14 October: Ida Pfeiffer

On this date in 1797 Ida Pfeiffer was born in Vienna. She travelled the world, alone, in a time when women just didn’t do stuff like that, and wrote books about her adventures which were translated into seven languages. Here are some facts about Ida and her travels:

1. Her father was a textile manufacturer named Aloys Reyer. She had five brothers and a younger sister. She was a bit of a tomboy growing up, preferring to wear boys’ clothes. "I was not shy," she wrote in her autobiography, "but wild as a boy, and bolder and more forward than my elder brothers." Her father encouraged her liking for sports and made sure she got the same education as her brothers did.

2. Aloys died in 1806 and Ida’s mother tried to put a stop to her tomboyish ways and turn her into a lady, making her wear dresses and learn to knit and play the Piano. She hated her piano lessons so much that she would burn and mutilate her fingers to get out of them.

3. In due course, Ida fell in love, with her tutor, who often came to stay with the family. For him she began wearing skirts and learned embroidery. Far from being pleased, Ida’s mother refused to let her marry him and threw him out of the house. She arranged a marriage to Mark Anton Pfeiffer, a widowed lawyer who was 24 years older than Ida and had a grown up son. Ida didn’t want to marry him and told him straight off the bat that she was in love with someone else. He replied, “I think we all are.” Nevertheless, the couple got along well enough and Ida had two sons with him.

4. It was only after her husband died and her sons were grown up and working, that Ida embarked on her epic travels, at the age of 45. She may have been pretty brave in terms of the things she did on her travels, but telling her family what her true intentions were was not one of them. She told them she was going to Constantinople to meet a friend. A woman doing this trip alone was scandalous enough, but Ida set off for the Holy Land instead and spent 8 months exploring there. She did visit Constantinople, so what she told her family wasn’t entirely a lie. She joined a mounted tour there despite never having ridden a Horse before.

5. She seriously considered travelling to the North Pole, but “insurmountable difficulties on closer inspection” put her off. So she went to Iceland instead. Here, she collected samples of local plants and insects and took what were probably the first ever photographs of Iceland, having taken with her “daguerreotype apparatus enclosed in a small case”. Her preparations for the trip had been learning how to use this, plus how to preserve specimens and learning to speak English and Danish. Selling the samples of nature she collected during her trips were one of the ways she financed her journeys.

6. She went round the world twice, between 1846 and 1855, covering about32,000 kilometres (20,000 miles) by land and 240,000 kilometres (150,000 miles) by sea. She met any number of scientists and explorers, including her childhood hero Alexander von Humboldt. She dined with Queen Pomare IV of Tahiti, went Tiger hunting in India, rode Camels through Iran and went hiking in the jungles of Brazil. It was here she had a close encounter with a native who jumped out at her brandishing a knife and “gave us to understand more through gestures than words that he would murder us and drag us through the forest.” Ida fought him off with an Umbrella and a pocket knife until she was rescued by two riders who just happened to be passing by. She’d received some cuts to her arms and the umbrella was broken – kept the broken off handle of the umbrella as a trophy – but was otherwise undeterred and once her wounds were dressed, carried on, “although not completely without fear”, but in “continually increasing admiration of the beautiful scenery”. Despite being 50 years old by now, the local guides could barely keep up with her pace.

7. In Indonesia, she spent time with by the Batak tribe, who were Cannibals and so most travellers were afraid of them. She chose not to believe the horror stories she’d read and sought them out anyway. She joked that she was too old and tough to be worth eating, and made extensive notes of her stay which proved useful for anthropologists. She even noted down some of their recipes.

8. Her travel diaries were initially intended just for herself, but her friends at home persuaded her to publish them and the rest is history.

9. While she was aware enough not to believe the writings of xenophobic Europeans, preferring to see for herself and make up her own mind, she could be judgemental at times. She called Praya dos Mineiros “a filthy, disgusting place.” She called Arabs lazy, thought the people of Borneo walked funny, and that Iranian women were uneducated and ignorant. She noted that indigenous tribes were often at war with each other and sometimes mounted their enemies’ heads on spikes. However, she then wrote about Europeans: “[Are we not] really just as bad or worse than these despised savages? Is not every page of our history filled with horrid deeds of treachery and murder?” She noted that the Turks and Bedouins were welcoming and went out of their way to make travellers feel at home, which, she pointed out, put the Europeans treatment of foreigners to shame.

