said to haunt the Gallery on the first floor and only rarely has anyone caught a glimpse of her – enough to know she’s a little girl. Her face appeared in a window and she was seen behind a closed glass door where upon investigation there was no one there. What happened to her no one knows, but she is always heard giggling so she must be quite happy to roam the museum.

The late 1940s brought a visit to the caretaker’s daughter who was ill with chicken pox. The family lived in the first floor flat. She claimed she was visited first by a Doctor, only to be visited again by the Doctor who really called sometime later! Months afterwards when they were sorting through old photographs she came across the ‘Doctor’ who visited her. He was identified as Alfred Caleb Taylor, a former Doctor, who had died twenty years earlier from radiation poisoning. (Little was known about the effects of radiation from x-rays back then.)

These are just a few accounts of the supposed ghostly inhabitants that reside inside the museum, but even the car park behind it is said to have a spirit lurking around occasionally. From what is known about the history, the museum car park is it where the hospital use to put the dead. Accounts have come through of people complaining of being touched by an invisible cold hand. When the scouts use to use the building they claimed to often feel a cold presence and never like sleeping overnight there as they were sure to have a restless night. Going back to the car park later that evening with my family I remember that we were all looking over our shoulders . . .

Along the walk we learned that Peterborough is a city home to various Roman ghosts that like to continue their legion march. People have reported seeing ghostly Roman soldiers at night on the surviving earthwork of Car Dyke that runs roughly through the city from north east to south west. The Bauer business park at Lynch wood is also said by its workers to be haunted as the lights have a mind of their own, and two shadowy figures on horseback have been seen. These are thought to be Romans as archaeologist had to clear Roman burials before the building work could commence..

Even the more modern building of Queensgate shopping centre is haunted. After dark when the lights are out, a few little children still continue to play as their laughter has been heard by security guards at night, also noises of footsteps have been heard.

There is a legend rather than a ghost that we are told influenced the famous writer, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles. It is the legend of Black Shuck. The Shuck was said to roam the coastline of East Anglia and around and into the Fenlands. The last report was in the early 1100s and it was recorded in the Peterborough Chronicle that the Shuck had been seen in the ‘dark part of town and the woods that stretch from that same town to Stamford’. This was witnessed by the Monks of the time and it is said that the Shuck appeared there and roamed the woods throughout Lent until Easter. It was thought that seeing the Black Shuck brought death or illness to those who witnessed it. Doyle visited Peterborough before he wrote Hound of the Baskervilles and the legend of Black Shuck was something he was fascinated by and likely influenced his writing.

I love modern day parallels, and when I read about this legend it reminded me of a summer about seven or eight years ago when we suddenly once again heard reports in this area of a large black wild animal roaming nearby woodlands . . . this time it was supposed to have been a big wild cat!

I found the ghost walks and the stories that were told quite inspirational and when I write I am fascinated by these things from the past.

What about you? Have you ever written or told a story based on legend, history, or something that really happened? Have you ever been inspired by anything from the past to do something new, or to at least include it in your life in some way? After all, the past can help shape who we really are whether you’ve cared to notice it or not!