Born into a World I Don't Belong In

For women and girls who have been misunderstood, miss-diagnosed and quite frankly missed altogether in getting an autism diagnosis – THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU.

For decades females on the spectrum went undetected causing a lifetime of struggles, anxiety, depression, missed opportunities and incorrect diagnoses. Women and girls tended to fly under the radar due to the fact that they learned from an early age how to mask, mimic and role-play in order to fit in with societal norms and expectations. Due to a lot of research in this field, there are now a lot more evidence-based theories to support the view that autism is just as prevalent in females as it is in males, but it just wasn’t picked up due to the gender difference in presentation. There still needs to be a lot more awareness and information available for women and girls who may feel different but don’t know why. Maybe they have been searching for answers in the wrong places. My mission is to help raise awareness of this condition. And who can do this better than a female on the spectrum that walks, talks and lives each day in those shoes?

Boxer, Bouncer and Now a Doctor

It all started in a small industrial town in the north of England. Walking into a boxing gym was the start of an amazing metamorphosis for the 14-year-old. At age 20, he had developed into a 16-stone boxer, powerlifter and ferocious street fighter, with a knock-out punch in both hands. This is the story of a young man who, lacking education, immigrated to Australia at just 18 years of age only to experience the twilight world of sleaze and violence in Perth’s underbelly, confronting and often overcoming the many challenges he encountered. Returning to England at 21, he mastered his craft as a bouncer and street fighter, attended two universities, obtained three degrees and was awarded a doctorate at the age of 39.

Breaking Chains – ‘The Word’

Childhood abuse and trauma has consequences: black holes, where voids are born, mental ill health acquired and self-love diminished. The cause of these voids and the power to heal them lies solely in one force alone, or lack thereof, and this force is love.

Let’s journey together sharing knowledge, vulnerabilities, synchronicities and the word of God, of pure, unconditional Love, through a memoir incorporating science, nurture, toxicity, personality and the true depths of the void. We will analyse, psychologise and be present in our own individual stories, breaking chains that bind us in order to truly heal and be set free, turning black holes into shining stars.

Breast Cancer Smiles

On a cold day in February, 2018, Shazia goes from a tennis court in the morning to a hospital in the afternoon where she is diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. As her journey unfolds, humour becomes her crutch, writing becomes her tool and a powerful connection to her South Asian roots becomes her purpose.

This isn’t a tale of cancer and the devastation it undoubtedly brings. It’s the story of a life-altering journey enriched by time. Shazia tells a tale of re-birth swathed in love, humour and pain. She unveils the shame of breast cancer in her birth culture that is killing women before their time. In her birthplace, Pakistan, cancer is casually known as ‘the kiss of death’.

For Shazia, it is quite the opposite. This is life through a different lens and a questioning of the status quo. Her musings provoke debate and challenge existing beliefs, holding up a different mirror to society. These chronicles are written during 18 months of chemotherapy, sepsis, surgery and radiotherapy. They are written with hope and an intermittent smile.

Broken Roads Lead Me Here

Broken Roads Lead Me Here tells the true-life story of a boy born into unimaginable abuse in Glasgow in the sixties. By the age of eight, Colin had been abandoned by his mother and continued to be sexually, physically, emotionally, and spiritually traumatised by the man she left him with. Blunted by severe trauma, Colin went through one unimaginable nightmare after another, each more traumatising and soul shattering than the last, with no one to tell and no way to understand why. He wondered as he drifted through life, what was to really become of him? Or his half-sisters? All the while, deep down, sensing that one day it could be his last.

At fifteen, he was thrown out of school, and at sixteen he was sent to prison. Colin survived rejection, abandonment, homelessness, gang wars, addiction, mental illness, overdoses, suicide attempts, and abusive adult relationships. But it always seemed as if he was living on borrowed time…

Even as he started writing his memoir, Colin had suffered a stroke, and near his recovery’s conclusion was then diagnosed with what was initially suspected as pancreatic cancer. While Colin’s diagnosis was eventually re-assessed as not immediately life threatening, it did leave him with a series of conditions which would continue to limit the quality of his day-to-day life. His illnesses and his experience of this instead of instilling a sense of profound hopelessness surprisingly led him to a profound sense of inner peace, clarity, and re-awakened purpose through his renewed faith in the real presence, love, forgiveness, and grace of God. His is a miraculous story of faith and redemption.

Colin Mackell is a husband, father, and grandfather. In his professional life as Psychotherapist, he has helped people who struggle to overcome drug and alcohol addiction, and helps them find new meaning, and explore new life paths. He is also the founder of Chrysalis Supported Association & Group CEO of Chrysalis Group Services, providing homes and support to some of life’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged people.

Bugnificent!

Mini-Beasts are amazing; we need them to survive,

without their important roles, the world would not thrive.

They pollinate, provide food, they also decompose,

controlling pests, engineering soil, with oh so many pros.

They can be found under logs, rocks and bark,

some are diurnal and some come out after dark.

We must protect these creatures, not just the pretty ones,

all mini-beasts are needed, so treat them like your chums.

Please look after our bugs; I know I sound direct,

but all creatures have a job to do, so treat them with respect!

Building Resilient Futures

Whether a community struggling to keep its members buoyant, a business trying to stay solvent, or a nation fighting to protect its citizens, adversity and crisis impact us all. The resilient are able to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and not only bounce back but also bounce forward.

