Life's Tales

A Life's Talesis a powerful memoir of a life lived in a past age, through poverty, strife, family life, war, conscription, sexual deviation, and climbing a career ladder to ultimate fulfilment with a life-long partner. It's a life lived with compassion, insight, ambition and an adventurous spirit; a life fighting against discrimination, and a constant search for self-improvement. Starting in 1935 these intimate, sensitively written, and engrossing memoirs span seventy-seven years of social change? Ranging from the poverty of a northern industrial childhood - shared with eight siblings - through the war years, to an adolescent awakening of homosexuality. This is followed by conscription into the Army, progression through the Woolworth company until its meltdown and into a period of creativity and ongoing self-discovery. Told with wry philosophic humour, the story is episodic and follows a revealing journey through family life and struggle, homosexual experiences, the challenge of leading a double life, to 'coming out' as a gay man and the eternal search for a loving relationship.