10. Her final trip was to Madagascar in 1857. She got thrown out of that country, as she’d befriended a Frenchman called Joseph-François Lambert. Ida had no idea that he was involved in a plot to overthrow Ranavalona I, the queen of Madagascar, but was expelled along with him when Ranavalona found out about the plot. Not only that, but it was on this trip that she caught a disease, thought to be malaria, which she never fully recovered from. Ida Pfeiffer died on October 27, 1858, in Vienna at age 63.

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Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

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6 October: The Kon Tiki Expedition

On this date in 1914, Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian ethnologist author of Kon-Tiki. The Kon-Tiki expedition established the possibility that Polynesians may have originated in South America. 10 facts about the Kon Tiki Expedition:

1. The expedition was a journey by raft across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands. Kon Tiki left Peru on the afternoon of April 28, 1947. The voyage ended when the raft beached on an uninhabited islet off Raroia atoll in the Tuamotus on 7 August.

2. Thor Heyerdahl decided to make this trip because anthropologists had laughed at his theory that Pacific islanders had migrated from South America on rafts, carried by currents and tides. His theory came about when he noticed the Pacific Islands had vegetation native to South America, and the giant statues on Easter Island, to Thor’s eyes at least, were similar to those found at Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. As one of my sources relates, the anthropologists said something along the lines of “Sure, see how far you get yourself sailing from Peru to the South Pacific on a balsa raft!” I could just imagine Heyerdahl responding, “Hold my beer!”

3. So he built a raft, using only the materials that would have been available in ancient times. That is, balsa wood, Hemp, Bamboo and banana leaves. There were no screws or Nails back then, so the raft was literally tied together. It was designed so that it was impossible to steer, as the ancient seamen wouldn’t have had such luxuries but would have drifted according to winds and currents typical for the time of year.

4. The raft was named Kon-Tiki after the Inca god Viracocha, creator deity in the pre-Inca and Inca mythology, for whom "Kon-Tiki" was said to be an old name.

5. He also needed a crew. He wrote to his friends: “I guarantee nothing but a free trip to Peru and the South Sea islands and back, but you will find good use for your technical abilities on the voyage. Reply at once.” He found five men who were up for it, despite none of them having sailed before. All the crew were Norwegian save one who was Swedish.

6. They had a Parrot, too, named Lorita, but sadly the parrot drowned about half way through the mission.

7. They loaded Kon Tiki with supplies, balancing authenticity, using only what the ancient mariners would have had, and ensuring their survival. Hence some of the 1,040 litres (275 US gal) of drinking water they carried was in sealed bamboo rods and some in modern containers. They loaded 200 Coconuts, sweet potatoes, bottle gourds and other assorted fruit and roots, but also ration packs supplied by the US Army. They would supplement these supplies by fishing. They also had a hand cranked generator, a radio and a sextant.

8. Heyerdahl nearly drowned at least twice as a boy. He didn't take easily to water, and said there were times during the voyage when he feared for his life. One of these might have been when a huge Whale shark circled the raft, so large that the crew could see the head on one side of the ship and the tail from the other. When the crew tried to harpoon it, it broke the harpoon, but luckily it just swam away rather than seek revenge.

9. Perhaps Heyerdahl regretted his decision not to allow steering when, after 97 days at sea, the crew sighted the Puka Puka atoll, but couldn’t land there as the currents took them past it. They were at sea for another four days before the raft beached on an uninhabited island. They were marooned there until people on a nearby island found some of the wreckage of Kon Tiki washed up on their beach. They set out in Canoes to rescue the crew, took them back to their village and held dances and feasts in their honour, before the crew were taken to Tahiti by the French schooner Tamara, with the salvaged Kon-Tiki in tow.

10. So did all this effort result in the anthropologists changing their minds and accepting Heyerdahl’s theory? In a word, no. Today, there is evidence that Polynesians travelled to the Americas, not vice-versa as Heyerdahl had theorised.

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The Gingerbread Man

A short story collection including aliens, princes and princesses, dragons, superhero origin stories and of course, a gingerbread man.

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5 November: Alcock and Brown

This date in 1892 saw the birth of Sir John Alcock, who, with Sir Arthur Whitten-Brown, made the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic in 1919. Here are some facts about him and his flight:

1. Alcock was born in Manchester and Brown in Glasgow. Both of them served as pilots in the first world war and both were prisoners of war after their planes went down.

2. Before the war, in April 1913, the Daily Mail had offered a prize of £10,000 to “the aviator who shall first cross the Atlantic in an aeroplane in flight,” in less than 72 hours. The contest was put on hold, however, because of the war, so the historic flight didn’t happen until 14-15 June 1919.

