Author Spotlight; Tim Walker London Tales

It’s always a delight to have Tim Walker on my blog and today Tim is talking about his new book London Tales.

He has also included a extract.

Hi Juliet, thanks for inviting me to your Book Spotlight on Bookliterati.

I’m Tim Walker, an independent author based in Datchet village near Windsor, on the banks of the River Thames, the inspiration for my first book, Thames Valley Tales. My creative writing journey started in 2014. Whilst recovering from cancer treatment I undertook an online creative writing course that set me off writing short stories. I then moved onto a history-meets-legend five-book series, A Light in the Dark Ages, that found its way to my researching the historical evidence for, and a portrayal of, the ‘real’ King Arthur. In addition to writing, I assist with the running of a Berkshire-based charity, Men’s Matters, that supports older men.

My new book is London Tales, a collection of eleven short stories that draw on London’s two thousand years of history. I enjoyed researching and writing the historical fiction shorts set in Roman London, the Medieval period (the Peasant’s Revolt), the Stuart period (the Great Fire of London), Georgian London (the last ice fair) and WWII (the Blitz). The latter part of the 20th century is evoked in Brian’s Beat, a five-part piece that follows the story of fictional policeman, Brian Smith, from the Sixties to the Millenium. The harrowing events of the 2007 terrorist attacks are evoked in Geraniums.

My personal connection to London was a ten-year period from 1985 – 1995 when I worked in the newspaper publishing industry as a market researcher. Some of my own experiences, such as going on a Jack the Ripper walking tour and a London Literary pub crawl that spawned two stories, and my exit from the corporate London rat race at the hands of a bullying boss is at the heart of the last story, Valentine’s Day. I decided to make this story a futuristic vision of the final days of London as rising sea levels force an evacuation. In this way, the collection is bookended by the birth and imagined death of London. This collection of stories combines my love of history with my own personal memories of living and working in London.

I’ve spent much of 2023 revising and re-sorting my short stories, supplemented with a clutch of new ones, into a second edition of Thames Valley Tales, and London Tales. I also fulfilled an ambition to have an audiobook by hiring actor and author, Richard James, to produce and narrated Thames Valley Tales as an audiobook. This came out in March. I’ve asked Richard if he’ll make the audiobook of London Tales in early 2024. With these two books of short stories, I feel I’ve scratched the short story itch, and shall turn my attention back to novel writing. But will my winter novel be a Roman Britain follow-up to 2021’s Guardians at the Wall, or a dystopian follow-on from 2015’s Devil Gate Dawn? I have outlines and draft first chapters for both…

Book Extract

Extract – Valentine’s Day

 

In a near-future London, marketing manager Val Hanwellassembles his team for a briefing on how best to approach the delicate matter of reporting on the findings of a new survey of citizen attitudes towards the government and the ongoing evacuation of the submerging city. Shortly after, Val receives a visitor from Norway…

 

“How was your journey?” Val asked.

 

Magnus grinned. “We flew over a North Sea littered with icebergs moving south, now empty of rigs and ships. It’s become too dangerous to navigate.”

 

Such visuals weren’t shown on Britannia news as the extent of disruptions to sea trade was carefully managed information. The effects of the closure of the east coast container ports on the struggling economy was kept quiet. Of the corporation’s five flagship freeports, only Southampton and Avonmouth were still functioning.

 

Val smiled and moved swiftly on to his prepared speech. “Thank you for coming to brief us on Norway’s experiences of dealing with relocation away from the coastal areas. I’m sure there’s much we can learn from each other. I’ve been cleared by our board of directors to show you the new video of our plans and projections. As your host, I’ll go first.” Val tapped his tablet and a large, flat screen lit up on the wall. He tapped again and the lights dimmed, then excused himself to fetch some coffees from the canteen whilst his visitor watched the half-hour presentation.

 

Val sipped his coffee until the presentation had ended, then raised the lights. “Well? What are your first impressions?” 

 

His visitor beamed through a neatly trimmed beard and shifted in his seat to try and find some comfort before speaking. “Nice drone camera shots. But the description of your ongoing evacuation lacks detail. For example, how many were living in the Thames flood plain when the first tidal surge breached the Thames Barrier? How many were successfully relocated and how many lives were lost? Also, I’d like to know more on the engineering solutions to contain the tidal peaks whilst the relocation was taking place. This is merely a PR video, Mr Hanwell.”

 

Val blushed and tapped a note on his tablet. “Well, shall we watch your video presentation first, and then answer each other’s questions?”

 

“But Valentine, mine is a detailed analysis of tidal flow and a stepped relocation plan over a number of years, produced by engineers and scientists, with plenty of tables of data as appendices. Furthermore, and I’m referring to the rumours of your losses, we lost no one to drowning events. They’re not the same thing.”

