All my books should only be purchased through my official publisher www.lulu.com
Books bought elsewhere mean all profits go to the pirates and it is more
than likely you will never get to see what you think you've paid for.
Please do NOT buy any of my books via Amazon.
Books bought elsewhere mean all profits go to the pirates and it is more
than likely you will never get to see what you think you've paid for.
Please do NOT buy any of my books via Amazon.
My bookcase with my complete collection as of 14/4/2024
My favourite and most popular book, set in Regency England 1810-1825, 'No. 1' draws on the real and the imagined from the North East of England present at the birth of the railways, starting on 18th September 1810 and finishing there on 28th September 1825, the day after the first ever railway trip between two towns, a first that changed history. History didn't record it inadvertently carrying a boy fleeing from a miscarriage of justice and an ex-Waterloo veteran intent on silencing him, but history can now be straightened out. In this ambitious recreation by Darlington-born writer Antony J Stowers, fact and fiction are blended through real-life personalities, known historical events and ordinary people whose lives were impacted by this revolutionary technology. It also features a re-imagined but detailed account of the opening itself on 27th September 1825. The cover is by Terence Cuneo MBE.
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'I think the quality of 'No.1' lies in the depth of characterization and the detailed contextual narrative; where leaps of imagination and poetic license are firmly anchored to the historical detail, without undermining the quality and flow of the narrative. Reading 'No.1', I have learnt a great deal, but more than that, I have found it an enjoyable experience, I read the novel for pleasure, and was left a little empty when I reached the end. I re-read passages looking to use quotes and found myself back inside the story. It invigorated me to research aspects I’d hardly considered before and changed my views on the significance of a few individuals'. - Tony Fox, Historical Association, Durham, September 2018
This is a collection of the best of about 200+ of my poems 1982 - 2023. I've never academically studied poetry but early on became intrigued by T S Eliot's combination of traditional, modern and hybrid forms, the sparse pickings of Canadian poetess Miriam Waddington, the bold, philosophical and left-wing politics and phrases of Edward Bond, who was both playwright and poet and with whom I shared a written correspondence for three years and the work of South African performance poet Leo Aylen. Next, I came under the influence of home-grown, British post-punk 'performance poets' like Attila the Stockbroker, Nick Toczek, Joolz Denby, Benjamin Zephenia and Steven 'Seething' Wells. Relatively simple rhyme schemes, explicit imagery, socially-inspired and often politically-motivated agendas against ignorance, the Establishment, royalty, classism, alcoholism, complacency, right-wingers, war, racism, drug abuse, homophobia, poverty and exploitation and who made entertainment of their work. Cultural revolutions come in waves, some of us surf them and some watch and listen. Not sure where I fit in. Punk-era poets were called 'ranters' rather than 'poets' and produced 'rants' not poems. The title reflects a modest pride in writing them and the humble hope that they may some value to others.
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It’s peculiar to know that some solid objects have been demolished or destroyed and people have died and can no longer be seen or touched apart from through photographs, films or memories. They've become ghosts. For some, anchors are important and for others unimportant. Cutting the chains can free us to move on to new waters but cutting too many can see us drifting in a way we can’t always control. Finding the balance between them is tricky and what he hopes he, Jethro Anson Nowsty (an anagram of Antony John Stowers) in this first of seven instalments of his adventures, has achieved here - a dance with the past.
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Every year for one week in July or August the Nowsty family peers suspiciously from the windows of their terraced house in Darlington as if the weather is about to play yet another cruel trick and they pray for sun but prepare for rain, slaves to an unpredictable British summer. Yes, it's time for the family annual holidays so let’s leave that doom and gloom behind and escape back to the northern English working-class world of half a century ago when routine was suspended temporarily once a year and though daily life was just as complicated, expectations were perhaps a little simpler. Instalment two of the Nowsty saga.
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‘Imagination links with memory’ is a quote attributed to the Impressionist painter Edgar Degas (1834-1917) and one which he passed on as advice to many apprentice artists including Paul Gauguin. This collection of short stories - featuring 'Take a bow', 'What the butler saw', 'Josephine Shakespeare' and 'Monkey Jack' - set in Darlington in the 1970's does exactly that: links the distant memories of the author Jethro Anson Nowsty with his own contemporary imagination in this the third instalment of his life.
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Twenty-nine short stories, jumbled up in no sequential order and resonant of a slightly confused child-psychology somewhat fitting the title, is the fourth instalment of the Nowsty saga, built around the childhood memories of Jethro Anson Nowsty, an un-ordinary boy from an ordinary working class family in an ordinary town in north east England, from his first tentative steps in school and the end of education into the adult world in the summer of 1979.
