Welcome to Blessham Hall
Somewhere in the Wolds
Being the lord of the manor does have it’s ups and downs. One day you’re upbraiding the poor, knackered old butler, Tomkins, for presenting a substandard claret at a dinner for twenty guests, the next your blasting around the estate in the old open topped Jag with a fine cigar clenched between your teeth, a steely glint in your eye and an air of “Look at me everyone, I own this stately home!!!”
Most days, however, I come crashing back down to earth and realise its all a pipe dream. There is no stately home, butler or Jag. Instead there’s a one bedroomed flat, a kitchen cupboard with maybe half a bottle of Barefoot in it and a blue Renault Scenic parked outside. I know it’s blue because I recently washed it.
Still, I’m as happy as a pig in the proverbial with my lot in life. Yes, quite content thank you.
I’m married to the best woman/person/human being you could imagine. I’ve never met anyone quite like her before and there are no superlatives that would adequately do her justice, so I’ll just say she is rather fantastic.
We live in a gorgeous little market town in the Dales and that comfy and homely one-bed flat of ours has the most stunning views and sunsets you could wish for.
And that old blue Renault is as reliable as they come.
So if I don’t live in a stately home why the name Blessham Hall?
Well… continuity for one thing as it’s the name of my website and for another it’s the name of where my favourite character of mine works. His name is Joe Wilkie and he works at Blessham Hall for his employer, the fierce and frightening Lady Stark-Raven. Check out my Amazon store to find out more.
So no, I’m not the lord of the manor. I’m not lord of anything and nor do I want to be; that all sounds like hard work to me. I’ve seen all those TV shows about Chatsworth House and believe me when I say that I’d rather have my kidneys sucked out with an industrial strength vacuum and replaced with glowing coals than put up with what the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire have to. As Einstein once said - Sod that!
So what am I then?
I’m an independently published author who writes comedy novels and likes to make people laugh. Laughter is so important to me. They say it releases endorphins or some such and I can quite believe it. We all feel much better after a good belly laugh and tears of hysteria are running down our reddened cheeks, don’t we?
So I work hard on my novels to make them as funny as possible. I mean, at the end of the day its not really my place to say whether or not they are actually humorous; that’s for the reader to decide. However, the feedback I have received has by-and-large been positive in nature so I must be doing something right.
At the time of writing this I’ve published seven comedy novels set in two literary worlds - Blessham and Ingleby.
There are four Blessham Books all of which feature the aforementioned Joe Wilkie. Joe is a slow learner who lives in the English countryside and is forever getting into all manner of scrapes, japes and mishaps. They are a lot of fun to write so I’m assuming they’re fun to read as well.
The Blessham Books are:
The Ingleby Novels are all set in the fictitious Yorkshire town of Ingleby and feature a cast of rotating characters who pop in and out of the stories from time to time. These books, whilst still being uproariously, funny tend to focus on the more sordid aspects of our society and the characters are the kind you will love to hate.
The Ingleby Novels are:
Coming soon… (that’s not the title, just to let you know that I’m still working on it)
I like to try and find the humour in the bizarre just as much as I do in the everyday life of normal human beings. If you were to ask me what was the funniest thing that ever happened to me I would probably say something like, “Mind your own business!” That’s partly because of embarrassment and partly to protect the guilty.
But there have been many, many times in my life that I look back on and still chuckle about. For example, the time my brother and I nearly ran our local vicar over on our bikes. I’ll never forget the look of sheer, open-mouthed terror on that poor man’s face as two wild-eyed kids on push bikes that had seen better days hurtled past him, one on either side, at tremendous speed. I swear he actually went white. I know people often use the term “White as a sheet” but he genuinely did go that colour.
Now, to most decent and rational people, like yourself, the thought of clergycide isn’t particularly funny. But to two pre-teen boys in 1979 it was hilarious. For one thing we didn’t mean to do it; I mean how could we have known that he would be returning to the church at that time in the afternoon? And for another thing, neither of our steed’s brakes were really up to scratch and as we’d raced each other full pelt down Church Lane and emerged on the final straight at something approaching twenty-five miles an hour I think we actually did really well to miss him at all. If anything, we should have received praise and some sort of reward for saving his life.
Of course, it could all have gone the other way. We could have killed poor old Reverend Slater and then it wouldn’t seem funny at all. But we didn’t, so it did. If you see what I mean.
So humour and laughter can be found everywhere. There are very few situations that can’t have at least a kernel of humour gleaned from them. Yes, obviously there are some no-go areas and I try to be sensitive to such things.
But ask yourself this; have you ever been at a funeral and someone has cracked a joke which instantly lightens the mood and relaxes everyone there? We all have. You see, even in sorrow we still find time to smile.
And that’s what my writing is all about. Making people happier.
So stay tuned to Blessham Hall on Substack. Subscribe or whatever it is you have to do and I’ll try to keep the stories coming every week. This one is just an introduction by the way; I won’t be regaling you with any more of my childhood misadventures.