The Very Thought of You by Mary Fitzgerald Reviewed by Jan Speedie

Posted on July 23, 2015 by Frostie

Once again Mary Fitzgerald has woven a story of friendship, love, intrigue and blackmail. Set in 1944 when hopes were high that the war would be over soon; Mary has shown how the friendship and comradeship of a touring variety group brings much needed entertainment to factory workers and troops.

In 1944 Beau Bennett gathers together a touring variety group, the Bennett Players, to perform to factory workers, military hospitals and troops in the UK and France.

Catherine, Della and Frances join the Bennett Players and form a strong friendship as they travel around with the show. The three girls are each searching for something – Catherine seeking news of her husband reported ‘missing in action’, Della is ambitious for fame and Frances needs to keep the impoverished family estate safe for the future.

The shows are a great success and raise moral wherever they go but as they follow the advancing armies through France the girls realise that lies, deceit, betrayal and blackmail are following them and the troupe. Slowly the truth becomes clear and they all will be changed by it. The girls have formed a strong bond which will survive as they return home to their changed futures.

Mary Fitzgerald now lives in the peaceful countryside of Shropshire. After a successful nursing career, marriage and four children, the family eventually settled back in the UK. Mary always loved writing and her characters took on a life of their own as she researches her books. After much rejection a chance email from Random House arrived and Mary was on her way to being a successful published author.

Mary’s characters have warmth and depth to cope with the ups and downs life presents. Read and enjoy.

The Very Thought of You is available here.

Published in Paperback by Arrow on 16^th July 2015 – £5.99

Also available in eBook

The Energy Bus Book Review

Posted on July 22, 2015 by Aidan

The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel your Life, Work and Team with Positive Energy By Jon Gordon is a self help book with a difference. Written as a fictional story about a negative businessman who’s life changes when his car breaks down and he is forced to take the bus. The driver, Joy, has 10 rules to a positive mindset. I found the book helpful with fascinating facts about the heart and Abraham Lincoln. Facts, rules and fiction are all woven together into a book that inspires positive energy and gives you the tools to bring that positive energy to your life and work place.

Easy to understand and implement. Recommended for work and home.

The book, which is written in the style of a fable, takes place in a business setting, and includes an Action Plan and 10 simple rules, using the analogy of a bus ride, to build a positive, high performing team. The Energy Bus has proved hugely popular in the US amongst sports teams and their coaches and Gordon, a former College lacrosse player, regularly gets asked to address sports teams teaching them how to maintain a positive mindset throughout gruelling training sessions.

Discover how to stay positive and avoid ‘energy vampires’

According to a global Gallup poll, negativity in the workplace is rife, with only 1 in 8 employees being psychologically committed to their jobs and likely to be making positive contributions to their organisations.

Energy coach Jon Gordon wants to change that. In his bestselling self-help book, The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to fuel your life, work and team with positive energy, the author offers lessons on staying positive and avoiding ‘energy vampires’ who will ‘suck the life out of you and your goals and vision’ if you let them. Gordon offers 10 simple rules to achieving positive results which, when applied, have an impact on health, family, team and personal success.

The author draws on his experience of working with thousands of leaders and teams to provide readers with insights and practical strategies to help them achieve a positive team and culture. Written in the style of a fable, the book tells the story of a man, struggling in his job and marriage, whose car gets a flat tyre, forcing him to take a bus to work. The bus driver’s positive attitude helps him to turn his life around.

“While this fable takes place in a business setting, this book was written for everyone. We are all part of a team, and every member of our team – whether it’s our work team, sports team, family team, or school team, can benefit from the 10 simple, powerful rules shared in this book. After all, positive people and positive teams produce positive results, and the essential ingredient is positive energy.” Jon Gordon

About the author:

Jon Gordon’s best selling books and talks have inspired readers and audiences around the world. His principles have been put to the test by numerous sports coaches and teams, organisations, schools, hospitals and charities. He is the author of The Wall Street Journal best seller The Energy Bus, The No Complaining Rule, Training Camp, The Shark and The Goldfish and Soup: A Recipe to Nourish your Team and Culture. Connect with him at www.JonGordon.com

Published by Wiley.

The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work, and Team with Positive Energy is available here.