3. Alcock and Brown’s plane was a modified First World War Vickers Vimy bomber with two Rolls-Royce Eagle 360 hp engines.

4. They weren’t the only people who attempted to earn the prize. However, while the other teams spent time conducting pre-flight tests, Alcock and Brown just went for it. Which was almost their undoing when they barely cleared the trees at the end of the runway.

5. The flight itself was plagued with bad weather: Fog (making sight navigation impossible), Snow, ice (meaning it was very cold in the open cockpit) and Rain; and technical hitches. Their wind-powered generator failed which meant no radio contact. They couldn’t even talk to each other as the aircraft’s exhaust pipe burst, creating a noise so loud it made conversation impossible and the intercom had also failed.

6. The flight from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Clifden, County Galway, Ireland lasted 16 hours, at altitudes varying between sea level and 12,000 ft (3,700 m).

7. The landing didn’t go so well, either. They identified what looked like a suitable place to land, which turned out to be Derrigimlagh Bog, near the town of Clifden. Landing in a bog caused severe damage to the plane.

8. On board with them were two Cat mascots called Lucky Jim and Twinkletoes. They also carried a handwritten note from Alcock to his sister, which read: “My Dear Elsie, Just a hurried line before I start. This letter will travel with me in the official mail bag, the first mail to be carried over the Atlantic. Love to all, Your loving Brother, Jack.” The note was valued on Antiques Roadshow in 2017 at £1,000–£1,200.

9. They were presented with their prize by then-Secretary of State for Air, Winston Churchill, and a few days later they were knighted by King George V.

10. Sadly, John Alcock was killed on December 18, 1919 when he crashed in France on his way to the Paris Airshow. Arthur Brown died on October 4, 1948 at the age of 62.

Character birthday

Guy Fawkes, whose parents, Patrick and Sheila Fawkes, named him Guy, almost as a joke, when he was born on November 5th. He grew up fascinated by his namesake and by explosives and bombs of all kinds. His mother died of cancer which could possibly have been prevented; his father committed suicide after his free counselling sessions ended. Guy blamed health service cuts for the deaths of both his parents. This led to his desire to bring down the Government.

He gathered around him others with powers, who all had reason to want the Government to fall.

Their attempt to steal nuclear waste to use to build a bomb was foiled by the Freedom League. The story is told in Who’s That Girl?

Who's That Girl?

Matt Webster lives in a tower block and attends a failing school. He dreams of being a spy like James Bond. Little does he know that he is being watched by someone who can make him into even more than that – a superhero.

His first solo mission is to attend a ball at the Decembrian Embassy and discover who is planning to steal a priceless diamond. While there, he meets the mysterious Lady Antonia du Cane, and is powerfully drawn to her. It soon becomes clear, however, that Lady du Cane is not what she seems. Matt’s quest to discover who she really is almost costs him his career.

A modern day Guy Fawkes gathers a coterie around him with the aim of blowing up Parliament with a nuclear bomb. To achieve this, they need money. Lots of it. Selling the Heart of Decembria Diamond will provide more than enough. All that stands in their way is the Freedom League – but the League is beset by internal disagreements. Can the heroes put their differences aside in time to save the day?

Prime Minister Richard Miller and his wife Fiona grieve for their daughter, Yasmin, who has been missing for three years, and is presumed to be dead. Viper agent Violet Parker could hold the key to what happened to Yasmin, but Violet is accused of giving away the organisation’s secrets. She is to be executed without trial. Will she take her knowledge of what happened to Yasmin with her to her grave?

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1 July: Amy Johnson

Amy Johnson was the first female pilot to fly alone from England to Australia. She was born on this date in 1903. 10 things you might not know about her:

1. She was born in Hull, the eldest of three sisters. Her grandfather was a mayor of Hull.

2. She studied economics at the University of Sheffield and then got a job working for a solicitor in London. Soon after that, she discovered flying as a hobby.

3. Her first two planes were both called Jason. Her father helped her fundraise to buy her first, a second-hand Gipsy Moth. She named it Jason after her father’s fish business trademark. Johnson next obtained a de Havilland DH.80 Puss Moth G-AAZV which she named Jason II.

4. She was 26 years old when she became the first woman to fly solo to Australia. On 26 May 1930, she completed the 11,000 mile round-trip from Croydon to Darwin in 19 days.

5. Although she didn’t break the time record on this trip, she went on to set many other records including becoming the first pilot to fly from London to Moscow in a day, she set a record time for Britain to Japan with her co-pilot Jack Humphreys and a solo record for the flight between London and Cape Town.

