The next public event connected with The Hostage Handbook is on the evening of Friday, 29 January 2010 at the new bookshop in Norwich, The Book Hive. Then the book will receive its Norwich launch, probably starting at 6.30pm and at some point I will read some key extracts from the book and speak a little about the experience. The Book Hive is a great new venture by Henry Layte, who is a writer himself for the stage, and more details about the event, the great new venture that is The Book Hive, and its aims, and invitations etc will appear in this blog nearer the time. The launch will be a celebration of life and books as well and not just simply a book launch. All friends and Norwich readers will of course be welcome and the shop will stay open during this party. See you there perhaps?

Returning to Sherigham on Saturday 12 December over forty years after working there as local reporter, was a very lovely experience. I went to to sign copies of my latest publication The Hostage Handbook in Bertram Watts bookstore, and I was very surprised and moved to find no less than three different school friends from my days at the City of Norwich School in Norwich turned up to renew acquaintance after an interval of some fifty-five years.

All had moved from Norwich to Sheringham to live - attracted no doubt by the town's beauty and charm. It was a great pleasure to greet again Mike Rix, who was in the same House, Parker, as myself - we had run together for Parker in the 440 yards race on our last Sports Day and we had played in the same school football team together, coached by a great character 'Dodger' Doe - who was also the school's chief music master. Yes Mr Doe the music master, no kidding...(By the way we also had an art teacher called Mr Drewitt whose first name was allegedly Hugh !!!)

Pauline Craske, the lovely wife of another school friend Eric Craske, came in to buy a signed copy of the book for her husband - and she told me they had been in China on business a lot together in the early 1990s. Eric had been in the same year as me and Pauline told me they had already read my China novels and Saigon too. We shared a very good conversation for some time. Also 'Diddler' Daines and his charming wife turned up at the signing table too. Can't recall now how that affectionate nickname developed in school days but it has stuck. (One way I filled endless empty hours whilst held hostage in my slogan daubed 'cell', was tryng to recall the name and face of every one of my fellow pupils in all the various school classes I had been in, so this made these face-to-face meetings so much more poignant and enjoyable) 'Diddler' now helps man the Sheringham Coastguard Station on the beautiful cliffs of the resort which I used to recall and deliberately visualise with their sweeping sea views, to calm myself during my time in Beijing.

Brian Pegg, a former coxswain of the Sheringham Lifeboat, dropped by -- he and his brother Keith had won the Pram Race in the Sheringham Carnival dressed as very big Babes the year I reported it for the Daily Express and other newspapers -- and we enjoyed a good old 'mardle' (Norfolk dialect for a good rambling chat) To give some idea of the significance of the event then, special trains from London were run to the Sheringham Carnival in those days ...

I made a new friend in Mrs Bridget Waters, and another in Richard Gray (no relation) who drove all the way from Norwich to be there. All three local newspapers for which I long ago reported, kindly mentioned the event in advance, the Norwich Evening News, the Eastern Daily Press and the weekly North Norfolk News, so my especial thanks go to them for making all these marvellous meetings possible. Bryan Piggett, former Sheringham Councillor and friend also dropped by to chat - and to my surprise and delight, to invite me to give a talk at a forthcoming dinner of the organisation setting up a new Sherigham Museum with the aid of a £1 million National Lottery grant. One or two other new friends also added to the pleasure of the occasion joining in the conversations around the signing table. Les Collings and Maura McCarthy, great Sheringham-based friends of many years standing, with whom I stayed, and similarly Janet and Jon Stewart and Ruby and Sasha Norris, came into the shop also to chat and lend their kind support....

How fortunate I am, I thought, to have so many friends and acquaintances in such a lovely county as Norfolk. I felt blessed on this occasion and send thanks to the bookshop owner Peter Hill for the warmth of his welcome and likewise to Yvette one of his asssistants. And in reflecting on the quiet joy of the occasion, I felt great gratitude, not for the first time, that I had survived that unpleasant experience as a hostage long ago in China, particularly as other British and Western hostges since have often had far worse experiences than myself. Sheringham as a result, over this past weekend, has wound itself every more tightly into my affections, my memory, and my heart.

After dinner talk Sheringham Thursday 25 March

Next Public Appearance: After dinner talk at Sheringham Museum Trust monthly dinner on Wednesday 24 March 2010 entitled: "World Peace Will Be Achieved Only When We Each Learn To Find Inner Peace Within Ourselves." The theme arises from the publication of my new book The Hostage Handbook which is a transcript with up to date commenatries of my secret shorthand diaries kept during two years as a hostage in solitary confinement in China. Being held alone cut off from the world in a hostile country for two years forced me to begin learning the importance of understanding how our individual inner life profoundly influences the world around us. I will be signing copies of the book and some of my novels for anybody who would like one after the dinner. I was an Eastern Daily Press reporter in Sheringham covering North Norfolk in 1963 before moving to join Reuters -- and travel to work in Eastern Europe and China -- and have loved the town and its people especially ever since.