ISBN: 9781119089148

The Railways of Great Britain – A Historical Atlas by Col. Michael H Cobb PhD, MA, FRCS, MInstRE

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Margaret Graham

This is the dream read for any railway and map lover, and I speak as one who is both. It is the definitive historic guide to all the railways in Britain, both existing and lost. All train lines in operation between 1807 and 1994 are dramatically set in colour against an Ordnance Survey grid, alongside the names of the companies that built them, and the opening and closing dates of the stations they connect.

Colonel Cobb, cartographer, railway historian and WW2 veteran created this magnificent atlas after he expertly pinpointed PG Wodehouse’s fictional Blandings Castle by examining the railway information and train times, mentioned in all of Wodehouse’s stories.

Inspired by the task, this amazing man embarked on an epic study of all of Britain’s railways, past and present. It took 18 years of painstaking plotting and researching, as well as traveling on every train line in the country.

Colonel Cobb was awarded a PhD by Cambridge University for this work at the age of 91, making him the oldest person on record to be award a PhD by a university. The first atlas was published in 2003 and sold out immediately, as did a subsequent reprint. This edition has been carefully edited and improved by Patrick Cobb, Michael Cobb’s eldest son.

With over 646 pages of beautifully reproduced maps, this luxury edition consists of two volumes in a slipcase. It is the perfect companion for collectors of special, limited-edition, art books.

In 1940 Michael Cobb participated in the Battle of France, the Dunkirk evacuation and also trained commandos and saw action at Nijmegen. En route to the Far East in 1944 his troopship was sunk in the Mediterranean Sea. After the war he joined Military Survey, becoming FRICS. He retired in 1965 as a colonel and spent some years as a professional cartographer before becoming fully retired in 1971.

I love it. The maps are just an amazing feast of information, and constantly one is aware of the love of the task, and the sheer consistent endeavour. Fascinating and moving. I love the fact that Patrick, Michael’s son has cared for, and improved his father’s life’s work.

Published on 13^th July by Riley Dunn & Wilson (Huddersfield) Ltd. £295 www.rdw.co.uk

www.railwaysofgreatbritain.com

Month 6 of My Reading Challenge by Frances Colville

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Margaret Graham

Recently I went to a wonderful performance of Louis De Bernieres’ play for voices entitled Sunday Morning At The Centre Of The World. I’ve read and enjoyed Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Birds Without Wings and various others of De Bernieres’ books but I’d never come across the play before and I went straight out and picked up a second hand copy to read. It’s such a vivid evocation of life in multi-cultural London and it’s a quick read which is useful for someone trying to read as much as possible in a year. I realised it must have been based on Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood, an old favourite of mine, so of course I then had to re-read that as well. Both plays stretch the boundaries of language, putting together combinations of words which are highly original as well as being thought- provoking and hugely enjoyable. And both authors distill the essence of a community they know very well into just a few pages. To give you a taster, this sentence is taken from the first page of Under Milk Wood ‘It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters’-and-rabbits’ wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.’ Magnificent!

There’s a series of books written by Chris Stewart, one-time Genesis drummer, (Driving Over Lemons, The Parrot in the Pepper Tree and The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society) which are laugh-out-loud funny. They tell the story of how Chris and his partner Ana buy a rundown farm in Las Alpujarras, a region of southern Spain, and how their life develops over a period of years. I first read them years ago and have recently been dipping in to them again. Very enjoyable, but also well written and perceptive. I see there is a recent addition to the original trilogy – The Last Days of the Bus Club – which I have now added to my list of books to read.

What’s next? H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald has been in my pile since it won The Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction and the Costa Book of the Year in 2014. It’s not an easy read but it is one of the most sensitive and incisive portrayals of grief I have ever come across. For me, the training of the hawk Mabel is almost incidental to the proceedings but I can see that it is also a vital part of the book and will no doubt be completely absorbing for anyone who knows about hawks and falconry. The use of language and the descriptive passages throughout the book are quite simply outstanding.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed was an obvious follow up since it too tells of a passage through grief and depression by returning to the wild and searching for healing in the natural rather than the human world. It’s the story of a walk taken by the author along the Pacific Crest Trail. It isn’t as powerful a book as H is for Hawk, and at times I found it to be over-focused on the author and her feelings (so many paragraphs beginning with ‘I’!) rather than giving a wider picture of the trail. But it is very readable and I think actually resonated more with me – partly at least because I can see myself setting out on a long walk or other adventure to assuage grief far more easily than I can see myself trying to train a hawk.