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Plunge head-first into the mad adventures of Jethro Anson Nowsty, our ordinary and modest English hero, now a mature man and innocent abroad, doing daily battle with the (often) frustrating but (equally) fascinating workings of modern France from 2016 to 2020. A new job in Nantes, the Amsterdam Run, Catholic Mafia, Principles in Practise, for the good of the community, strikes, yellow-jackets and a slight limp, Gauguin’s Revenge, Hitchhikers Guide, racism wins, Miss Julie, new horizons - old legs, Jude & Jack, The Visitor and Friday 13th - it's all there to be made sense of. Or not.
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Continuing the adventures of Jethro Anson Nowsty, a not-so-innocent Englishman abroad, entering 2020, a dark period for humanity as the first global pandemic for a century bursts upon the world including D-Day and the 1st lockdown, online teaching, Nature’s takeover, filling time, Shakespeare for charity and more work, books, gardening, summer holidays, new contract and a hit to the wallet, drama and relocation, 2nd lockdown, back to work, St Nazaire, Christmas, Brexit, Loco No. 1, Trump, dinosaurs, exams and beaches, winter, COVID tests, exams, 3rd lockdown, vaccination and future hope.
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Like the mythical key to the door of 21 years of age, Planet Earth should have been passing from one state to the next with flying colours but instead went into it expecting too much and emerged having achieved too little, including: Problems at St Jude’s, Traditions, Get out of jail, Vaccinations, book exchanges, Reflections on the future, Saving Number One, Covid-by-the-Sea, Master plan, 1st UK trip, Manchester to Darlington, enabling the plan, Le Boucher, 2nd UK visit, P4TH, Darlington market, Exercise, printers, Omicron, Teaching at Tall Trees, Trouble at t’Mill, Betrayal, 3rd UK trip, Christmas, SUMAC Centre, Panic in Manchester, Christmas in Darlington, Pornic and the end of a career.
On 8th May 1903, French post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin died, having spent his final days with a witchdoctor on the remote Pacific island of Hiva Oa. Or did he? On 2nd January 2008 Tony Stowers, an obscure writer, travels to Pont Aven in Brittany to research Gauguin and, at a photographic exhibition, the ghost of the restless French legend finds temporary sanctuary in the imagination of a unknown Brit. This is their story.
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Loosely based on 'Down and out in Paris and London' by George Orwell, part one of 'Voyager' takes us back to the 1980's when young palindromist Johnny Regayov quits home and heads to London, hungry for fun. There he plunges into mindless jobs, casual relationships and knife-edge living. Sometimes breaking the ice and falling through, he manages to get back on his feet and though life teaches him harsh lessons and love kicks him in the teeth, he manages to bounce back. But how much longer can his luck hold? And what's the end game?
Returning from a self-imposed six-month exile in Israel, this is a portrait of young John, footloose and fancy free, trying to come to terms with what motivates him while occasionally coming up for air from the world he has created. Told over the summer months from May to August of that final year of the 1980's, with the invasion of Kuwait around the corner, John crashlands into a London he left in desperation the year before to escape the bitter end end of love affair and tries to rebuild but finds himself compelled to gather what physical and psychological supplies he can and keep moving. He'd gone to Israel hoping for peace but discovered as much betrayal as he'd felt in London.
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Loosely based on 'Down and out in Paris and London' by George Orwell, and coming on the heels of 'Voyager Part One', Johnny Regayov, with some education under his belt, quits his English home town once again and heads to Paris, eager for the fulfilling life denied him in London. But trouble is forever at his heels as he does battle with ghosts of his past and challenges of the present. Aided and abetted by the ghost of his friend and living French hustler Claude, he still courts danger but plays his cards carefully, having learnt to from bitter experience, when he meets free-spirited American Helen Van Dyke and they both throw in their lot with Paris and take to the road.
This is a document of my experiences in teaching UK's biggest export - its language - to our French neighbours from 2006-2016. The title is a tribute to teacher and author Raymond Murphy whose world-famous teaching books, known for their versatility, practicality and all-round appeal, have kept the author in work for 17 years. Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL) is different from teaching English such as via English Language or English Literature to native-born students. The latter two teach composition, structure, analysis and the history of language. A TESOL teacher is a mere conduit between the subject and the objective which is usually to enable learners access the basic principles of speaking, listening, reading and, to a lesser degree, writing English in order to operate on a simple level with a language that is not their own. Hooray 4 Ray is a kind of guidebook as to how I personally made it work for me as a teacher and made a living out of it.
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This working journal straddles the end of the 20th century and shows how to turn a dream into a reality. It takes in my humble beginnings on the dole back in Nowheresville in the 80's looking for a direction and fell into writing theatre plays and performance poetry, (eventually) getting into drama school in London and ten years after that trying to reconcile what I felt was expected of me with what my heart truly wanted. The last third of the book is the result of that struggle.