6. She was a pioneer on the ground as well as in the air. She was the first British-trained woman ground engineer — for a while, she was the only woman in the world to hold that job title.

7. Amy married Scottish Aviator, Jim Mollison, in 1932. The story goes that he proposed to her during a flight together, at which point they had known each other for just eight hours. They divorced in 1938.

8. In September 1934, Johnson (under her married name of Mollison) became the youngest President of the Women's Engineering Society.

9. She modelled clothes for the designer Elsa Schiaparelli and created a travelling bag sold under her own name.

10. She died in 1941 when her plane crashed in the Thames Estuary. She was 37 years old. At the time, she was flying an Airspeed Oxford for the ATA from Prestwick via RAF Squires Gate to RAF Kidlington near Oxford, and went off course in adverse weather conditions. Reportedly out of fuel, she bailed out as her aircraft crashed into the Thames Estuary near Herne Bay. Her body was never found. There are, of course, rumours of a cover up. It has been suggested that her plane was mistaken for an enemy aircraft and shot down when she failed to give the correct identification code; and that an attempt by a nearby vessel to rescue her ended in disaster and she was lost under the boat.

Character Birthday

Dale Castle, founding member of the Greenroom Society, a band of villains associated with show business.

Dale's early life was difficult. His natural form is ugly and deformed; his deeply religious parents hid him away for many years, believing their son's deformity was a punishment from God. They feared they would be banned from the church if the "punishment" was known about by anyone else. Confined to the basement, the young Dale amused himself by listening to and composing music. Despite his appearance, his singing voice was beautiful.

At puberty, his power began to manifest. He was able to change his shape to that of a handsome young man. His parents now wanted to show him off, passing him off as a nephew from out of state and encouraging him to sing in church.

Angered by their hypocrisy, he ran away to seek his fortune in show business. Hearing about a TV reality talent show, he set out to become a contestant. Although he didn't win the contest, it did give him a platform from which he built a highly successful career. He created the Greenroom Society to bring together genetic variants in showbusiness, first of all to ensure they weren't discriminated against, but later became a means to maximise their success and wealth. It is a secret society with membership by invitation only. Genetic variants who refused to join were generally killed so that the secrets would never be revealed.

26 January: Bessie Coleman

Born on this date in 1892 was Bessie Coleman, the first African-American to hold a pilot's licence. She was also the first person of Native American descent to do so. Here are ten facts about her.

1. She was born in Texas and was the tenth of thirteen children. Four of her father's grandparents were Cherokee.
2. As a child, she had to walk four miles to school each day. She was a good student who loved reading and excelled at maths. However, at Cotton harvest time she had to skip school to help with the harvest. At 12, she won a scholarship to the Missionary Baptist Church School. At 18, she enrolled in university, but only had enough savings to complete one term before being forced to drop out.
3. At 24, she was working as a manicurist in a Chicago barber's shop. Some of the customers there had been pilots during World War I and Bessie was fascinated by their stories. They inspired her to become a pilot herself. She took a second job in order to save money for pilot training.
4. Getting the money together was the least of her obstacles, however. At the time, flight schools in America did not admit either African Americans or women. Her situation came to the notice of the publisher of the Chicago Defender, a newspaper for African Americans. He suggested that she should go abroad to learn to fly and published a story about her in his paper, which led to banker Jesse Binga agreeing to sponsor her.
5. She learned to fly in Paris, having learned to speak French in a Chicago language school. The plane she learned to fly in was a Nieuport 82 biplane. She earned an international pilot's licence. Bessie didn't stop there - before returning to the USA, she took some extra lessons from a French flying ace to develop her skills even more.
6. On returning home, Bessie soon worked out that the only way to make a living from flying back then was to perform stunts at airshows. For this, she would need even more training, but the flight schools in America still wouldn't teach her. She returned to France to complete more training there, and then travelled to the Netherlands and Germany for even more.
7. Now she was ready to perform at airshows and became a media sensation and a draw to airshows, known as "Queen Bess". She was known for her courage and determination as well as her skill. In 1923 her plane stalled and crashed during a stunt and she ended up with a broken leg and three broken ribs.
8. Her ambitions went beyond merely being a performer, though. She still worked in a beauty shop (although now she owned the shop) in order to save money to not only buy her own plane but to start her own flying school for black aviators. She was committed to promoting opportunities and equality for African American people and became a popular public speaker on the subject. She would refuse to perform at any event where African Americans were refused admission, and once turned down a role in a film, even though the fee would go a long way towards her flying school, because the producers wanted to portray black people in a derogatory way.
9. She died aged 34, in a plane crash. It was her own plane, which she'd recently bought, but she wasn't flying it herself. Her agent and mechanic, William Wills, was at the controls. The previous owner hadn't maintained the plane very well and Wills had to land three times on a flight from Dallas to Florida because of technical problems. Bessie's family and friends warned her against flying this plane for this reason. On the fateful flight, she wan't wearing a seat-belt, because she wanted to look out of the window to study the terrain for a parachute jump the following day. The plane went out of control and she was thrown from it at 2,000 feet. Wills tried to regain control but failed and also died when the plane hit the ground. The reason for the crash was later determined to be a wrench left in the engine by a service engineer, which had jammed the controls.
10. Numerous schools, scholarships and streets have been named in her honour, including several roads in and around international airports. She has been inducted into the National Women's, The National Aviation and the International Air and Space Halls of Fame. Mae Jemison, the first African American woman to go into space, carried a picture of Bessie Coleman with her on her first mission.