This book looks at what resilience means at times of crises as well as the in-between periods. It examines the various types of resilience, such as emotional, organisational and societal, and offers valuable insights on how to manage the consequences of upheaval and trauma.

The author brings together contributors to deliver a real mix of theory, case-study evidence and anecdote in a way that is both approachable and thought provoking. It is a timely and necessary addition to a crucial topic. Very simply, professionals, practitioners, students, government ministers, and business leaders should read this now. It might be a safer, better world if people read the book and acted on it.  

Bullying and Mobbing in Schools and Workplaces

Considering the fact that bullying and mobbing in schools and workplaces has become a worldwide problem where tens of million people are getting hurt, many of them marked for life and even lose their lives mainly because most societies from across the world failed to protect its people, the present book is a great eye-opener on this very important matter. The uniqueness of this book lies in the author’s attempt to make a very accurate X-ray of the degrading world society, from which bullying, cyberbullying and mobbing spring. We believe that the democracy of today’s societies has moved too far away from the ethical and moral values that underlie a healthy society and this is the cause of all iniquities. That is why, in almost all countries, issues such as bullying, cyberbullying, and mobbing are only symptomatically addressed. However, let us not lose hope because there are also a couple of countries that have impressive results because they approach issues very effectively from an ethical and moral point of view. All of this is described in the contents of this book.

Butterflies in My Soup

With most of her friends married, Sylvia at 23 can find no good reason for turning down her boyfriend’s proposal of marriage. In her heart, though, she knows that she longs to be free to see more of the world before settling down to what she feels would be a humdrum life of a domestic city in the early 1960s. Having been dissuaded from accepting a teaching job in the USA, she continues her quest for an overseas posting until one day, she finds exactly what she's been looking for. A boarding school in Lushoto, a township in the Usambara Mountains, Tanganyika (Tanzania) needs a teacher.

With scant information about her destination, other than that African violets grow wild in the Usambara, Sylvia flies off to East Africa leaving her anxious family and a fiancé whose determination to wait for two years for her will be severely tested.

Nothing could prepare Sylvia for the amazing life that she was to lead, with experiences, friendships, and challenges that she could never have imagined, and with memories that she would cherish and try to recapture on a return visit many years later.

Café de Flore

Addressing the escalating global issue of mental health and suicide, Café de Flore is a serious book that provides inspiration and relief to those caught in the net of despair. Identifying the critical error made by mankind over the centuries. Café de Flore points towards an escape from the madness of the human condition.

An easily digestible form of philosophy, written with graceful authority, the book takes the reader on a journey that captures the sublime messages contained in the wreck of literature, poetry and prose.

Dostoevsky once said: “It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.” What more does it take?

Encouraging the world to stop thinking, to entertain a degree of madness, to live with passion and to laugh more. This book provides a fresh perspective on the perceived struggles and difficulties we find ourselves trapped in, in this sad and lonely world.

Called to Serve and Protect

How does a farm boy brought up on an isolated farm with no electricity, or running water supply, leaving school at fifteen with no academic qualifications, have a successful career in the police force and become an overseas police adviser? John describes his motivation to serve and protect, and takes you through his police career, including when he climbed the headstock of a disused colliery to talk down a disturbed teenager, had a convicted killer hold a knife to his throat, and took a loaded shotgun out of the hands of an aggressive teenager. He enumerates his progression through the ranks and describes an occasion when he refused to obey an order from his Chief Constable, which probably cost him a promotion.

Post-retirement, he worked for a private security company involved in the escorting of prisoners to courts and prisons and describes having to spend three days in the witness box at an inquest into the death of a prisoner in transit to prison. As an overseas police adviser sitting in a restaurant in Addis Ababa with his wife, a colleague and his wife, John saw a hand grenade come to a standstill just inches away from his legs and he expected to die, but miraculously survived.

Flown back to the UK for treatment he had his moments of fame, appearing on TV news and on the Big Breakfast show on Channel 4. Attending a presentation function at the Café Royal, he sat next to Lois Maxwell, the original Miss Moneypenny and the lady on whom her character was based.

Campaigning for Socialism: Memoirs of Max and Margaret Morris

Equality of educational provision became one of the objectives of the Labour Party exactly a century ago. Vigorous campaigning by the teachers’ trade unions and the Socialist Educational Association led to a period of progress in the 1960s to the early-1980s, but this was later undermined. Today the economic conditions and educational plight of British working class children are a disgrace and class divisions are greater than ever. For many years Max was a key figure in these battles and his memoirs provide a clear picture of events and the political forces involved. Readers must judge whether they provide an explanation for the lack of progress or could serve as a guide for the future.

Both Max and Margaret were active in wider socialist campaigning. Max was a party loyalist whereas Margaret only stayed within a party while in agreement with its key policies. She was a Labour Party activist and Council candidate in the 1950s but left over the failure to support CND. Re-joining later, she left over the war in Iraq. She had come to realise that First Past the Post undermines democracy.

The main targets of Margaret’s campaigning were housing problems and widening access to Higher Education. Max and Margaret shared objectives and actively assisted each other in their campaigns but did not always agree about the route forward. So their memoirs provide two perspectives on past events.