Denied Access - aka Heights of Despair

This book is written in the name of the children failed and abused by family law.

David Chick was there when his daughter was born. He was there for her scans, her birth, her feeds and her baths. He got up in the night for her. He changed her. He read her stories and looked after her. She was a normal child, he was a loving dad. Everything was just as it should be.

How was it that a few years later, he found himself risking his life, hanging high above London dressed as Spiderman?

David Chick's story will shock and surprise you. It will make you angry and it will make you sad. It will make you think. It might even make you worried.

Like all of us, he believed that the law was there to protect him. But when he needed it, he found the law was against him. His crime? Being a father.

The first line of the Children Act of 1989 - "The best interests of the child are to be considered paramount" sounds great in theory, but why does it leaves thousands of fathers and children isolated and in despair?

Sometimes, to be a good dad, you have to be prepared to stand up and be counted. David Chick stood up in the name of his daughter, in the name of the children.

Why is the person who has taken the children suddenly given vast emotional, legal and financial power over the other party? Though having done no wrong, the father is semi-criminalised and punished by having his children removed from him. The children's childhood is never recoverable." Sir Bob Geldof

"I'm all for Spiderman. When I was in the social services for 10 years they would often give the kids to the mum and in my opinion the mother was unfit". Paul O'Grady (Lily Savage)

"Superhero to the dads denied kids." The Daily Mirror

"Spiderman' a nuisance? No, he's a national hero." Daily Mail

"Spiderman's a hero to separated dads." Robert Kilroy-Silk, Sunday Express

Denied Access
David Chick
ISBN 1905203-71-3 UK £8.99
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A Tramp in Africa

The natives were curious - it wasn't every day that 'a bearded traveller in kilt, floppy bush-hat and boots bound up with string walked into their midst'. That's just what Scottish explorer David Lessels did in the early 1950s, fulfilling a dream to travel the length of Africa, confronting serious challenges to his freedom as he walked and hitch-hiked through history.

Recalled with vivid clarity, this inspirational traveller's tale is studded with gems and facts - some of which may be the only written accounts of the early development of unique African cultures.

A colourful and rich taste of Africa in the raw - share the author's thrilling experiences of an extraordinary adventure.

A Tramp in Africa
David Lessels
ISBN 1-905203-64-0 UK £12.95
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In a Quiet Sort of Way

The exciting discovery of a great-grandfather's diaries and his sons'
reminiscences has led to this diary-based biography set from the 1870s to the 1950s. The author has seamlessly combined their original entries with his own narrative to bring them vividly back to life in a way that succeeds in capturing the spirit of the men as well as that of their times. The book recounts life in Victorian England as well as colourful experiences of hunting, the military, the theatre, racing and family relationships. Written in a charming style, its moving, intimate and intertwining human stories will appeal not only to those who like reading historical biographies but also those who like reading books about the lives of real people who left their mark on the world 'in a quiet sort of way'.

In a Quiet Sort of Way
Roger Mott
ISBN 1-905203-77-2 UK £7.99
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Character Is Destiny

Set between 1899 and 1988 against backdrops as diverse as Constantinople, Beirut and Brighton, "Character is Destiny" recounts the turbulent life of Dick Cooper, the author's father.

The story's background includes Dick's life in the Two World Wars in both the Foreign Legion and the British S.O.E.

We are introduced to Lucy, Dick's beautiful Moroccan nursemaid, who becomes a substitute mother figure and guardian angel; Arthur, his increasingly callous and embittered father; Maresca, the unscrupulous Legionnaire; the prostitute Laure, whom he takes to the opera instead of to bed, and the shy but witty Doris, who becomes his wife. Dick is both hero and anti-hero: rebellious, sensitive, naïve, feisty, and compassionate with a real sympathy for others.

"Character is Destiny" explores the pains of growing up and loss, the nature of faith, and the horror and pity of war.

Character Is Destiny
Pat Hews
ISBN 1905203-53-5 UK £7.99
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Nine Lives

This real life story incorporates a unique testament of the Hungarian people’s revolution against the Communist regime of their Soviet suppressors in 1956.

A compelling story of how one man managed to survive the aftermath of the unsuccessful uprising due to an extraordinary chain of events which enabled him to evade the relentless pursuit of the Secret Police and the Russian army – leading to his eventual escape to the West and rebuilding his life in the United Kingdom.

An emotional struggle ensued within the man as his family were left behind, and although his second marriage was of some political interest to the West, he never quite overcame the haunting images of the past.
His experiences eventually led him to a denunciation of all religious beliefs, despite his devout Catholic upbringing, and rendered him a ‘freethinker’.

Nine Lives
Sandor Parry
Hardback 230 pages
ISBN 1-905621-16-7 UK £12.95
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Olga in Kenya

Brought up in an Austrian castle, daughter of a writer who was a friend of Theodore Roosevelt as well as a pioneer of wildlife national parks in the U.S.A. and of the Koootenay irrigation scheme in British Columbia, educated at an English girls school, debutante at the British court, married at 23 to a soldier-settler farmer in Kenya, widowed at 24 when her husband was killed in the German East Africa campaign in the First World War, recruited by Von Meinertzhagen for British Intelligence work, novice farmer, married again to a senior government official, first woman to be appointed to the Nairobi Municipal Council, pioneer of better urban housing for Africans, mother of three girls, coffee farmer and building contractor, elected member of the Kenya Legislative Council in place of the murdered Lord Erroll, responsible for the appointment of the first Director of Women's Education in Kenya, advocate of rights and better educational facilities for African women, representative of the smaller coffee farmers.

Olga in Kenya
Elizabeth Watkins
ISBN 1905203-74-8 UK £9.99
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