NEW!

Settling the Score

Another collection of short stories, even more murder and mayhem with carol singers, an orchestra out for revenge, a sinister magic stone and a haunted mansion.

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A Tale of Two Sisters

During a battle with supervillains, a horrific accident leaves the Warner family with no option but to believe their youngest daughter, Jessica, is dead. It doesn't occur to them that the bad guys could, or would, save her.

Jessica wakes up with no memory of who she is or how she came to be on a space station with two bionic legs, a bionic arm and a bionic eye. She is told her family abandoned her and is sent back to Earth with a mission - to kill them. While Jessica wants to kill her family, along with the twin boys who once rejected her, she knows what the Alliance of Supervillains are asking her to do is a suicide mission. She decides to get her revenge in her own way.

As Jessica puts the first part of her revenge plan in motion, she finds herself with an agonising decision to make. Before she can decide, the Alliance come for her, determined to make her do their bidding. This time, it's the Alliance who leave her, crippled and at the mercy of the Warner family, who have no idea who the Alliance's Black Rose really is.

Jessica finds herself having to re-think her decisions in light of what she now learns about her family, the Alliance, the twins, and herself. It would appear the Alliance have left her with an unwanted and permanent reminder of her time with them. Or have they?

Jessica's older sister, Jill, knows her destiny is to be a doctor and specialise in bionics and genetic variant medicine. She is also hopelessly in love with Christopher, Crown Prince of Galorvia. Can their romance survive the lies Christopher told her when they were both at school, an unplanned pregnancy and Sophie, the wannabe princess who comes between them?

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8 July: Vasco da Gama set sail

On this date in 1497 Vasco Da Gama, one of the most famous of the Portuguese explorers from the Age of Discovery, set sail to find a sea route to India. 10 things you might not know about him.

1. We're not sure if he was born in 1460 or 1469, but we do know he was born in Sines, on the southwest coast of Portugal, where his father Estêvão da Gama was the civil governor.
2. Before holding that job, Estêvão da Gama had been a knight and explorer himself.
3. In about 1480, Vasco da Gama followed in his father's footsteps and joined the Order of Santiago, which was presided over by Prince John, later King John II of Portugal. In 1492, King John sent da Gama on a mission to the port of Setúbal and the Algarve to seize French ships in retaliation for attacks on Portuguese shipping.
4. His first voyage to India took place in 1497-8. Portugal had its eye on the Indian coast for the expansion of its trading routes. Da Gama set sail with four ships around the coast of Africa. His expedition marked the first time Europeans to visit Mombasa, although they were not made very welcome and didn't stay long. They were also the first Europeans to visit India. The voyage is considered to be a milestone in world history - the beginning of a sea-based phase of global multiculturalism.
5. He stayed in India for several months, working on brokering trade deals. This included pretending to be a Muslim in order to get a meeting with a local sultan. The goods da Gama brought with him didn't impress the Indian rulers who demanded that he pay taxes to them in gold. Da Gama's response was to seize hostages instead of paying up.
6. He was eager to get home at this point, and set sail, ignoring the local knowledge about the monsoons. Hence his journey back took 132 days, compared to an outward journey of 23 days. Many of his crew contracted scurvy, and about half of them died. The fleet arrived in Africa in a sorry state. Da Gama scuttled one of his ships off Africa because he didn't have enough men left to crew them all. Nevertheless, the goods he brought back from India sold at such good prices the voyage still made a handsome profit. He'd opened up a trade route to India, and shown that East Africa was important to the trading armadas that would follow as the ports there were vital stops to stock up on provisions and carry out repairs. A direct result of da Gama's exploration was the Portuguese colonisation of Mozambique.
7. Like many explorers in history who are generally regarded as heroes, da Gama was more than capable of behaving like an asshole. On his way to India he looted unarmed merchant ships off the coast of Kenya. On his second trip he massacred a ship carrying pilgrims on their way to Mecca. He refused to spare any of them, not even the women and children, despite pleas for mercy and the offer of all their wealth in exchange for their lives. He watched women holding up their babies and their jewels and begging to be spared, and torched the ship anyway.
8. Vasco da Gama married Catarina de Ataíde, and they had six sons and one daughter.
9. Two of his sons were with him when he set sail on his third voyage to India. He'd been appointed the Portuguese viceroy in India, but died before he could take the post up, possibly from malaria, possibly from pneumonia, or possibly from sheer overwork. He was buried in a casket decorated with Gold and jewels.
10. There is a city in India named after him, also several ships, a Brazilian Football team, several places in Lisbon and a crater on the Moon.

