Bøger af Kelvin Hughes

"Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business."

I started the search for the perfect poem a long time ago now.I was in my late teens I think.I just suddenly felt inspired by everything around me. I was fortunate that at that time I had the opportunity to live in two different countries as part of my studies. My senses were bombarded by new sights and experiences and of course new sounds as I fought with two foreign languages. I think being immersed first in French and then in Spanish also gave me a greater appreciation for my own language and I started to experiment in poetry.I must have been writing something new nearly every day, as I have boxes of verses written on scraps of paper of all colours and all shapes and sizes. This collection really is just a selection. I left out so much. Early poems that have survived the test of time for me include THE LADY AND THE SOLDIER which I wrote in the back of a car passing through a tiny French village in the Pyrenees when I saw a war memorial and also FORGOTTEN TOWN about an abandoned village that had been flooded for the construction of a dam again in the Pyrenees. From my time in Spain in 1988-89 THE CITY OF THE SEA about the beautiful city of Cadiz is here.More modern offerings have been inspired by my move to Spain, COUPLE IN A DOORWAY for example and of course by my children - I have included one for each of them; DAVID AND I UP ON THE ROOF and SANDRA THE BUTTERFLY PRINCESS. Who doesn't feel inspired by their children? And for my wife? I wrote A WORLD OF A HUNDRED AND ONE RAINBOWS for her a long time ago now, I couldn't decide if I wanted to be a matador or a poet. Which would impress her most? In the end she got the poet...I grew up in Kent and over the years I have revisited it many times in poetry; OVER MEDWAY WATERS PASSING NOW, A WHITE HORSE and LYING UNDER THE CHERRY TREES are all included. Which brings me, finally to my latest poem and the title for this collection: A SPITFIRE IN THE CLOUDS which I wrote for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain a lot of which took place in the skies above the Garden of England.Did I find the perfect poem somewhere along the way? I hope not because that would mean the end of the search and I would like to think that every now and then I will still feel inspired to put down something in verse... the search goes on.

The Battle of Teruel 1937, is sometimes referred to as the Spanish Stalingrad. Fought in freezing temperatures, often as low as -20° and in frequent snow blizzards, it is said that more men died due to the weather than as a result of enemy action. A new medical condition, known as Teruel feet, was recognised, as a result of so many amputations due to frost bite. In total, almost 100,000 combatants lost their lives, as the Spanish Republic fought to capture its first provincial capital. Originally conceived to relieve the pressure on Madrid, the attack caught the Nationalists totally by surprise, and provided, just briefly, during Christmas of 1937, a glimmer of hope for the people of the Loyalist Zone. This novel focuses on the role of the war journalists who came to cover the Spanish conflict. Into the Battle of Teruel, rushed two reporters from rival London newspapers. Famous writer H H Stoneham was working from the Republican lines, whilst his former lover, Katerine Miller, was over on the Nationalist side. They were both desperate to provide their readers back home with the latest information from the battle, which they knew could mark the turning point of the war. Often, they showed little regard for their own safety.

A GIRL FROM THE MOUNTAINS is my second volume of poems. 34 poems that I found along the way as my search for the perfect poem continued over the last year or so. A lot of the imagery is inspired by the beautiful part of Spain where I live. Every day I marvel at the wonders around me, the sky, the sea, the shifting sand dunes, all reflecting the silver light of the moon or the bright gold of daytime. It's easy to be a poet in a place like this. And of course when I travel to other places I feel inspired too, by the power of mountains and the calm of valleys, by the wind or the rain, by the glimpse of something only I could see. That's the job of the poet, isn't it, to capture stolen images that no one else notices and to present them in words to the world?

Spain, July 1938The Republican army crosses the River Ebro in a last, forlorn attempt to change the course of the Spanish Civil war. The British Brigade is one of the first units to cross with orders to take the town of Corbera de Ebro and then push through the Sierra Caballs towards Gandesa.A young Brigadista, Martin Strachan, son of the famous war poet Lyndon Strachan, is amongst their number. He is wounded in a skirmish and left for dead in an abandoned house where a local girl called Julia finds him and decides to nurse him back to health.At the beginning of September the Nationalists begin to push the Republicans back towards the Ebro and the war returns once more to the Sierra Caballs with tragic consequences for Martin and Julia.