So this month my reading choices have, purely by chance, been pretty much entirely about people and the different ways they live their lives. I’ve been by turn amused, saddened, educated, enlightened, inspired and always entertained. I suspect it would not be at all difficult to continue finding books in this genre for the rest of the year, but I’m not going to do that. Something different is calling.

Our Little Secret By Jenna Ellis Review by Jan Speedie

Posted on July 17, 2015 by Frostie

Our Little Secret is the debut novel of Jenna Ellis. As a freelance photographer Jenna has worked and lived all over the world. Her saucy, erotic tale about Sophie Henshall is made for holiday reading.

At 20 something, Sophie longs for some excitement in her life. Living in Manchester with her Dad and brother, she works as a nursery assistant at FunPlex. With her boyfriend Scott, she shares a love of dancing and techno music and a healthy sex life in his drab bedsit.

Life changes for Sophie Henshall when she answers an advertisement in The Lady for a live-in nanny to a New York family. This is her chance to change her life forever as she is transported to a new and glamorous world in the Big Apple with the elusive Mr and Mrs Parker. Out of her depth, she is drawn into a world of designer clothes, grand houses, lavish parties, sexual intrigue and secrets.

Sophie is irresistibly drawn to Edward and Marnie Parker who are both flirtatious and attractive and lead her into temptations she is unable to resist. But the Parkers have a darker side and secrets to share with Sophie that she must never tell. Secrets can bring pleasure or pain.

Can Sophie Henshall survive or must she return to her old life in Manchester?

Ellis has written an enjoyable romp, a page turner, and what a setting. It will be interesting to see what Jenna Ellis produces next.

Published in paperback on 16^th July 2015, by PanMacmillan.

Some Kind of Wonderful by Sarah Morgan Review by Jan Speedie

Posted on July 10, 2015 by Frostie

With the holiday season upon us, or life is a bit dull right now, you could do worse than let bestselling author Sarah Morgan brighten your life with her latest novel, Some Kind of Wonderful.

Sarah Morgan’s second book in the Puffin Island trilogy is the story of Brittany Forrest as she returns to her home on Puffin Island and the an unexpected encounter she finds. Following the breakup of her 10 day marriage to bad boy Zachery Flynn, Brittany leaves Puffin Island to find a new life and to forget the past.

Zach knows he has let Brittany down and is amazed to find that she has returned to the island after 10 years absence. Seeing Brittany again stirs up long buried emotions which he knows will only complicate his life.

Brittany is determined to put the past behind her and leave Zach out of her life but on a small island this isn’t easy. Brittany and Zach eventually discover that the sparks between them are more powerful than ever. Could it be that second time around, their dreams of happy-ever-after will finally come true.

Sarah Morgan, an American, who lives near London, knew she wanted to be a writer from the age of 8. That sort of commitment and enjoyment in her craft shows in this page turner of a novel, indeed, with all her novels.

Well structured, full of ups and downs, of all sorts (!) Sarah weaves the magic of her previous books. Read and Enjoy. Well done Sarah.

Some Kind of Wonderful is published in July 2015 by Mills & Boon in paperback and eBook – £7.99

Summer Book Special | What To Read

Posted on July 7, 2015 by Frostie

Five Days Later by Julie Lawson Timmer

This book was hard to put down. A beautiful and heart-breaking novel on love and lost, it is simply stunning. A must-read.

Mara is a successful lawyer, and devoted wife and mother. Struggling with a devastating illness, she has set herself five days to make the ultimate decision for her family.

Scott lives a thousand miles away, and is a foster parent to a troubled eight-year-old. Scott is facing his own five day countdown until his beloved foster son is returned to his biological mother.

The two connect through an online forum, and find a friendship to help guide them through the most difficult, and momentous, week of their lives.

Five Days Left is available here.

Some kind of wonderful by Sarah Morgan

A great, engaging, fun story. Sarah Morgan has a talent for writing great in-depth characters. This is the second book in the Puffin Island series. A good read that is hard to put down.