14 December: Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole

On this date in 1911 Norwegian expedition led by Roald Amundsen became the first to reach the South Pole 35 days before Captain Scott. Here are 10 things you might not know about his expedition.

1. First, a little about Roald Amundsen himself. He was born in Fredrikstad (around 80 km from Christiania (now Oslo)), Norway, in 1872. His father was a ship owner. He began studying medicine at Christiania University but dropped out to become a sailor. When not at sea, he'd go cross country Skiing.
2. His original plan wasn't to go to the South Pole at all. His lifelong ambition was to be the first to go to the North Pole. That was what his crew signed up for, and what the man who provided his ship expected him to do. However, when Amundsen heard someone else had got to the North Pole before him, he changed his plans.
3. He didn't tell anyone about the change except for his brother and his second in command. When his ship, the Fram, sailed in August 1910, most people aboard still thought they were going to the North Pole and must have wondered why they were headed south, to Madeira. It was only when they got there that they were told where they were actually going. He told them they were still going to the North Pole but were making a “detour” to the South Pole on the way. He did ask if they were willing to continue, and all of them agreed. Amunsen wrote, "Never has a man achieved a goal so diametrically opposed to his wishes. The area around the North Pole—devil take it—had fascinated me since childhood, and now here I was at the South Pole. Could anything be more crazy?"
4. Why so much secrecy? A lot of the funding which had been secured had been given specifically for exploration in the Arctic, as had the ship. Amundsen obviously believed in the principle that it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. He was also afraid the Norwegian parliament would stop him from going, in case it offended Britain, who were also planning an expedition to the pole. Even so, it became harder and harder to get the rest of the funds he needed. People had lost interest in an expedition to the North Pole, so Amundsen mortgaged his house. He was heavily in debt, and would have been financially ruined if the expedition had failed.
5. Who went with him? There was a party of 19, all of which Amundsen had personally selected, except for one, Hjalmar Johansen, who was included at the request of the owner of the ship. Johansen had failed to settle down after his last journey and had been drinking heavily. His former boss wanted him to have a last chance to prove himself. Amundsen reluctantly agreed, although Amundsen ultimately excluded Johansen from the party of five who went to the Pole, because he'd been "violently insubordinate". Only two of the party were not from Norway - the Russian oceanographer Alexander Kuchin and a Swedish engineer, Knut Sundbeck.
6. The expedition's doctor, Hjalmar Fredrik Gjertsen, had no medical experience other than a crash course in dentistry and surgery before they set off.
7. Amundsen was do desperate to beat Scott to the Pole that he set off from his base camp, Framheim, too soon, in September. The temperature was still too low - −56 °C (−69 °F). While the party could cope with that while on the move, it was impossible to sleep at night and the sled dogs had frostbitten paws. Amundsen made the decision to turn back. They set out again on 19 October 1911.
8. Amundsen took 100 sled Dogs with him. He believed sleds pulled by dogs would be the best means of transport across the terrain, and didn't understand why the British expedition weren't using them. Sadly, only eleven dogs survived. A number froze to death, and still more were eaten. Part of the thinking in using dogs was that, as well as pulling the sleds, they could be slaughtered for meat to feed both men and the remaining dogs. About 27 dogs suffered that fate, even though the sled drivers had grown fond of them and Amundsen wrote in his diary about the “depression and sadness in the air” when they reached the point where they had to kill the dogs.
9. They reached the Pole on 14 December 1911, while looking out for any signs that Scott had got there before them. For a moment, they thought he had when they spotted something dark in the Snow – but it turned out to be dog poo from one of their own dogs. On reaching the pole, the planted the Norwegian flag and pitched camp, a couple of kilometers from it, naming the camp Polheim, or “Home at the Pole”. They left the tent and flags behind, but they're now buried under all the snow that's fallen since and nobody knows where they are. The team made extensive calculations to make sure they'd got the position of the Pole absolutely right (after going to all that trouble, they didn't want to get it wrong). They left equipment and letters for Scott's party to find including a letter addressed to King Haakon which he asked Scott to deliver.
10. The Pole wasn't the only achievement. Johansen and two others were sent to King Edward VII Land to try and find the point where the land began, surprisingly tricky when both land and sea are covered by so much ice. They collected geological specimens and samples of mosses, and had a look around before returning to Framheim on 16 December. They were the first men to set foot on King Edward VII Land.

