Photo Diary

Pistols3, originally uploaded by michael_jecks.

This is one of a bunch of photos that have been mouldering on top of my table here in my office for no particular reason. I took ‘em ages ago. About 1997, I think. The Glock on the left is my old model 21, the Colt on the right is my old one too, and the spare slide at the bottom is my old .22 converter for the Colt. The rest?
Ah, well, I used to be the Honorary Secretary for a little rifle and pistol club. It was (and is) Caterham and District Rifle Club in Surrey. It’s a typical little gun club, full of history and laughter. Created around the turn of the century, in (I think) 1898, it was one of Lord Roberts’ first rifle clubs created to teach the British population how to use rifles for the defence of the realm. And boy, did it work. Roberts’ initiative led to thousands of men joining little clubs all over England, and they formed the first groups of recruits to Kitchener’s army in 1914/15 when it was realised that the army had to grow to fight on in the Great War.
Our club was like many others in 1914/15. It was full of dangerous gun nuts who liked nothing more than going to a little hut on a hill and shooting in wind and rain. It included local tradesmen, plumbers, carpenters, engineers, bank workers and men who commuted into London to work in insurance. They met and socialised in the local pubs, because CDRC never had a bar. Some of them were local scallywags. But the club gave them a natural meeting place.

In 1916 more than three quarters of the membership of this nice little club was wiped out in a day on the Somme. They had all joined up together. They all died together.

These were the guns which had been collected over the years to help their successors to learn shooting safely in the club. The Walther, top left, was a nice little gun. I never got on with the Vostok in the middle (too light). The Hi-Standard up top right was good, too, but I never quite liked the feel of it. Not in the same league as, say, the old Browning I learned on. The single-shot Webley with the enormously long barrel was very difficult to shoot accurately, but it was popular.

After the first war, people came back to the club. Then, in the Second World War, our members were taken again. This time, thank God, not in the same units, and although we lost our members again, many came back, bearing trophies from all over the world - particularly France, it has to be said (they used to have a fine line in bar decorations, I believe!).

Those men brought back other trophies of war. Many had rifles and pistols which they liberated from Germans. One guy, a friend who shot there, was severely handicapped. The only sport in which he had ever been able to participate on an equal footing with the able, was pistol shooting. Pistol shooting was always a great leveller. He had invested a small fortune in a collection of rare and unique DWM pistols, the ones commonly called Lugers. He had all sorts of them.

Well, all those trophies have been taken now. The Lugers were taken too, even though they were immensely valuable. And so were all these guns shown here. They were handed in to the police, and later disposed of somehow, although since as soon as they were taken by the police they stopped existing on a licence, no one knows what happened to individual weapons. Many were stolen from police stores and were sold on the streets, it is alleged. Certainly I saw cases in the press of police officers and civvies who were being taken to court for those offences. And gun crime is up by some 40%.

There was one great guy I knew at the club. When young, he’d been a tearaway. One day he stole a rifle and some ammo to play with, and not being quite so bright as he’d thought, he was soon arrested and before the beak.

The magistrate looked him up and down and said: “I have two options. I can either send you to Borstal as punishment, or I could give you another punishment. Do you want to know what? It is this. I could let you free from this court today, on the understanding that you will join a rifle club and learn how to use these firearms safely.”

He took the latter course. Norman is a respected member of the community - in fact he’s the Honorary President of the rifle club today.

Which I think goes to show that our predecessors had a lot more sense in the way that they handled miscreants than we do today.

But the happy thing is, I can look at these pictures and remember so many happy times shooting, with friends, with companions, and I can remember the history of that club, and all the other little clubs around the country.

Hope you like the photo, too!

DSC_0001.JPG, originally uploaded by michael_jecks.

I had to go in to Tavistock recently, to organise for Tinners’ Morris to dance during the Dartmoor Literary Festival in May, and had to take the camera with me, the weather was so good. Just look at this, though. Right in the middle of Tavistock is the church of St Eustacius, and here’s a part of the old Abbey buildings. Lovely stonework. Sadly, apart from the great gatehouse, there’s not much else left. It’s all been plundered by generations.

DSC_0006, originally uploaded by michael_jecks.

