Books and Poems angela's books & poems

Dreams of the Blue Poppy
Publication date: June 30th 2007
Robert Hale: www.halebooks.com
Tel: 020 7251 2661 Email: enquire@halebooks.com

Forbidden to walk because of his illness, Charles Fergusson is growing up a spoiled, sickly child. He dreams of becoming a plant hunter, and of finding the fabled Blue Poppy which grew in his grandmother's garden in Sikkim, but it seems he will be trapped forever in the dark house in the Cumbrian fells. That is, until the feisty, disrespectful Betty comes to work as a servant at Bambeck Hall. There is a secret history between Charles and Betty, unknown to either of them. This fiery red-haired girl will turn his world upside down, forcing him to break away from his stultifying prison. His journey will lead him to the great Himalayas, the Blue Poppy and to an understanding of his true destiny.

For Charles, it will be a life-changing journey, a journey which will mean the loss of privilege and wealth. In contrast, for Betty, making her way alone, it will be a journey towards success and riches. Through it all will run the threads of an unlikely love-affair between these two tempestuous, stubborn people, neither of whom are willing to let go of their dreams…

Mr Mullett Owns a Cloud (new edition)
Published November 2006, by Cumbria Life Books, illustrations by David Boyd.
ISBN number : 0952 00005742 92
Copies are available from Cumbria Life magazine
Tel: 01768 818100, web www.cumbrialife.co.uk

Children's book 8 years upwards including adults!
When Mr Zeus, King of the Gods, accidentally drops his pet thunderbolt near Mr Mullett's cow byre, he wishes to show his thanks to Mr Mullett for looking after it. "That's right kind of you," says Mr Mullet, and adds, as a joke: "But I think we've got most things we need, the missus and me. 'Cepting a bit of weather now and then, of course." "The very thing!" cries Mr Zeus and sends him a cloud, Napoleon, for a year's trial on the fell farm.

To begin with, Mr Mullett is not at all sure he wants to keep the cloud. It is helpful, of course, to have a shower of rain or a patch of shade for the crops whenever they need it, but Mr Mullett is not so pleased to find his pipe tobacco squelchy and Mrs Mullett sometimes resents having her kitchen permanently filled with a thick fog. Somehow, Napoleon's curious nature - not to mention his regrettable tendency to show off a bit - leads him into all kinds of trouble, not only in and around the farm but further afield, too, at the Carrowbridge Fair and on the annual outing to Silcombe Bay. In fact, as the year progresses, the long-suffering Mulletts discover that taking on a high-spirited cloud is by no means all plain sailing, though they also come to recognise that it has its silver lining.

'…He stole another look at Mr Mullett. Yes, there was no doubt about it. The farmer definitely looked like someone who has had the top of his egg pinched. Had he behaved so badly since his arrival? Napoleon wondered. True, he had sat on the fire, a singeing experience for a sensitive cloud, and undeniably the fire, after belching clouds of black smoke over Mr Mullett's plate of ham and eggs, had gone out. True, he had sneaked under the bonnet of the Land Rover for a quick nap and, according to Mr Mullett (although Napoleon was doubtful on this point), he had so dampened the plugs that it had refused to start; as a result of which Mr Mullett had been late for the ram sales and missed buying a prize tup. But was it his fault? Life could be a little unfair at times….

SEARCH DOG : Angela Locke (Souvenir Press)
B/W Photographs Hardback
£10.99 + £2.50 p & p.

SEARCH DOG : Angela Locke (Sphere Books) B/W Photographs Paperback
£3.50 + £1.00 p & p.

Every year, winter and summer, thousands of people are drawn to wander over the Lakeland fells. Every year a number fall foul of this beautiful but perilous landscape whose weather can change in a matter of minutes from bright sunshine to teeming rain and gale force winds. Many have cause to be grateful to Search Dog Sam and his friends, whose moving and often heart-rending stories of selfless dedication in the most appalling conditions make gripping reading.

The heartwarming story of Sam, a yellow labrador, and a real Mountain Rescue Search Dog who worked in the English Lake District. Sam managed to combine pure mischief with the ability to save lives in the mountains. For those who love the wild places and are dog-lovers too, this story will capture your imagination. Search Dog has been translated all over the world, is in TALKING BOOKS and has recently been condensed in the Chinese Readers Digest.

SAM & CO: The heroic Search Dogs of the fells : Angela Locke (Souvenir Press)
Currently out of stock.
Search Dog Sam, the madcap yellow labrador, made thousands of friends with the publication of the author's previous book, Search Dog. This sequel continues his story, but also records the heroic work of his colleagues - Loch, Shep, Boris, Ben, Mist and Spin, Tosh, Patch and many more - the highly trained collies and labradors who go out with the Mountain Rescue Teams, using air scent to locate casualties before it is too late.