After the loss of Teruel during the freezing winter of 1937-38, the British Battalion was at its base in Tarrazona de la Mancha. Here they hoped for some much-needed rest and a chance to recover from the hardships they had endured. Little did they know that things were about to get worse, a lot worse. At the beginning of March 1938, Franco launched a massive offensive on the Aragon Front, with the aim of driving a wedge into the remaining Republican zone and cutting it into two by reaching the Mediterranean. If he could achieve this, he would separate Catalunya from the Republican government in Valencia. It had been assumed that the Nationalist forces would be just as exhausted as their Republican counterparts after the Battle of Teruel, and therefore a further attack on the Aragon Front was considered unlikely. However, Franco had quickly amassed a new army and attacked using blitzkrieg tactics, along a front running from the Pyrenees down to Teruel. Several early breakthroughs were made in the Republican defences and the Rebels advanced deep into Government territory in a matter of days. The Republican army was soon in full retreat. This is the story of two young Englishmen, who are thrown into Republican Spain's desperate fight for survival. With hardly any training, they take their places with other members of the International Brigades in a running battle across the fields of Aragon.

I'd had a spectacular career. I'd won three league titles with Arsenal and played nearly fifty games for my country, over half of them as captain, but I had never been involved with a team of no-hopers before. Let me explain. After serving seven years of a ten year prison sentence I tried to get a job in football when I was released, any job. But no one would have me. I spent six months applying for every football position that came up. Most clubs didn't bother to call me back. I couldn't even get an interview for the job of tea boy. That's when I thought I should go back to my roots and start off at the bottom again. My first team had been Sheppey United and when I was sixteen I had played for them in the Southern League, so I rang up the Chairman and was surprised to be given the chance to become their new Manager. I didn't even know there wasn't already a manager there, I just thought I could help out with training, maybe with the youth team or the reserves. I didn't know that Sheppey United were in as bad a way as I was. The previous season they had been relegated from the Kent League Premier Division without winning a single game. Now they were in the Kent League Division One (East), they had no ground and a large outstanding debt. If the truth be told we probably needed each other or maybe even deserved each other. So I moved back to Sittingbourne where I had spent my childhood and tried to set about rebuilding my life after over twenty years away. It wasn't going to be easy, I knew that. And then I bumped into Christine who had been my first love, my only love, and things started to get really complicated. This book also includes two other football stories: Approaching Silence and Blue-Skinned Gods.

Bologna, 1219 A marriage is arranged between Fabio Richi and Giulietta Catalani and the families agree to build two towers, almost within touching distance, to represent the union. The wedding date is set for Christmas Day 1222 and so the race is on to get both towers completed in time. Bologna is a prosperous city state, its skyline cluttered with strange towers built by all the leading families. Signore Leonardo Richi decides that his tower will be the tallest and appoints the city's leading architect to take control of the build. He also has plans to take over control of the City Council and has the help of his evil Protector, Massimo Marinelli. His main rival is his own brother Cardinale Pietro, the Bishop of Bologna. Bologna is suddenly sent into decline by a series of earthquakes and successive poor harvests. When the population is on the verge of starvation, the people look for a strong leader to help them survive and to restore the city to its former glory. Which of the Richi brothers will emerge to fill the power vacuum? As her wedding approaches, Giulietta finds herself falling in love with Luca the son of the builder in charge of the Catalani Tower. How can she marry Fabio Richi when her heart belongs to another? This is a story of ruthless ambition, of a passionate and forbidden love and, most of all, the story of the tallest tower ever built in the city of Bologna.

Madrid. March 1939.The final hours of the Spanish Republic. As the doomed Spanish capital prepares to surrender after two years of stubborn resistance, one final mission remains. A lorry, disguised as an ambulance, must leave the city and head south to the port of Alicante, where a ship is waiting to take its valuable secret cargo to South America. The lorry's cargo is so important that the victorious rebels will stop at nothing to capture it. The person given this unenviable task is a young Captain, Daniel Miller Gonzalez, a man who has proved his loyalty to the legitimate Government of Spain on battlefields across the Iberian Peninsula. Together with his lifelong friend Fernando, an English nurse, and the driver of the lorry, Dani tries to outwit the advancing forces of General Franco in a dangerous game of cat and mouse along the last remaining route south out of Madrid. He knows that this final corridor of escape is closing in on him and that every moment is vital, but they can only travel along the back roads and at night as Rebel aircraft are out hunting for them during the daytime. The man entrusted with the task of hunting down the last lorry is the ruthless Captain Roberto Ruiz Roman, a brutal and sadistic expert in extracting information and sniffing out 'Reds.' And, as General Franco himself has said "better Dead than Red." Captain Ruiz has the entire rebel war machine at his disposal for this final wartime mission, and he is not a man accustomed to failure. This is a story of supreme loyalty, of courage when all hope is lost, and, ultimately, of betrayal.

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