My writings.
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A STAR IS BORN
On 14th May 2025, in a quiet community room of Stockport’s Bredbury Library an historical literary meeting took place. The event, largely unseen by Stockport’s residents, the few that were there were headed by Stockport councilor Dan Olivier. The rest of the meeting of about 30 people were made up of people from as far as Barrow-in-Furness in the north and Southampton in the south, other visitors represented, Algeria, India, Italy, Zambia, China, and South Africa (two of which had flown in for the event). If you listened to the banter, one heard a little Arabic and Afrikaans being spoken.
They had gathered to attend an extraordinary event where Jamie Richard Smith, now from Stockport was Tabeling not 1 but 6 books, 2 being Fantasy novels the others containing about 500 pieces of poetry all with AI generated drawing all of which he had created to enhance his works. What was extraordinary was that Jamie is a 90-year-old R.A.F. veteran and that it had taken 65 years of writing to produce the books.
When the audience had settled, Jamie was introduced by Maria Nother from Stockport Libraries, he then seated himself before his audience and started to tell his life story from notes often breaking away to describe incidents like being with King George VI and being chased across a car park by Queen Elizabeth in her Austin Princess. Other stories followed involving a royal audience with a princess in her bedroom, Richard Burton, Anthony Quayle, South African Presidents, Botha and de Klerk, and Pope John Paul 2.
As he talked, he leaned forward and the audience leaned forward to listen to him as he went on to talk about Africa, where he had lived for over 40 years, being charged by thirst-crazed elephants, chased by a roaring lion, being followed by the poisonous spitting cobra and the beauty of Africa’s snowcapped mountains. The purpose of these stories was that his writings are based on his life and the experiences gained in his 90 years of life. The dream - to see these books adapted and made into action packed films.
One by one he described his books, ‘A Fishy Tale”, a fantasy story based on World War 3 where the sea creatures declare war on the human race. Because of pollution in the oceans and seas of the world, the sea creatures using armaments from sunken war ships began to fight back, being led by a Dublin Bay prawn called Mr. O’Shun and an octopus called ‘The Professor’; (the first book sold was to be sent to a professor of Marine Biology). This because of it being comparable to ‘Animal Farm’, the research into marine biology and its message about pollution.
The second novel ‘The Rape of Africa’ describes how a second country through various means buys its way into African affairs with the intention of taking the continent’s mineral and other wealth, this besides creating living space for its own over populated country. Again, with the situation developing into all-out war. All this based on observations made while living for well over 40 years in East and Southern Africa.
The last four books are based on poetry written while living or holidaying in Africa, and Europe. A good portion of the poems concentrating on Stratford-on-Avon, his home town and North West England, where he now lives. This was followed by several readings from his books which brought forth laughter and a few tears.
The event finished with a lively period where books were bought, signed and discussed. This besides a promise that more books already written will be published within the next 6 months.
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Jamie Ian Smith.
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Shadows.
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