Philip Baker | newwritersuk

Valerie Astill

Born in Rotherham, 1927, into an Engineering family. Schools in Derbyshire and Shropshire. Accepted for Leeds University, however the RAF needed me more – but in return they gave me many and varied stories to write! Demobbed, I went to the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. MRAC. I then farmed in North Nottinghamshire, but now retired. As an amateur diver I worked as a Volunteer Diver on MARY ROSE. In 1977, I discovered 'One of the two oldest known potential wreck sites in the world.' [Close to Salcombe, S.Devon.] Many Bronze-age finds, C. 1300 BC, are now in the British Museum. Started writing around 1960. Short Stories and Articles published in various Magazines:- Diving, Militaria, Local interest etc: and Kameraden, a German Ex-serviceman's Magazine..

Needle On Red

With colour illustrations and fold-out Ship Plans.

In the early days of amateur diving, two teenage cousins manage to buy - and then teach themselves to use - a single Aqualung, Friendship with an old Cornish fisherman, enables them to dive on nearby wrecks.
Discoveries on the sea bottom - ancient, modern, and even alarming - bring them local fame, but little fortune.
Years later, working from a collection of documents, John reconstructs 'Davy' Jones' discovery of an unknown Cornish war-time wreck, with a known 'Princess's Ransom' still hidden deep inside her.
The planning, the risks, and the horrors, of recovery attempts - by rival teams - are fully recorded. Only then is the true nature of the 'Ransom' disclosed.

Needle On Red is published by Vilmor Publications.

Not Quite A Judas

A Novel of 80,000 words, with 12 illustrations

A conflict of loyalties between youthful close friends, forced to be adult enemies. Their activities and their meetings, in peacetime, and even during the war – in England, Germany, France, U.S.A., Canada and North Africa – lead on, inevitably, to grim consequences.

Additional background:- John, the story-teller, shares Devon & Dartmoor, and a Hitler Youth Camp, with Erich, who joins the Kriegsmarine and becomes a U-boat Officer. John joined the Territorial Army, was commissioned, wounded at Dunkirk. Although under suspicion, he is involved with Local Defence Volunteers, and the very secret British Resistance Organisation.

We follow the Highs, and the Lows, of both their years in blue and khaki.

Not Quite a Judas is published by Authorhouse.

Youth Led By Youth.

The three matching volumes, total 450 pages and over a thousand illustrations, many in colour – some never before published. The Organisation, Uniforms and Activities of the Hitler Youth are fully explained. Including first-hand stories told to me by former Hitler Youths, male and female, of both low and very high rank.

The Youth Led By Youth, trilogy, is published by Vilmor Publications.

All five of the above books, prices, delivery etc, are available via his email address p.baker295@btinternet.com

BUY