We're off to France in a day or two and have been rushing to get "Nellie's Story" and "Diesel Taff" ready before we leave. We now have all the available storage areas full of boxes of newly-published books! It's an exciting and rather nerve-racking time. Will they be a success? Anne was busy printing for a couple of weeks earlier in the month and then the carloads of printed paper went off to our binder at Knutsford for the books to be finished. We have printed the covers ourselves and "Nellie's" is full colour. It means we can get exactly the colours we want and we're very pleased with the result, although it takes a long time to do.
We have entered Geoffrey Morris's book, "Only Fools Drink Water" in for the Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph Travel Writer's Award 2000, and hope that it will do well. If these things are judged on merit, he certainly deserves to win.
23rd February 2000
Léonie Press is very busy at the moment. We have printed a new edition of "Memories of a Cheshire Childhood", together with a photograph and obituary of the author Lenna Bickerton in the front. We have also reprinted "The Way We Were" by Les Cooper, and are pleased with the way our new printing machine has reproduced all the many photographs.
The next volume of G C Kanjilal's poems, "The Picture of Innocence", is printed and is due to go to the binder's at any moment.
If you consult our Future Books List you will know that we have a number of other publications in the pipeline. "Nellie's Story - A Life of Service", by Elizabeth Ellen Osborne, is currently being indexed by Jack, and the launch will be held at Davenham Royal British Legion Hall, Firthfields, Davenham, on Good Friday from 7.30-9.30pm. The 85-year-old author has been a stalwart member of the British Legion for many years. Until she was 80, she rode round the area on a 90cc motor-cycle, visiting people in her role as RBL welfare officer. She is a popular and well-known person in her community and her friends are thrilled that her life story is to be published.
Currently at the proof-reader's is "Diesel Taff - From 'The Barracks' to Tripoli'" by 78-year-old Austin Hughes of Crewe. His account of his upbringing in North Wales and his adventures in the Royal Engineers during the war will be launched at The Holly Bush, Cefn-y-Bedd, near Wrexham, on Tuesday, April 25, from 7-9.30pm.
Jack cut his indexing "teeth" on "Diesel Taff" - a complicated task in our QuarkXpress layout program which took nearly a week's work. As an expert in knowledge management and a keen genealogist, he hopes to index future books with an autobiographical or local history content, and maybe to do the existing books retrospectively so that they will have indexes when they are reprinted.
However, he also intends to put the indexes on the website so that local historians or family history enthusiasts can check to see if there is anything in the books which they wish to follow up.
Some of Patricia Kelsall's pictures from our website have been included in the site devoted to Mornant, our twin town near Lyon, which is mentioned in "The Duck with a Dirty Laugh". She will be participating in an exhibition dedicated to Hartford artists which will take place between August 25th and September 10th 2000 in the town's Heritage Centre (Maison de Pays).
To visit Mornant's Maison de Pays site, click here .
On a personal note, those following our progress in the Limousin may be interested to know that we received the bill for the damage to the house at St Paradis last week - it amounted to nearly £800. We hope we have made our claim to the insurance company in time. It looks as if our friends were being kind in understating the damage when we spoke just after Christmas. Paul's son-in-law, René the builder, has replaced 23 square metres of tiles and six metres of ridge tiles on the barn, and three square metres of slates on the house roof. The state of the barn doesn't matter too much, but we hope that water has not got into the house through the damaged roof. We will find out when we go over next.