Publications

In my professional life (my grown-up job if you like) I have written many books and reports and contributed to others. As for my own personal writing, the first book I ever wrote was called ‘Bearing all in Umbria’ (see below) and it was wonderful to let my imagination run riot for a change (something not encouraged when you are interpreting statistics, you understand) and write about our first five weeks at our house in Italy and how we dealt with, amongst other things, the largest earthquake in central Italy for many years. Unfortunately, after gaining quite a following amongst the bear cognescenti, leading to Toby receiving fan mail from bears across the UK, this book is no longer in print but I present it below as an example of my work.

Bearing all in Umbria – The Diary of Toby Bear

Toby Bear goes to Italy with Mummy and Daddy. He sends letters to Nanny telling her all about his holiday.

It sounds like a children’s story but it’s definitely not – it’s strictly for adults!

Toby Bear is a streetwise bear with a rich imagination. In his e-mails to Nanny he regales her with the very grown-up activities of Mummy and Daddy. They are innocently sampling the delights of Italy – with a glass or two of wine to add to their enjoyment – but to Toby Bear they are leading a life of debauchery.

Toby’s exaggerated version of their exploits, mingled with revelations of his own secret life and nocturnal adventures, adds a touch of spice to this quirky and very funny account of a sojourn in Italy.

My book, The Journey, gave me a great deal of pleasure combining my paintings and spiritual writings.

The Journey

A beautiful book full of rich imagery. ShannathShima, a multiple walk-in, invites you to share her journey of spiritual growth and understanding. Follow her as she learns to meditate, receives the teachings of her guide White Cloud and is given her spirit name. Walk the path of the snow leopard, dance with fireflies in the forest, become feathers and flurries of movement, howl at the moon and allow your heart to be uplifted as you share her walk-in experiences.

Price: £5.99

For sales enquiries please contact me.

Also available as an ebook from The Fellowship of Authors & Artists or Amazon Kindle.

Current writing projects

I am currently working on several books.

A long term project is a book of poetry with illustrations – I write a lot of poetry and this book will be a collection of my writings and paintings. Here is an extract:

BEN’S ANGEL

Death was so close he could
touch it
taste it
hear it.
He fluctuated in and out of
this reality.
Like trying a new suit to see how it fit.
If he liked the colour,
the cut.
But it got harder to maintain an equilibrium.
To remain upright and solid.
And he came to rely
more and more
on the support of
his angel to function.
Ben’s Angel

The second book is about the colony of cats that live at my house in Italy. It starts from the day a little ginger tabby cat wandered down the drive and stayed, through to the present day. The following are a couple of the photos for the book:

I am working with my life partner Graham Irwin on an update of his book ‘Enlightenment for Beginners’. Finally, I have been running my business for 26 years and I have started writing a book about my experiences, also in collaboration with Graham. It is called ‘Developing a Workplace Heart - Bringing Compassion into Business’.