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

Available from Createspace, Amazon and Amazon Kindle

14 July: Emmeline Pankhurst

Emmeline Pankhurst, suffragette, was born 160 years ago today in 1858. 2018 is also the 100th anniversary of women being granted the vote (although they had to be over 30 and own property) and 90th anniversary of women being given the vote on equal terms with men, and also Emmeline's death. Here are 10 facts about her.

1. She was born Emmeline Goulden in Moss Side, Manchester on July 15th, 1858. Although her birth certificate clearly says the 15th, she always claimed her birthday was July 14 - Bastille Day. "I have always thought that the fact that I was born on that day had some kind of influence over my life," she said.
2. She came from a family of political activists, both in Manchester on her father's side, and the Isle of Man on her mother's. Her parents were activists, too, and took their children along with them on some of their activities. Emmeline wrote in her autobiography that she remembered collecting money for freed American slaves at a young age. That said, even though her parents believed women should have the vote, the nevertheless believed women should only be educated in matters of home-making, should marry as soon as possible and not work.
3. She was sent to a finishing school in Paris, the director of which believed girls should be educated in subjects such as science and bookkeeping as well as homemaking. Her best friend and room-mate, Noémie, did some matchmaking and found Emmeline a potential French husband - but Emmeline's father refused to pay a dowry, so she reluctantly returned home.
4. Her husband, Richard Pankhurst, was 44 when they met, 24 years older than she was. He was politically active, too, and had vowed to remain single so as to better serve the public. Emmeline's mother accused her of "throwing herself" at Richard. The couple even discussed living together rather than marrying, but Richard pointed out that Emmeline could be more politically active if she was formally married. The wedding took place in St Luke's Church, Pendleton on 18 December 1879.
5. Emmeline was a school board member and also a "Poor Law Guardian", which involved visiting workhouses. She was appalled by the harsh conditions there and how women were always treated as inferior.
6. It was after Richard died suddenly in 1898 that Emmeline threw herself completely into the women's rights movement. She founded the Women's Social and Political Union in 1903 - a women-only group dedicated to obtaining equal votes for women. They often committed extreme and violent acts such as chaining themselves to railings and sending letter bombs. Members of the movement, including Emmeline herself, were frequently arrested and sent to prison, where they would go on hunger strike and be force fed. Her daughters, Christabel and Sylvia were also heavily involved in the movement.
7. When the First World War broke out, the WSPU agreed they would stop their militant action and help the war effort. The government released all the suffragettes who were in prison. It was in 2018, they year the war ended, that The Representation of the People Act 1918 extended the vote to all men over 21 and women over 30 who were property owners or graduates voting in a 'university constituency.' The difference between the rights of men and women was because there was a shortage of men after the war, and the government didn't want men becoming a minority!
8. Emmeline almost became an MP. In 1926, Pankhurst joined the Conservative Party and was selected as a candidate for Parliament in Whitechapel and St. George's in 1928. She claimed the war had changed her views, but many think she saw it as a way to influence Parliament from the inside. However, before she could win the seat, her health failed, and there was also a scandal involving her daughter Sylvia giving birth to an illegitimate baby.
9. Emmeline Pankhurst died at the age of 69 in a Hampstead nursing home on June 14th 1928 - so she didn't live to see the Representation of the People (equal franchise) act 1928 passed. The act which gave women equal votes with men was passed 18 days after she died.
10. In 1999 Time named Pankhurst as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating "she shaped an idea of women for our time; she shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back". Later, in 2016, following a public vote, it was announced a statue of Emmeline Pankhurst would be unveiled in Manchester in 2019. She would be the first woman to be honoured with a statue in the city since Queen Victoria more than 100 years ago.