This was a fun talk. Off up to Tewkesbury, and met Bernard for a chat in front of a library audience. Shocking, though, to see how much damage was done in the town. I had hoped to get there a little earlier, so I could get a decent photo of Despenser’s tomb, but sadly missed the opportunity. I spent so much time haring around Cheltenham, trying to find the Waterstone’s there, that there was no time to get to the abbey afterwards. Hey ho. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to go there again soon.

P1010003.JPG, originally uploaded by michael_jecks.

Well, it’s all very well to call yourself an author, but sometimes it means you have to get out and test your descriptions. Last night my friend Andy and I went off to the middle of the moors, and tested my theories of what the moor looks and sounds like. Well, mostly, I learned, it sounds of animals which don’t sound familiar, helicopters from Gidleigh, and lots of rifle shots on automatic, from the Merrivale Range south and west.

But it also gave me some insights into the views you can get at night. Especially when it’s moonless. It was very dark indeed. In fact, I fell into the same hollow three times.

Without a camp fire (you can’t have fires up there because the soil’s all peat, and you’d start a fire that would be very hard to put out) the best thing to do is get to bed early. We did. And after trying hard, it was good to slip into sleep.

Only to be woken at about three in the morning when it began to rain.

Still, the tent (a new one) worked extremely well, the cooker was adequate, and hopefully I’ll be out on the moors one night per month to make sure I really understand Dartmoor properly!

P1010005.JPG, originally uploaded by michael_jecks.

Returning home from a night on the moors is delightful. After all, there’s the prospect of a warm home and hot tea. But when the mist comes down, as it did this morning, there’s the very real risk of getting lost. This picture, for example, should not have been seen. The track we wanted skirted round the western edge of Little Hound Tor, but somehow we ended up here, at the White Moor stone circle. Only a matter of fifty yards out of our way, I’d guess, but that’s enough to change your direction. Here, we had somehow managed to start heading east, rather than north.

It’s a proof of the need to always carry a compass with you while on the moors. You can never tell when a cloud will come down. Last time I was there without a compass, I could not see more than about ten yards, and it was impossible to tell whether I was climbing, descending, or walking on the flat. A very odd experience. And why I now always have a decent compass to hand when I walk up there.

P1010006.JPG, originally uploaded by michael_jecks.

There is something very pleasant about wandering over the moors in the fog. Admittedly now, as I type this, I’m suffering from chronic leg-failure, and I’m very glad to be sitting at my desk, not wandering about the moors still! However, it’s a very special place, made more so by these signs of our ancestors’ efforts. This site is at the top of the peat-cutters’ track, an ancient pathway that leads from South Zeal, round the edge of Cawsand, and on to Round Tor. Well worth a visit, but you do need waterproofs. And a compass, as mentioned above.

DSC_0027.JPG, originally uploaded by michael_jecks.

The last week has been lovely. Gorgeous weather, and clearly the robins are getting frisky. They don’t realise that there’s a fair wait until Spring. Sadly the seasons are all so mucked up now, that there are some songbirds which are mating already, which may well spell disaster. With any luck a cold break will make them realise their error before they lay their eggs and see them freeze.

Meanwhile, life’s getting interesting. Last week I was contacted by my credit card firm, to ask why I’d suddenly started using it. And only for transactions to Italy. Well, the short answer was, I hadn’t. And so the two and a half thousand pounds which had gone through my account was nothing to do with me. After a short discussion they agreed to reimburse me for the money. Makes you wonder how much cash is actually stolen, though. And today I was told that only a tenth of the money was actually returned to my account! So I cancelled the card and burned it, along with the PIN number. I don’t think I can afford to have that worry.

Because worries there are a-plenty just now. The amount which is paid to authors is reducing here in the UK. There’s no competition in bookselling, so the publishers are forced to ever lower margins and ever smaller payments to most of their authors. Oh, the very top guys still get fortunes, but ninety percent of authors are now seeing their incomes reduce - and by significant amounts. There are many authors who’ll have to jack in writing completely. The retailers really are killing the geese that lay their golden eggs.

I am increasing the number of talks I give. It means less time to research and write, but it is at least one way of getting more cash into the bank and paying the mortgage. I just have to try to write faster and win over more readers. Life is not getting any easier, sadly!