This is a book for those who smoke and want to stop and for those who’ve stopped but need reassurance. I’m the latter. I’m never going to take the crown from Allan Carr who has written one of the best ‘quit smoking’ self-help books the modern world has ever seen, so I wrote this book to bolster my resolve and hopefully help others. Consisting of some cold facts, some home-spun philosophies and some hard life experience, ‘Killing It’ meanders through time and the history of my promising but ultimately disappointing attempts to understand and fill the void, a void often stuffed with substance-abuse of one kind or another as I struggled to make sense of it all. I’ve decorated my book with oblique ways of looking at the associated smoker’s paraphernalia, good and bad role models, the ‘gateway’ hypothesis, various notions around health as well as slavery/freedom viewpoints and interwoven references as a way of giving context to the social, economic, emotional, psychological, cultural or environmental states that shape negative choices and poor personal behaviour.
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This short, sharp, fast-paced novel highlights the stark reality of loneliness seen from the perspective of a drug dealer whose only social interactions are afforded by the most fleeting of liaisons with both suppliers and clients. Taking place over a single weekend and navigating the constant bombardment of mobile 'phone requests, it would appear to be business as normal until a mysterious caller enters the mix, leaving the protagonist with no choice but to run.
I’m Royalty, I’m a film star, I’m a soldier, I’m a priest, politician, policeman, criminal and a fool. I’m old, I’m young, I’m black and I’m white. I’m a man, I’m a woman, I’m a child and I’m poor. I’m everyone, I’m no-one, I’m something and I’m real but I’m - not - dead - yet. Around 1983 I gingerly/obliviously/ignorantly/naively entered the world of some classical illegal drugs after already being involved with some classical legal drugs and thus began a repetitive and self-destructive pattern that lasted decades. I’m not proud of some of the things I’ve taken or done but I’m not denying nor trying to hide it either. These things have to be talked about. Sacrifices must be made. Scores must be settled. Tears must be shed. It takes courage to be honest, especially to friends and family, even more so than with strangers but, where stigma leads, hypocrisy usually follows and nobody wants that. There are no short cuts in life and drugs only trick you into thinking there are. So here is a list of legal and illegal drugs listing what I knew about them before I got involved with (some) of them and what I've learned since.
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A detailed diary of what it was like to be young in a small northern English town in the early 1980's, from the first weeks of unemployment after being fired, surviving a killer bout of meningitis, learning to act, write and perform and gradually re-educating myself, not only re-casting Tony in the mould I wanted but actually building the mould itself by taking tiny bits from those who influenced me, in a world where no university could ever train such a person for such a unique career. Also features 50 poems plus the short book 'This is where we live' and The Bond Letters, detailed correspondence from the late Edward Bond.
'Fragments' is a collection of thirteen very short short-stories that somehow miraculously survived the long journey I took them on, from their initial creation on a typewriter in a Hackney squat in east London, some as far back as 1989, two from 1997 and the others from 1999, until very recently, that's to say I wrote them under adverse circumstances and managed to cling onto them by putting them all into booklets. Some were published in online short story sites, some in fanzines, one into a theatre play. The titles are: Slight dreams of a northern bastard, Crawling king snake, Preparations, Baptism by fire, Foray, Maxine, I walk the line, Roman Road, Confessions of a rock n roll star, In the year 5749, Thatcher killed my Grandad, The Gospel according to David and Unknown writer on the dole.
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A re-cap of 2022, a year of travel, independence, artistic expression, three book tours, live poetry performances, death of a Queen, Ukraine invaded by an ex-KGB thug, Covid-19 wind-down, an innovative new/old film, theatre productions, new friends made and old friends rediscovered and forty books read and recorded - a forest of tiny pin-pricks in the life of a relative nobody set against the infinitesimal black curtain of endless space - my life in 2022. I thank the fates for it.
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2023 was one hell of a year. The icing on the cake was FINALLY getting to translate (English to French), cast, produce and direct two of my English theatre plays that had been loitering in my life for years 'Le Petoman' and 'Jean's Choice'. Sadly, I only had amateur actors but I pushed them hard and got results (and discovered a new concept 'implicit bias', a fascinating subject!) I also started a new teaching job, learnt how to throw my money away, passed 60 years of age, started working on a musical and laid ghosts of the past to rest but pushed myself over the edge of good health. Throughout, I behaved like the consummate professional - in a world of bloody amateurs ! |
The Key is an epic 128-verse simple rhyming scheme poem in E-book form only featuring different characters telling the story of young David 'Divvy' Ford who learns by experience how to deal with the challenges of moving from childhood to maturity based on a sound decision-making process. With splashes of humour and some very sharp rhymes, it's ONLY £2 and instantly downloadable to phones and tablets! Give it a spin!
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Remembering Paul Deltombe
1878-1971
Paul Deltombe 1878-1971, a French pastoral Impressionist, gave his life to art and for the last 50 years of it he painted the changing nature of Champtoceaux (his adopted home in the Pays de a la Loire region of west France) and its environs, as well as other parts of France, in a career whose roots can be traced to some of the greatest names in Modern Art. This is my modest attempt to preserve his name and ensure his work lives on. See more artwork below and the video on the right with music by Adam Sykes.
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