More details about my books. Follow this link if you like Superheroes, Psychics and/or quirky short stories. 

I've listed the themes each novel touches on here for easy reference.

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27 June: Helen Keller

Helen Keller was born on this date in 1880. Here are 10 facts about her.

1. Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Her father was the editor of a local newspaper who had previously served in the Confederate Army during the US Civil War. One of her ancestors was the first teacher for the deaf in Zurich. Helen's comment about this coincidence in her autobiography was "there is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his."
2. She wasn't born deaf and blind. She became so at the age of 19 months after an illness which doctors of the time described as “an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain”. It's thought what she had was probably Scarlet Fever or Meningitis, both treatable nowadays. As Helen started to recover, her parents realised he had lost her sight and hearing.
3. She narrowly escaped being placed in an institution. As a small child she was prone to tantrums and erratic behaviour, and some of her relatives recommended she be hospitalised. Luckily for Helen, her parents didn't want to do that. Instead, they took her to Julian John Chisolm, Professor of Diseases of the Eye and Ear at the University of Maryland. He recommended that she see a man who had had founded schools for deaf children as his wife was deaf. The man was Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone. He suggested she went to a school for the blind. It was through the school that she met Anne Sullivan, who was mentored by Bell. The three became lifelong friends.
4. Anne became Helen's teacher on March 3, 1887. Helen would later describe this as the day her life changed and her "soul was born". Anne, visually impaired herself, had only just graduated from school. She famously began teaching Helen words by spelling them out on her palm. It didn't look as if it was going to work, at first, as Anne used objects like a doll and a mug, but when Anne famously took Helen outside and held her hand under the Water pump while spelling “w-a-t-e-r” into Helen’s palm, Helen got the message and asked for the word for "earth". She went on to learn 30 words that day.
5. She was the first deaf-blind person to graduate from college. Anne would attend with her to interpret the lectures and texts. She wrote her autobiography during her junior year.
6. Helen wrote 14 books and 500 articles during her life, but she only had one attempt at writing fiction, when she was eleven. She wrote a short story called The Frost King, which was published in her school's magazine and a journal on deaf-blind education. When someone pointed out the similarities between Helen's story and another called Frost Fairies by Margaret Canby, Helen was accused of plagiarism and interrogated by her teachers for two hours. Although it was finally decided by a narrow vote that Helen had not deliberately copied the story, she never wrote fiction again. It's thought Helen may have had Canby's story read to her at some stage and although she'd forgotten it, it was still there in her subconscious.
7. Another of her lifelong friends was Mark Twain, who she met at the age of 14. She wrote that "he treated me not as a freak, but as a handicapped woman seeking a way to circumvent extraordinary difficulties.” She would recognise him by his scent, for, as a smoker, he often smelled of tobacco. It was Mark Twain who convinced the industrialist Henry Huttleston Rogers to help pay for Keller’s education, and he was also the first person to call Anne Sullivan a miracle worker.
8. When she was 36, she fell in love and almost married. Peter Fagan worked as Helen's secretary for a while when Anne Sullivan was ill. They secretly got engaged, took out a marriage licence and tried to elope three times. Her family, believing only they could look after her properly, and that she might pass on her disabilities to any children she had, forbade her to marry. “If I could see, I would marry first of all,” she wrote.
9. She had political views way ahead of her time. She belonged to the Socialist Party, helped to found the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), supported industrial workers’ rights, women’s suffrage, birth control (she expressed concerns about human overpopulation), and refusing life-saving medical procedures to infants with severe disabilities. She was also an admirer of Vladimir Lenin. Her left wing views resulted in her being investigated by the FBI. She travelled the world advocating for rights and education for deaf, blind and disabled people - she visited 39 countries and met with world leaders. She was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. In the 1920s, she even went on tour of the Vaudeville circuit, where she would, with Anne's help, speak to audiences and answer their questions.
10. She learned to communicate, not only by means of spelling words on palms, but by touching people's lips, reading Braille, and typing. She learned to speak, but never liked her voice as her speech was hard for others to understand. She even found a way to appreciate Music, by placing her fingertips on a resonant tabletop.

See also Helen Keller quotes.

More details about my books. Follow this link if you like Superheroes, Psychics and/or quirky short stories. 

I've listed the themes each novel touches on here for easy reference.

Like my author page on Facebook for news on new books and blog posts.

Follow me on Twitter and Pinterest

Check out my Writing blog