Her whole life, Puffin Islander Brittany Forrest has dreamed of adventure. And at the age of eighteen, she thought she’d found it in bad boy Zachary Flynn. But after just ten tempestuous, smouldering days, their whirlwind marriage went up in smoke, and Brittany resolved to put him out of her mind forever.
Zach knows he let Brittany down, but being back on Puffin Island and seeing Brittany again stirs up long-buried emotions. This daredevil pilot has never felt worthy of her, yet he can’t stay away—even when he knows the chemistry between them will only complicate his life.

As long, hot summer days on the beach dissolve into sultry, starry nights, Brittany and Zach find that the sparks between them are more powerful than ever. Could it be that the second time around, their dreams of a happy-ever-after will finally come true?

Fall in love with the all new Puffin Island series from Sarah Morgan, the bestselling author who brought you Sleigh Bells in the Snow:

Some Kind of Wonderful is available here.

A Meditation on Murder by Robert Thorogood

From the creator of BBC drama Death in Paradise, this great crime novel is riveting and full of twists that will keep you guessing. An enjoyable read, perfect for fans of crime novels.

An original story from the creator and writer of the hit BBC One TV series, Death in Paradise, featuring on-screen favourite detective, DI Richard Poole.
Enhance your enjoyment of the series as, for the first time, Robert Thorogood brings the characters to life on the page in an all-new locked-room mystery.

Aslan Kennedy has an idyllic life: leader of a spiritual retreat for wealthy holidaymakers on one of the Caribbean’s most unspoilt islands, Saint Marie. Until he’s murdered, that is. The case seems open and shut: when Aslan was killed he was inside a locked room with only five other people, one of whom has already confessed to the murder.

Detective Inspector Richard Poole is hot, bothered, and fed up with talking to witnesses who’d rather discuss his ‘aura’ than their whereabouts at the time of the murder. But he also knows that the facts of the case don’t quite stack up. In fact, he’s convinced that the person who’s just confessed to the murder is the one person who couldn’t have done it. Determined to track down the real killer, DI Poole is soon on the trail, and no stone will be left unturned.

A must read for fans of the TV series and Agatha Christie crime classics featuring Marple and Poirot.

A Meditation on Murder is available here.

A Summer Promise by Katie Flynn

This wartime novel is a heartwarming romance novel. Believable and engaging.

From the bestselling author Katie Flynn. Growing up in the Yorkshire Dales, Maddy Hebditch can’t imagine the changes that war will bring when she joins the ATS.

1938: Maddy Hebditch has been living in poverty with her cantankerous grandmother since she was orphaned when she was just five, and it’s a constant struggle to stay out of the workhouse.

However, though life is hard, Maddy has her friends Alice, Marigold and Tom to help her. Together the four spend their summers exploring the Dales and making plans for the future.

Until war breaks out and everything changes.

As the four go their separate ways, Maddy joins the ATS, where she is recruited for one of the most dangerous jobs a woman could do in wartime: the Ack Ack sites.

All four face dangers as the war worsens, but when Tom is terribly injured, Maddy’s world falls apart…

A Summer Promise is available here.

Doris Day Vintage Club by Fiona Harper

A brilliant and unique novel. Hard to put down and lots of fun. Make sure you pack this amazing novel in your suitcase, it is the perfect holiday read and essential for fans of Doris Day.

Claire Bixby grew up watching Doris Day films at her grandmother’s house and yearned to live in a world like the one on the screen – sunny, colourful and where happy endings were guaranteed. But recently Claire’s opportunities for a little ‘pillow talk’ have been thin on the ground.

Until she meets new client Nic who comes into her travel agency looking to book the perfect get away. Too bad it’s for two!

But as Nic and Claire get closer, the sparks start to fly, and Claire’s questioning everything Doris taught her about romance.

Can true love ever really be just like it is in the movies?

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

The Doris Day Vintage Film Club is available here.

Nightingales at War by Donna Douglas

The latest in the Nightingales series, this is a heart-warming tale of friendship and love. A great coming-of-age drama set in pre-war London. A touching novel which is perfect for fans of Call The Midwife.

As the war takes its toll, the Nightingale nurses must do their bit for king and country…

Dora is the devoted mother of twin babies but, determined to help the war effort, she goes back to work at the Nightingale Hospital.

