Tales from Portlaw Volume Three: 'Bigger and Better'
Tales from Portlaw Volume Three: 'Bigger and Better'

Author: William Forde

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2014-09-10

Total Pages: 71

ISBN-13: 1326014439

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I grew up on my mother's stories. Although an Irish woman of small stature and imaginative mind, stories didn't come any 'taller' than those tales told by my mother. They would stretch the bounds of one's credulity beyond the realms of possibility, and yet, she always made me 'want to believe them'. Having been persuaded to return to writing, I decided to recount some of the stories told to me by my mother long ago. Being a person with my own imagination, I have taken the germ of her tale and elaborated it with the aid of 70 years of wisdom and a splash of literary licence to come up with the final result. This third volume of 'Tales from Portlaw', 'Bigger and Better' is about a Portlaw boy with stunted growth goes to live with his Uncle and Aunt in America to avoid bullying, but finds that all things 'bigger' are not necessarily' better'.

Tales from Portlaw Volume Nine - 'The Last Dance'
Tales from Portlaw Volume Nine - 'The Last Dance'

Author: William Forde

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2015-03-20

Total Pages: 86

ISBN-13: 1326220772

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'The Last Dance' the story evolves around the love of ballroom dancing by widower Nancy Swales and the new dancing partner in her life, married man Richard. Both dearly have one aim, to win the 'All Ireland Ballroom Dancing Championship'. Nancy and Richard pursue their dream; even at the risk of Richard becoming paralysed for life. Through their joint love of dancing, both Nancy and Richard find love once more. However, their Championship Final leads to their 'Last Dance.'

Tales from Portlaw Volume Eight - The Life and Times of Joe Walsh
Tales from Portlaw Volume Eight - The Life and Times of Joe Walsh

Author: William Forde

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2014-09-13

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 1326017209

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'The Life and times of Joe Walsh' is Volume Eight in my 'Tales from Portlaw' series. It is a story of failed relationships, broken promises, unfaithful marriages, lesbianism, betrayal, murder and revenge. Joe Walsh is an only child whose father rejects her at birth. Her mother always dreamed of becoming a writer but her husband forbade such. Joe's mother is abandoned by a cruel husband and decides to escape her unhappy marriage in Ireland and begins life anew in England as an unmarried mother in the 1950's. Mother and young child come to Liverpool where they face discrimination as foreigners and being a single parent. Over the years, Joe's mother re-establishes herself, goes through a bogus church blessing to be identified as a married woman and pursues her long held dreams of becoming a writer. Estranged from her parents, Joe's mother finds true happiness once again in the arms of a friend's husband, before setting up house and home in Haworth, West Yorkshire.

Tales From Portlaw Volume 12: 'Fourteen Days'
Tales From Portlaw Volume 12: 'Fourteen Days'

Author: William Forde

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2017-11-10

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 0244946639

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This love story is about a dying man and his personal assistant in his haulage firm. During the last fourteen days of his life, the dying man's lover strikes up a new relationship in the hospital ward with a patient in an adjacent bed. After her lover's death, she disappears and the new patient, who is infatuated with her, pursues his dream across the Irish Sea, only to discover that love is never smooth.

Tales From Portlaw Volume One - 'The Love Quartet'
Tales From Portlaw Volume One - 'The Love Quartet'

Author: William Forde

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2017-02-21

Total Pages: 114

ISBN-13: 1326954903

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'The Love Quartet' is a book of four romantic stories that include, 'The Tannery Wager', 'Fini and Archie', 'The Love Bridge', and 'Forgotten Love'. All four stories are a mixture of 'love won', 'love lost' and 'love found'.

Tales from Portlaw Volume Four: 'The Oldest Woman in the World'
Tales from Portlaw Volume Four: 'The Oldest Woman in the World'

Author: William Forde

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2014-09-10

Total Pages: 78

ISBN-13: 1326014501

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'The Oldest Woman in the World' is a story about the life of a Portlaw-born man, Sean Thornton who spent many years working as a reporter for an Irish newspaper before becoming a reporting investigator for the very first edition of 'The Guinness Book of Records' in 1955. Sean's task for an edition of the annual records book was to seek out and confirm the identity of the oldest person in the world. He eventually does that, but not in time to include the factual data in the record book. In later years, he is greatly surprised that the oldest person in the world and himself share a mutual connection and that she finished up living much closer to Portlaw than Sean would ever have imagined!

Indian Dreams Come True
Indian Dreams Come True

Author: William Forde

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2014-10-25

Total Pages: 74

ISBN-13: 1326060112

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Kulwant is a girl who was born and reared in the Punjab, India. From being a young child, she has a recurring dream about the man that she will one day marry in the Sikh tradition. She is an only child and has a very happy upbringing until tragedy strikes the family and her father loses a leg in a landmine explosion. From there it is downhill for the family. Experience the trials and tribulations as Kulwant grows up into a beautiful woman and searches for the man of her dreams. It pleases me enormously that after writing this story and getting it published in the year 2000, that I received a telephone communication from Nelson Mandela who had been given a copy of the book by 'number 10.' Mr Mandela had read my Indian, African and Jamaican stories and described them all as being, ' Wonderful.

The Valley of the Two Tall Oaks
The Valley of the Two Tall Oaks

Author: William Forde

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2014-10-22

Total Pages: 78

ISBN-13: 1326057103

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The true test of any great nation is not what it achieves, but how it endures. Africa is a great nation and the endurance of its people over many centuries is a testament to their capacity to survive with dignity within an all-too-often cruel and intolerant world. For many centuries, the people of Africa experienced colonisation, enslavement, economic exploitation, apartheid, disenfranchisement, resettlement and segregation. Throughout these hardships they kept their faith in their beliefs, culture, traditions, religions and dreams. Many have written about Nelson Mandela, but I wanted to write about his dream; a dream which sustained him through three decades of imprisonment; a dream held by other tribal chiefs in the Africa of old and passed on to the next generation, like a baton until it eventually ended up in the hands of Nelson Mandela, who then gave it to the world. Nelson Mandela described this story as 'Wonderful'.

Robin and The Rubicelle Fusiliers
Robin and The Rubicelle Fusiliers

Author: William Forde

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2014-10-28

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 1326061054

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When countries wage war on each other, there are no winners. The price of all war is paid for with the blood of people, soldiers and civilians, adult, child and creatures alike. In times of struggle, a war-torn country, which is being heavily bombed by a more powerful invader often finds itself bonded in greater unity of purpose and with a greater instinct for survival than one might imagine. England experienced such during the Second World War years of 1939 - 1945. This story is set in the period of The Second World War. It is written from a traditional English and British perspective. Its purpose is not to glorify war, but to offer the reader, both young and older, an opportunity to feel what it was like for a man, woman or child to live through and to provide a flavour of the English Nationalism that prevailed then and since.

Action Annie
Action Annie

Author: William Forde

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2014-10-17

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13: 1326051644

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This is a collection of all 12 'Action Annie' stories. Annie is an imaginative and very active seven-year-old whose mind and body is always on the go. She never seems to stop. Even as she sleeps, she is dreaming about the things she plans to do tomorrow. Annie is always thinking up new ideas and inventing things. There's a little bit of Annie in every child. Are you like Annie in any of her ways?