So - if you know of any film producers who’re keen for a medieval story, please point them in my direction. Any money gratefully received!

For more photos like this, go and look at Flickr.com/photos/Michael_Jecks where there are many more shots of Dartmoor in the winter.

DSC_0034.JPG, originally uploaded by michael_jecks.

I perhaps shouldn’t admit this. After all, yesterday I had a copyedited manuscript arrive, and I’ve got to go through it all with a very fine tooth comb. And last Friday Comma asked me to write a short story for them. And I still have book 26 to write, so it’s not like I have all the spare time in the world. And yet, I was sitting at home today, staring at page 160 of the manuscript, while outside the sun was shining, and both dogs were bored, and I thought, “What the heck, it’s ruddy Sunday, after all!’

So I packed the camera, pulled on a fleece and a coat, fitted my boots on, took some biscuits, and set off for the triple row up on the side of Cosdon Beacon. A nice walk (see the photos in Flickr.com/photos/Michael_Jecks).

There was only one problem. It was so bloody lovely up there, I couldn’t just stop at the cemetery . . . I had to carry on to Little Hound Tor. And then Hound Tor. And then I was going to carry on farther, but guilt hit me. Instead I sadly turned away and returned over the top of Cosdon.

This little circle is one of those ancient rings which abound on Dartmoor. It must have held significant religious meaning for the people who lived here then. Sadly no one knows, of course.

I had a very good time, anyway. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be refreshed. And so, hopefully, will the dogs! Tonight, both seem to have been hit by sledgehammers. Either that, or I succeeded in tiring them both out!

DSC_0035.JPG, originally uploaded by michael_jecks.

This is not being a good month to me. I have a book to write. Well, yes, that’s my job. But the deadline is approaching too rapidly for my liking. And then there’s the problem with my coffee machine. Now, Gaggia are very good indeed, and they have some magnificent engineers who will repair it as soon as possible . . . but they had a few machines go in for repair just after Christmas, and it’s two weeks now since I started relying on a cafetiere. I don’t like cafetiere coffee. So now I’m grumpy.

But life’s good generally. Last week I spoke to my phone supplier, and the next morning a nice, shiny, new Motorola Razr2 V8 or something appeared. It’s beautiful. It has a glossy bronzed surface, and it’s ever so clever. But today, when I tried to recharge it for the third time, nothing happened. It’s had some sort of fit or something which has left it heedless of any button I press.

So I picked up my cordless landline phone to ask for aid. It didn’t work either. The battery’s dead.

Which is why, after all the trials and tribulations of modern technology, it was a delight to wander off into the hills of Dartmoor and get away from it all. As you can see here!

Thank God for the moors.

DSC_0007.JPG, originally uploaded by michael_jecks.

There is a great delight in receiving the first production copies of a new book, but this one’s a special one for me. This is going to be book 25 in the series, available from May.

There is no way I would have thought that my series would pass beyond maybe ten books when I started out. The excitement of my first novel was good - but I didn’t dream wildly enough to think that I’d still be sitting at a desk today and banging on the keys to produce yet another book.

But not only have I been enormously lucky from that point of view, I’ve also seen my series win some acclaim. 2007 saw Deathship of Dartmouth chosen as one of the top crime books of the year. At the same time Peter Guttridge of the Observer newspaper chose my short story “A Case Of Identity” from ID - Crimes of Identity, a CWA anthology published by Comma Press, for special mention.

In the last years I have made a number of friends in publishing. I’ve been elected Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association, I’ve been sent to America and other countries to meet readers, and I’ve generally had a great time.

So this note is not just a self-congratulatory puff. It’s also a short note to say to all my readers: thanks! You’ve kept me in my house and paid my mortgage for the last fourteen years. I only hope you continue to enjoy the stories!

But it’s not just readers. I would like to thank here all the brilliant salespeople who’ve put my books in front of their clients. Without them, the books wouldn’t be sold.

So to all of you - thanks. All best for 2008, and keep your eyes on my events page, because there’s going to be a certain amount of travelling for me this year. With any luck I may be visiting a store near you!