More used to nights out in the West End, Jennifer and Cissy volunteer in the hope of tending to handsome soldiers. They soon find out that nursing isn’t quite what they were expecting.

For shy and troubled Eve, the hospital provides an escape from the pressures of home, but the life of a nurse is never easy, especially at wartime.

Can the nurses rally together while war rages all around them? And will the Nightingale Hospital survive the Blitz?

Nightingales at War is available here.

Russian Tattoo by Elena Gorokhova

A stunning page-turner. This is the second memoir from Elena Gorokhova and it is a fascinating and beautiful tale on the mother-daughter bond, Candid and full of emotion, this book is a great read.

The possibility of leaving Russia was never as thrilling as the prospect of leaving my mother.’

When Elena Gorokhova arrives in America, the only link back to her Russian past is a suitcase filled with twenty kilograms of what used to be her life. Navigating a country she had been taught to fear, Elena begins to carve out a new life in an unfamiliar world.

Before the birth of Elena’s daughter, her mother comes to visit and stays for twenty-four years. Elena, must struggle with the challenge of raising an American daughter whilst living with her controlling mother, a mirror image of her Motherland.

Russian Tattoo is the story of what it means to be an outsider, and what happens when the cultures of our past and present collide. Above all, it is an insightful portrait of mothers and daughters.

Russian Tattoo is available here.

The Umbrian Thursday Night Supper Club by Markena de Blasi

We loved this book. A wonderful novel about a group of women in Italy who meet up on Thursday night to talk and cook. Full of wonderful description and amazing recipes you can cook yourself, this book takes you into the heart of Italy. This is a true story that never stops entertaining. Full of emotion, it perfectly evokes Italy and the Italian people. Wonderful. You cannot wait to find out what happens to these women and what happens in their lives.

Pull up a chair for the true story of the Umbrian Thursday night supper club.

Every week on a Thursday evening, a group of four Italian rural women gather in a derelict stone house in the hills above Italy’s Orvieto. There – along with their friend, Marlena – they cook together, sit down to a beautiful supper, drink their beloved local wines, and talk.

Here, surrounded by candle light, good food and friendship, Miranda, Ninucia, Paolina and Gilda tell their life stories of loves lost and found, of ageing and abandonment, of mafia grudges and family feuds, and of cherished ingredients and recipes whose secrets have been passed down through the generations. Around this table, these five friends share their food and all that life has offered them – the good and the bad.

For fans of all things Italian, and the thousands of readers who loved Deborah Rodriquez’s The Kabul Beauty School; Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love and Deborah Moggach’s Best Exotic Marigold Hotel;

The Umbrian Thursday Night Supper Club is available here.

Villa America by Liza Klaussmann

One of the books of the moment, and rightly so. This book is a stunning and sophisticated page-turner. This tale of marriage set in the 1920s on the French Riviera is a glorious read.

Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, Cole and Linda Porter, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos – all are summer guests of Gerald and Sara Murphy. Visionary, misunderstood, and from vastly different backgrounds, the Murphys met and married young, and set forth to create a beautiful world. They alight on Villa America: their coastal oasis of artistic genius, debauched parties, impeccable style and flamboyant imagination. But before long, a stranger enters into their relationship, and their marriage must accommodate an intensity that neither had forseen. When tragedy strikes, their friends reach out to them, but the golden bowl is shattered, and neither Gerald nor Sara will ever be the same.

Ravishing, heart-breaking, and written with enviable poise, Villa America delivers on all the promise of Liza Klaussmann’s bestselling debut, Tigers in Red Weather. It is an overwhelming, unforgettable novel.

Villa America is available here.

Everyday Detox by Megan Gilmore

Too many diet books are based on deprivation. This book makes being healthy easy and delicious. Megan Gilmore has practical recipes that are easy to make and she focuses on simply daily changes. This great book will make you healthy and is so great and simple you won’t even notice it is happening.

This no-nonsense approach to healthy detoxing by certified holistic health coach and blogger Megan Gilmore offers 100 delicious and properly combined recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner, including smoothies, snacks and desserts to help you lose weight and feel great. Each recipe is gluten- and sugar-free and include vegan, vegetarian and grain-free alternatives.

