Roadside-Tales.com
Read to Live, Live to Read - Handcrafted, Custom Built Motorcycle Fiction
Welcome...
Welcome to Roadside-Tales.com
On this site I display some of the motorcycle fiction (a few short stories and a couple of novels) that I seem to spend all my non-working hours working on and thinking about.
I hope that you enjoy your time on this site and, if you have any questions or any comments, please feel free to use the contact link (on the red toolbar above) to drop me a line.
All the best
The Mapmaker's TaleI am putting the finishing touches to a novel about a biker who moves to France and, by riding down the slower, smaller roads that he has never ridden before, he discovers a different world; one obscured to all of those who race around locked in their steel boxes - who don't bother or care, to see. I'll be publishing this novel as soon as it's finished or is to my liking or, preferably, both. |
Different RoadsA collection of short stories (some quite long) that are unpublished elsewhere. Different Roads will be published as soon as it is finished (and I am happy with it.) |
Back Street Heroes
Some of my stories have been published in Back Street Heroes - Europe's number one Custom Motorbike magazine. |
Summer HolidayA FREE story (complete) about a group of biker friends who find themselves on holiday in Brittany, France when a zombie apocalypse starts. |
ArticlesNot fiction but if you are interested in how I write (for better or worse) then these articles might interest you. |
Biker's BookshopIf you are interested in books about motorbikes or the lifestyle then I have put together a list of books that you might want to take a look at... |
The Sunday Club
Criminal Justice and Public Order
This is a sort of extract from a novel in progress; The Sunday Club.
The Sunday Club is based upon some of my memories of the two years when I worked as a barman in a bikers’ pub on the south coast of England in the early to mid eighties.
When it is finished, The Sunday Club won’t be just a collection of memories or short stories. It will, I hope, be a cohesive novel, detailing the experiences of a young barman working in a bikers pub on the south coast in the glory days of the miners strike and Thatcher and unemployment. In the glory days before mobile phones and the internet.
Those glory days when water or oil cooled bike engines were still new and still cool. And upside down forks were still to be born.
Once again, this is a sort of extract; a few small chapters of the novel. Plucked out and rearranged as one.
Criminal Justice and Public Order – 1 – The Old Man
"There are three types of shit in this world.” The old man said.
It was a different time and a different place but I can still remember it as though it were yesterday. Sometimes when the wind blows in from the sea and the building creaks and groans as it settles in place, old memories come flooding back. Some good and some bad.
I don’t know if it is a sign of old age but, often, these days, I find myself thinking of things that happened years ago; rather that what happened today or yesterday.
I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, or bad.
It was a Sunday night.
It was a Sunday night three days after dole day and the easy money had run out.
The youngsters had blown their dole checks in the first few days and we wouldn’t see much of them until Thursday week. A few might sneak in, hoping to scrounge a drink but most of our punters would be the older ones; the ones who’d learned how to eke out a pint and, somehow, make their money last from one dole day to the next.
Once again, it was a quiet night; Sundays always were. Part of me enjoyed this as it gave me a chance to catch up on little jobs, polishing glasses and so forth. Part of me hated it as the time really dragged. But, Sunday nights my boss and wife wife took the evening off so I was nominally in charge. I like that, nothing bad ever happened on a Sunday night.
And bad things sometimes happened here, it was just a matter of degree.
The old man was a regular. Normally he was quiet enough and never ever caused any trouble. Occasionally, though, he felt the need to hold court and give us all the benefit of his wisdom. And wise he certainly was. A Yorkshire cobbler’s son from Ilkley, he’d spent his youth not playing cricket or robbing cars but bettering himself. He now worked as a self employed printer and, judging from what he spent at the bar, must have been doing OK for himself.
“There are three types of shit in this world.” He said.
“The first is dog shit. You can find this on every street in every town or city in the world.” He was looking at Ian as he said this. It was obvious that he had a message to pass on.