HEARING DOG :Angela Locke with Jenny Harmer (Souvenir Press)
Hardback£16.99 + £2.50 p + p

'This book is dedicated to HEARING DOG CONNIE, and to all the Hearing Dogs in the U.K, for their loving companionship and service, and to the staff of the charity HEARING DOGS for DEAF PEOPLE.' Jenny Harmer has been deaf since birth, and experienced some of the worst conditions for deaf children growing up that are possible in a so-called civilised world. These experiences left her withdrawn and lacking in confidence. But the day that Hearing Dog Connie, a gentle black collie cross, came into Jenny's life was the day that Jenny's life really began to take off. Connie became Jenny's 'ears' and, her companionship has enabled Jenny to live a full successful life at last.

Angela's Poems

Commissioned for the visit of HRH The Prince of Wales to Cumbria on 5th February, 2007:
(See web site)

Ode to a Herdwick

Elemental creatures, standing stones upon the hill,
You draw your pigment from the fells,
Your pale eye the colour of slow lichen,
Your back grey as Skiddaw slate. However legend tells it,
I sense your lineage stretches back before those Vikings
Who named you, before the Romans,
Back to the Old Ones who once carved axes here.

Knock-kneed, hoar frost-faced, you defy
These flakes of snow whirling in the wind,
Patient, unbending with the seasons.
Generations of your kind are heafed onto this hill.
Your lambs, bound to the land,
Lie curled under thorn trees by the beck,
Pulled back by chains of DNA to this very spot.

Though you take my fodder, you are still half-wild;
Scorning my barns, your lambs, black-fleeced,
Black-hooved, are born beneath the wall.
You guard your offspring fiercely, standing up
Against the dog when danger threatens.
In autumn, your hogg lambs
Are still beside you, bunting for milk,
Their fleeces now the colour of old bracken in the rain.

These winter stars, wheeling above us, know things
These sheep know. They point the way
To ancient truths. A deep knowledge of mountains,
The language of rock and water, is woven in the landscape
Of this beloved country, a living tapestry;
All the poetry of this place, this dear spot,
Mirrored in your primeval eye.

By courtesy of Booths supermarket

Writing on the Wall
An international writing project for Hadrian's Wall 2001-6: Arts UK
ISBN: 0-9553137-0-8
978-0-9553137-0-7
www.writingonthewall.co.uk.

INTO THE LOTUS : Angela Locke (Pleiades Press)
English edition£1.50 + 50p p & p
Nepalise edition (in English) £2.50 + 50p p & p
Evocative poems of the Himalayas, handy rucksack-size!

HIMALAYA

What we think is cloud is not
It is too high
The spirit travels higher and higher
No mountains can be this high

Yet higher than the world,
than cloud, than air,
The spirit lights upon the true mountain
White snow becomes cloud
Cloud becomes mountain
The spirit travels higher than we can imagine
Before reaching the holy place.

Dhulikhel 1992

NORTH FACE : Angela Locke (Pleiades Press)
Special Price £2.50 + £1 p & p
Poems of the Lake District and Border Country with B/W photographs.

SACRED EARTH : Angela Locke (Pleiades Press)
Price £3.00 + £1 p & p

SACRED EARTH

The humanity of Earth
is a woven part
of our consciousness,
and of her Nature.
Without us, we would not 'know'
that Earth is,
and Earth could not know herself.

She sees herself in our eyes
as beautiful.
We stand on the seashore
and watch the waves
and know we are alive,
and Earth through us
knows her aliveness.
We know the morning birdsong
and the secret night,
and we give Earth back
her treasures.

So life dreams itself and
we dream Earth
in this unimaginable
Universe,
where infinity waits
for us to find ourselves.

Angela Locke

Angela was a Poet-in-Residence on Hadrian's Wall in 2002, as part of the Writing on the Wall project, and she continues her residency work in Maryport at the Senhouse Roman Army Museum:

Fibula
(Senhouse Museum, Maryport)

Some craftsman beat this tine into a curve,
Wrought this clasp with curlicles, butter in a farmer's basket.
It must have been a loved thing in this barren place, far from home.
A gift to a woman. There is some love here, in this simple thing,
An ordered, crafted chaos in this copper pin, too light for winter cloaks.
Some lady of the town cared for it, used it to pin her lighter gowns,
On rare days in the North when it was warm enough for summer finery.
On Roman holidays when the legions drilled, new alters consecrated,
Slaves bought, an air of festival around the vicus,
The scent of aromatic fires, saffron and juniper, lavender
From the old country, fresh pies baked at dawn,
She wore that new brooch he had given her to complement the cloth
Brought from Rome on muleback. And a woman
In the Roman crowd, hand on soft-downed arm, had said
'My dear, so delicate.' Now the tiny thing is lost; a trifle.
Light cloth snagging on a doorway, the pin was wrenched away,
Lies still in the earth, under some stone, forever separate.
The brooch fell without your noticing.
You grieved a little.

For centuries, it lay here in the ground,
The sea wind turning art to dust.
It's cold now in my hand, exuding dampness,
Copper marking my palm. Stigmata
Of forgotten lives.

Walls at the Words End; March 2005

Angela Locke