 

A detailed plan was precisely what Val had hoped for, and what he’d been briefed to collect, whilst disclosing as little as possible of their own feeble response to a natural catastrophe whose consequences were lied about and covered up by the Britannia Corporation.

“We had minimal deaths during the early stages of evacuation, contrary to the false social media reports. I’ve got some tables of data to give you, Magnus. Let’s proceed with your presentation, then we can discuss the details and exchange data.” A vexing memory of the rows of body bags on the dock wall at low tide suddenly floated into his mind.

Magnus nodded and twinned his tablet with the wall screen. The two men sat back and watched. Val smiled in the darkened room at the detail and animated models showing ingenious methods of moving entire buildings onto floating pontoons, something that had been tried in London a few years ago with disastrous results.

 

When the presentation was over, Val answered Magnus’s questions in a vague way, adding that the detail was in the data sets that he’d exchange with him. Magnus answered Val’s questions with references to technical aspects that went over Val’s head.

 

“I’m not convinced that we’ll learn much from your experiences, Mr Hanwell, except maybe how not to do it!” Magnus said, followed by a deep, rumbling laugh.

 

“There’s plenty of detail of ten years of innovation in our full report, I can assure you, Magnus, and Britannia engineering remains a world leader,” Val oozed, feeling decidedly uncomfortable at his reluctant role in spinning a line for the corporation. But he and Magnus were being listened to, and Val felt he had no choice but to act out his part. It seemed to him that much of their marketing output was merely papering over the cracks or helping to shore up the falsehoods. He felt a tad foolish before the derisory smirk of his confident visitor.

 

“Well, I must fulfil our promise, so now I’ll transfer my files to you. Please give me the codes,” Magnus said. Codes were exchanged, they uploaded each other’s files, rose, and shook hands.

 

Val followed Magnus outside, sniffing at the cooling air. “Will you be staying overnight? I can recommend a good restaurant that’s just opened.”

 

Magnus signalled to an attendant to ready his drone, then turned to Val. “Moonbeams? When you’ve been to one, you’ve been to them all. No thanks.” He paused and studied the slim Briton. “You know, Valentine, you people are so submissive. You work in collapsing buildings, too scared to complain. No, I’m not staying any longer than is necessary. Goodbye, and good luck.”

 

The two men shook hands again and Val was left with his own thoughts as he watched the Norwegian’s heli-drone lift up into the darkening sky. The draft blew Val’s hair into a wild, uncombed mess. Normally, he would immediately comb it back into shape, but instead, he turned to walk towards the riverside edge of the platform. He gazed over the lagoon of drowned structures and the river lane running through it, demarked by yellow buoys, as a bank of fog wrapped its grey tentacles around the tops of the twin towers of the submerged Tower Bridge. The metal spar between the towers and the drawbridge flaps had long since been removed, and now the tower tops were surrounded by orange floats that rose and fell with the tide, warning off the rivercraft. “Monuments to a drowned world,” he muttered, turning away.

 

Author’s Note:

Valentine’s Day was conceived as a vehicle to exorcise the ghost of my passing from the London corporate world to the freedom of becoming a voluntary worker in a developing country. The year was 1994 and I had recently been promoted to Marketing Manager in the group marketing department of one of the UK’s largest newspaper publishing groups. I enjoyed my work and this was my second promotion in eight years – providing market research and marketing support for over 100 newspaper titles.

 

By the mid-90s, the heady days of corporate takeovers had waned and groups were streamlining, tightening their belts and downsizing by selling off fringe assets. And so, my company decided to downsize and get rid of group functions and attendant staff in advance of a sale. They opted for penny pinching and unsentimental expediency and appointed a troubleshooting Marketing Director whose sole remit was to harass and intimidate, until we got the message we were no longer wanted and resigned. The two senior managers were the first to go, one by early retirement, the other, relocation, and I was left exposed as the last one who actually knew what we were supposed to be doing and how to organise it. My stress levels went through the roof, along with my blood pressure, and my GP advised me to take time off.

 

Fortunately, I had three very capable executives and we battened down the hatches to provide a fire-fighting service to our publishing centres (who were wondering what was going on in Group Marketing) whilst being harassed with warning memos by the unblinking bully who was our new boss. I completed a major market research project and delivered the presentations to the board’s satisfaction, then resigned. Leaving on a high was cathartic, and I felt cleansed. This was quite normal in the nineties, a feature of corporate London’s re-adjustment after the borrow-to-buy spree of the late eighties had righted itself. There were many casualties at the coalface of capitalism, and I was one. My beautiful career in tatters, I re-set myself on an educational book publishing development project in Zambia through overseas agency, VSO, before going on to launch my own publishing and marketing business out there.

London Tales would make a fab Christmas present for those who have an interest in London’s history.