March 16th, 2004

We went to the London Book Fair yesterday, Monday, on the way back from a weekend in the Pas-de-Calais region of France with our son Alex and his wife Michelle. As non-Londoners we were horrified that it cost as much to get by Connex train from St Mary Cray station near Orpington to London Victoria as it did from Victoria to Olympia on the Tube.

It was the first time we had been to the fair and we felt like little minnows as we walked around looking at the big companies' stands. However we made some very useful contacts face-to-face with the large wholesalers who buy our books and also with major companies that do short-run book printing. We found our costs were about the same as theirs and that the standard of our books was just as good - which was nice to know.

There was so much to see that we felt quite shellshocked; indeed we wondered how people managed to do deals over individual books when there were hundreds of thousands of them on view. Once again I'm sure it's a question of not "what you know" but "who you know" under these circumstances. It was really hard not to browse the publishers' stands but as all the books bore stickers saying that they weren't for sale individually that wouldn't have done us much good!

March 11th, 2004

We have been very busy over the past few weeks, getting four books to fruition! Now printed and bound are "A History of Whiston - From the Stone Age to the Plastic Age" by William K Blinkhorn, and "Pinafore Street - A Fenland childhood" by Kathleen Lord. They will be launched shortly. Currently at the binder's is "Twelve Red Roses - A collection of Poems" by G C Kanjilal - due to be launched in early April - and on its way to be bound in the next couple of weeks (ready to be launched in June) is "It's muck you want! - The humorous story of a double life" by Jack Orrell. We have just laminated the covers for "'Have you got your irons?' - It's a WAAF's life" by Yvonne Peters, which will come out on July 17. Phew....

February 19th, 2004

The launch of "Owners, Occupiers and Others: Seventeenth Century Northwich" by Tony Bostock was held at the Salt Museum, Northwich, last night. It was a joint effort between Leonie Press (we have had several previous book launches in the museum boardroom) and the museum staff, who were marking the opening of a temporary exhibition on the 17th century called "Muskets and Mayhem". It seemed logical to combine the two events!

A lot of people attended, including special guests, the Mayor of Vale Royal Borough, Cllr Val Godfrey, and the Mayor of Northwich Town, Cllr Mandy Griffiths. After a few words about the exhibition from the museum curator, Ruth McKew and the community and education officer Tom Hughes, Anne spoke a little about Leonie Press and described the book. Tony Bostock thanked everyone, especially fellow local historians who had helped him to finalise the manuscript.

Everyone agreed that it had been a most enjoyable evening.

Some of the guests being welcomed by the Curator, Ruth McKew

The Mayor of Vale Royal Borough, Cllr Val Godfrey and Tony Bostock with Anne

January 21st, 2004

Jackie Dennison and Christine Hamlett, authors of "A House with Spirit" who have become well know for their psychic investigations and work as rescue mediums appeared on ITV's "This Morning" programme with Fern Britton and Philip Schofield yesterday.

They told how they had helped a young Hartford couple whose home was haunted by the spirit of the original owner, 18th century builder, Martin Wilkinson. This had already been reported in the January 19th issue of "Woman's Own".

For more details, follow this link.

January 16th, 2004

We had a marvellous Christmas and New Year in France and have now returned to the fray - we are currently up to our ears producing three or four books by April.

The first to be published will be "Owners, Occupiers and Others: Seventeenth Century Northwich", by Tony Bostock. This will be launched at The Salt Museum, London Road, Northwich, on Wednesday, February 18 from 7-9pm. The event will coincide with the formal opening of an exhibition at the museum on life in 17th century Northwich. We have had several launches at the museum in the past and are delighted to be doing this as a joint venture. We have been members of The Friends of the Salt Museum since its inception and Anne's involvement with the museum goes back more than 20 years. It is housed in what remains of the former Northwich Workhouse, with the public galleries and café in the part once occupied by the inmates, and a magnificent meeting room in the grand salon once used by the directors for their committee deliberations.

Jack is currently doing the index for this title, which will be put up on our website so that local historians can consult it to see if the book contains information that is relevant to them.

We are in the process of getting permission from Boston Library to use some old scenes of the town in "Pinafore Street - A Fenland childhood" by Kathleen Lord. This is due to be launched in March but we have yet the finalise exactly where. Kathleen is nearly 90 and wrote the book when she retired in the 1970s. We both come from Spalding in Lincolnshire, so it is a great pleasure for us to be associated with something so close to home. Anne was actually born in Boston and Jack still has part of his extended family there. Anne has just started to work on "A History of Whiston - From the Stone Age to Plastic" by Bill Blinkhorn. He originally typed it up in A4 format and she is trying to retain this basic layout in an A5 format, which is requiring all her typographical juggling skills!

We also have a wartime autobiography, "Have you got your Irons?" by Yvonne Peters, and Pamela Barnett's "The Spirit of Mathilde" waiting in the wings.

At the beginning of January we had three excellent manuscripts arrive in two days, so we are beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed!

December 11th, 2003

Following an article in the Shropshire Star, sales of "Happy Days and Heartbreak Days" by Victor William Dilworth have rocketed with bookshops from all over the county ringing to order copies. As a result we are having to reprint only three weeks after the launch. There is also considerable interest in Northampton - where Victor now lives - and this is before he has even appeared on the afternoon arts programme on BBC Radio Northampton. Frustratingly there has been a major fire at Northampton sorting office: this has been delaying the mail for some weeks and is disrupting our book distribution in that area.

December 6th, 2003

We have sent out our usual pre-Christmas mailing to our regular mail order customers in the UK. It was a bit later than we wished as one of the bags of mails left in the village post office was missed when the mail was collected.

November 15th, 2003

"Happy Days and Heartbreak Days - A farmer's son relives his 1920s childhood" by Victor William Dilworth was launched in Northampton today. The event was held at Boothville Community Hall, near Victor's home, and he was thrilled with the support he received from his family and friends - about 50 people attended the launch party, with some people travelling from the South of England.

Victor welcoming some guests

Victor signing his books

The book is set in the small village of Hinstock near Market Drayton, Shropshire, and the local post office had received 27 advance orders for signed copies, which we thought was excellent. When we delivered them, we found that the book was the talk of the village and the postmistress took some more copies to sell in the general stores part of the shop. The book has already been mentioned in a half-page article in the Northampton Chronicle and Echo and we hope for more coverage in the Northants and Shropshire media.

November 12th, 2003

We went to the print finishers to collect "Elizabeth Anne Galton (1808-1906) - A Well-connected Gentlewoman", which had been collated and bound while we were away. It is now available to purchase and you can read all about it by clicking on the title.

November 10th, 2003

We have had a busy week, after returning from three weeks at our house in France on Sunday, November 9th. While we were there we took advantage of the very dry conditions to work on restoring our ancient lavoir, which has been a swamp for at least 50 years. We removed all the fallen trees from it - with the help of neighbours with tractors - and dredged about half a ton of mud out of it using a bucket on a rope. It's a start!

On the way home, we stopped off in Surrey to see a prospective author who has written a very interesting book about her time as a WAAF during the Second World War. We hope to produce it next year.

October 15th, 2003

We were delighted to hear today that as a result of the sales of his book "A Life Worth Living", Jonathan Colchester, who suffers from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, had been able to send £2500 to the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, the new name for the Muscular Dystrophy Society. We are most grateful to all those who have bought this book and made this donation possible. As a result of national publicity sales of the book are growing and the first print run is now nearly sold out; we expect to reprint shortly.