New - A Degree of Uncle Raymond

It is a fine thing to have an uncle, but there are uncles and uncles. Peter Copley is attempting to study English at Cambridge University but his wife's uncle is convinced that his education needs to cover a much wider curriculum. Unfortunately, Uncle Raymond is prone to enthusiasms, some of which prove a problem for an impressionable young man.

The latest offering from the pen of Paul Griffin is a series of witty short stories - a fictional sequence in twelve episodes - introducing the irrepressible Uncle Raymond.

A Degree of Uncle Raymond is published privately by Lyon and Lamb, and is available for £10 from www.lulu/shop

New - The Lost Battalion

From the desolate hills of the North West Frontier of India to the steaming jungles of central India and Burma, Paul Griffin's latest book recounts the story of his wartime service 1940-1945.

The Battalion of the title was the 3rd/6th Gurkhas who, after years of service in the relative peace of the Khyber Pass, joined the Chindit operations designed to fight behind enemy lines in Burma. Illness prevented Paul from joining them and he was seconded to Chindit HQ from where he had a good view of the whole operation.

Drafted into the Broadway stronghold to assist the evacuation, he describes the organised chaos of the fly-out: an exercise which coloured his view of mules for life.

The battalion fought on, long after its planned period of front line action, being whittled away by enemy action and winning two Victoria Crosses in the process.

A final invasion of Malaya and Paul, then aged a mere 24, was demobbed to pursue his dream of reading English at Cambridge.

Published privately by Lyon and Lamb, The Lost Battalion is available for £10 from www.lulu.com/shop

New - The Other Six Days

This short (44pp) book contains religious reflections written in Paul Griffin's characteristically clear and witty style.

He explores how we should spend the other six days of the week. Do we, he asks, attend the Eucharist on Sunday and then behave as though we have used a hand-warmer: expecting the warmth to last all week?

His answer is presented in five meditative chapters entitled Prayer, Stability, Almsgiving, Light and Morality (Psalm) as he sets out the sort of life that he believes we should lead during the rest of the week, keeping the Eucharist alive in our daily lives.

Published privately by Lyon and Lamb, The Other Six Days is available for £4 from www.lulu.com/shop

New - The Wall of Winter

Michael Jeffries is a former soldier living quietly in a Midlands village with his wife. He is recuperating from an injury which makes it difficult for him to walk and he occupies himself with book-binding.

The village is a typical small community in which people have their own worries and concerns of a more or less trivial nature. Michael's neighbours turn to him for wise counsel and sympathy, each making their own demands on him, drawing him into their concerns.

As his health improves, his mind begins to turn to a more ambitious career but this piles on the pressure. Eventually we discover the cause of his injury and he is forced to face his past, breaking through the wall he has put around himself. Moral and social decisions follow as he comes to terms with the consequences of his past actions and kindnesses.

With themes that are still relevant today, this was probably written in the mid 1970s and Paul Griffin's first full novel. It draws on his time living and teaching in the Midlands and in Cyprus during 'The Troubles' of 1956 - 1960.

It has been privately published by Lyon and Lamb and is available for £10 from the Lulu shop.

New book

'Let us now praise famous men and our fathers that begat us ...'

Well ... certainly a father. Paul wrote a main autobiography - Changes and Chances - and then expanded some of the elements in a series of subsidiary volumes.

Changes and Chances was one of about a dozen major books which were unpublished at his death in 2012. It has been transferred from typescript and is now published with minimal editing.

It covers his years from 1922 until the late 1970s when he first retired and accounts for his time in the Indian Army, through student-hood at Cambridge and as a young master at Uppingham, to being a headmaster in Cyprus during the 'Troubles' and latterly at Aldenham during the social revolutions of the 1960s.

Paul is famous for his clear thought, clarity of expression and directness. This style pervades Changes and Chances. He observes the changing world as he himself was growing and developing his ideas. Starting as a lonely boy whose best friend was a dog he became a headmaster who was almost blown up by terrorists, and whose fictional alter ego was destroyed in a film.

As might be expected, the account starts with a poem of which the first verse runs:

Changes and chances,
Dirges and dances:
This is the curious pattern of men:
Picking the daisies,
Driving like crazies,
Silent at breakfast and shouting by ten.

Changes and Chances is now available from www.lulu.com/shop (search on Changes and Chances or Paul Griffin) for £10.

We hope to print more of Paul's work soon, including some of the subsidiary parts of his autobiography and his novels.