Bøker av Nigel Bray

Englishman, writer and actor. Boyfriend, fiancée, now husband, and eloper to France, and then to Spain, where he now lives in peace and love, with wine, cheese, tapas, his man and his dogs. A gay memoir. like no other...The book, the man.I wrote this over a three year period, for many reasons. I suppose it was primarily an expiation of my demons: my father, my self image, my queerness, my diagnosis, my Mother's death, my long term stealthily abusive relationship, the barrenness of the end of it, but ultimately, and I see this retrospectively - at the time, it was most definitely 'ME! ME! ME!....as a kind of self-help book, an example of triumph over despair. No matter how shit things are, they can turn out OK.... Mr. Lucky is the title and my personal avatar.I don't pretend it is great work of literature - though at 465 pages, it IS quite a tome - but I DO know it is a worthy thing - many people who have read it were moved, shocked, amused, horrified in equal measure and, all of those things were real and true and happened to me, in real time. I know, too, that they are happening to other gay men all over the world, and I want THEM to read it, just so they know that their Man in the Big Red Shoes is out there and life can be good, and whole and powerful. If you know of someone struggling with the themes covered in this book, please, urge them to read it. Apart from being fahhhbulous, it may well help. It may even save a life. If I achieve that, just once, then my work is done.Synopsis: 'A night at Turnpike Lane' 'The enormous size of the bloke's penis was the least of my worries: how it fucked the rest of my life was the worst thing about that night.' The culmination of his life so far, this one event would lead to Mr. Lucky's whole life pivoting on its axis.Mr Lucky: a boy; a man; a nascent homo; an unworldly queer. Mr. Lucky blunders his way through a life of confusion, and loss, driven always by the need for love, the need for sex, the need for approval, all of which inevitably, lead him to a place of silent abuse and then of crucifying shame - until he finally meets the Man in the Big Red Shoes.Mr. Lucky is lucky after all.

The Salisbury & Dorset Junction Railway was built to consolidate the L&SWR''s domination of Hampshire and south Dorset, in an effort to keep the GWR away from Bournemouth. It also gave Salisbury businessmen a more direct route to Poole and Weymouth. Almost half of the 18¿ mile route was in Dorset, with less than five miles apiece in Wiltshire and Hampshire. Passing through three counties, it traversed contrasting landscapes and served a wide if thinly populated agricultural area.The water meadows between Downton and Fordingbridge produced cattle, milk and watercress. South-west of Fordingbridge, the clay soil had given rise to brick and tile manufacture centuries before the coming of the railway, enabling these industries to expand and distribute their wares over a much wider area.Year-round passenger traffic on the line was at best erratic, but the line provided a useful diversionary and holiday route. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the line sadly became a victim of the Beeching axe in 1964. Since then, however, the populations of the towns it once served have grown considerably, and had it remained open it would have proved very useful, particularly for travel to Salisbury and the Bournemouth-Poole conurbation.This brilliant new book provides a complete history of this important line and the area surrounding it. With a vast amount of detailed information illustrated by a carefully selected collection of vivid images, this book is certain to be essential reading for railway enthusiasts nationwide.