Whilst most diets and detoxes require all-or-nothing approaches which encourage unhealthy cycles of restriction followed by bingeing, Everyday Detox takes a realistic, sensible approach to healthy eating and weight loss. The simple, delicious recipes, such as Coconut Banana Muffins, Cauliflower Fried Rice, Baked Spaghetti and Double Chocolate Brownies, will help you to discover the benefits of using all-natural, wholefood ingredients that not only promote good health but stave off feelings of hunger and deprivation. And since each recipe has been designed to promote good gut health while gently removing toxins, you won’t feel bloated or uncomfortable after eating.

Packed with invaluable advice on how to stock a detox-friendly kitchen, and a handy food combination cheat sheet to help you to enjoy the benefits – and the results – of Everyday Detox without delay, this is an essential no-fuss approach to looking and feeling great!

Everyday Detox: 100 Easy Recipes to Remove Toxins, Promote Gut Health and Lose Weight Naturally is available here.

Words for the Wounded Independent Author Book Award Part 3

Posted on June 20, 2015 by Margaret Graham

Over the last two weeks we’ve highlighted First and Second Place in the recent WforW Independent Author Book Award. Today we have the final winner, Eric Sinclair who achieved Third Place.

As I keep saying to people, The Independent Author Book Award has been a revelation. There are just so many good writers out there, which made our task hugely enjoyable, if difficult. At last we decided on those who were to be commended, highly commended, and then – the winners. In the end, our decision was unanimous. Great books all of them. Thank you all so much for entering – rest assured that 100% of the entry fees go to the wounded.

Thank you, Palamedes PR for sponsoring a professional press release for the winner, and the opportunity of a discounted press release for 2^nd and 3^rd. Thank you Frost Magazine for publishing a review of the top three

The great good news is that Felicity Trew, of the highly respected Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency, is now representing the winner, Jane Cable.

Felicity Trew will also be our final judge for the 2015 Independent Author Book Award. The excitement is immense.

3^rd place

Man, Dog, Stroke by Eric Sinclair

This is the story of one man’s experience of the devastating effects of a major stroke, and his attempts to recover from it. It is also the story of a dog’s experience of life with unpredictable, irrational human beings.

Judges’ comments: Man, Dog, Stroke is a beautifully written and moving memoir of a stroke victim, with a chapter from time to time from his whippet’s point of view. This is a whippet who sees life, and events, from his side ‘of the pond’ and is a fantastic idea.

We laughed out loud, held our breath, and longed for Eric Sinclair to survive, and to thrive. Man, Dog, Stroke brought out the isolation experienced by stroke victims, the powerlessness when their lives are changed in just a few seconds, in of all things, a strange hotel room. The fear, the long fight back. ‘…The trouble was I didn’t seem able to move my legs or arms at all. With growing fright and disbelief I tried to roll over.’

It made us understand what a patient needs, and how absolutely crucial is good post stroke therapy.

It could happen to any of us. Read this. Laugh, and learn. It’s beautifully written.

Proceeds from the book will be donated to The Stroke Association.

Biog.

Eric Sinclair is a writer and education consultant living in Aberdeenshire who has worked in schools and colleges in West Africa, Turkey and Germany, as well as the UK. For ten years he was Head Teacher of Kirkwall Grammar School in Orkney, and subsequently was Head of Aboyne Academy, Aberdeenshire, before setting up his own education consultancy and training business in 2000. He was a part-time selector with the Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) Assessment Team in London from 1989 – 2004.

Since suffering a major stroke in 2004, he has undertaken voluntary work for the Stroke Association, and is vice-chair of their Scotland Committee. In December 2011, he published – Man, Dog, Stroke – describing his experience of recovering from stroke in Oslo and Aberdeen. The sequel to this book is a blog of the same name. He has also published a number of articles in The Scottish Review.

Eric has been a public partner with NHS Healthcare Improvement Scotland and has extensive experience of managing change in a variety of settings, as well as the lived experience of dealing with a chronic health condition. In January 2015, he was appointed by the Scottish Government to the Board of NHS Grampian, which provides health and social care for Aberdeen and the north-east of Scotland.

Eric relaxes by walking and communing with his whippet, Archie, and by singing in a local choir.

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