Friday 21 December 2012

new title: fancy a dirty weekend?

fancy a dirty weekend? the travels of a navvies cook by anne nichols

If you love the canals, or have been on a canal camp or work weekend with wrg (waterway recovery group) or any of the myriad of canal societies throughout the country, or if just like reading about cooking, our latest title is for you.

Written by Anne Nichols, who spent most of the 1990s feeding a team of volunteers as they worked on some of the most interesting and arduous canal restoration projects. From Chichester to Lancaster, Droitwich to Barnsley, Anne criss-crossed the country in the back of a Transit van to feed anything from six to a thousand hungry navvies.

This is her story of life as a navvies' cook, where the emphasis is on good food and lots of it.  At the end of each chapter is one of Anne's recipes for you to try out at home.

fancy a dirty weekend? will give you the flavour of what the canal restoration movement is all about, and you will meet some of its most endearing and amusing people.

Anne's Blog: http://anne-nichols-author.blogspot.co.uk/

A must for any waterways enthusiast!
Buy now on Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00AR154RQ

Monday 25 June 2012

Thursday 10 May 2012

Yobunny supporting the Burton Memorial Hall

Yobunny is supporting the Burton Memorial Hall as our charity of choice. The Memorial Hall, opened in 1956, provides a venue for over 50 user groups to meet and hold activities, creating a social, educational and cultural amenity for everyone in the village regardless of age.

If you value this resource please support Burton Memorial Hall, there is a lot of work to be done on the hall to help it serve the community for another 50+ years. You can support the Hall by attending a fund-raising event there, by holding your own event in aid of the Hall, or by using one of the new ways of helping raise funds.

JustTextGiving by Vodafone is an easy way to make a donation of up to £10 to the Hall. Every penny you give goes to the Hall and you can do it from your phone. How easy is that? Simply text the code BMHC12 followed by the amount you wish to donate (£1, £2, £3, £4, £5, or £10) to 70070 - it won't even cost you to send the text!

Earn money for the Hall by shopping or searching with EasyFundRaising.org. Every time you search you earn - 0.5p per search - it doesn't sound a lot but, if like us, you search many times for things each week it will soon add up!

easysearch.org.uk

You can also shop and earn funds for the Hall...click the blue box below to find out more.

easyfundraising.org.uk

Every penny the Hall needs for maintenance and repairs and upgrades has to be raised somehow, and it needs the support of everyone who uses it and of the wider community to ensure it's there for future generations to use too. Please help!

Burton Memorial Hall is a registered charity, no. 505018.



Wednesday 25 April 2012

Missing British girl Madeleine McCann
The Metropolitan Police have issued a new age-progression image of missing British child Madeleine McCann who disappeared as a 3 year old in Portugal on Thursday 3 May 2007. Madeleine would now be 9 years old and the image produced is how it is anticipated she may look. If you have any information about Madeleine's whereabouts please ring Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or click the image to go to the Find Madeleine website.

Sunday 8 April 2012

Hear Moonbeams online now!

Listen to excerpts from Moonbeams on Audioboo now: http://audioboo.fm/BJMorgan

Moonbeams now available on Smashwords

Moonbeams by B J Morgan is now available in other e-formats from Smashwords. The new formats include Apple iPad/iBooks, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo, and most e-reading apps including Stanza, Aldiko, Adobe Digital Editions and older model Sony Readers.

The price is $1.50 and the link to find Moonbeams on is http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/149729.

Tuesday 27 March 2012

New eBook: facsimile of Cartmel and Lower Holker Almanac 1917

A scanned copy of The Cartmel and Lower Holker Almanac 1917 including all pages and illustrations, in PDF file format, on a CD-rom, which is readable on any computer with a CD drive and Adobe Reader software (free download from www.adobe.com). 103 pages in total.

The Cartmel and Lower Holker Almanac 1917 contains a wealth of information about the villages, with details of places of worship, lists of magistrates, county council officers, urban district and parish councillors, guardians of the poor, the Cartmel lighting committee, details of schools and educational establishments, the Cartmel Hunt, the agricultural and horticultural societies, the cricket club, the sports committee, local fire brigades, the orchestra and choral societies, a list of literary and philanthropic societies' committee members, sick clubs and benefit societies.

The almanac also includes a raft of information about the year 1917: moon phases, planting and gardening info, foods in season, and notes on the weather and other unusual events, with a review of the period Nov 1915 - Dec 1916, by Titiotorris. Data includes the number of deaths in the parishes, the tonnage of seafood landed, prices of hay and straw, agricultural returns and stock.

Articles included cover Wm. Penn, the Furness and South Cumberland Permanent Benefit Building Society, War and Food Prices, War Economy & Drink, Thomas Wright (stained glass artist), German Agriculture, Peace & War, and more.

Humorous and informative snippets abound, including a tale of King Alfonso (of Spain) and his candy, the Duke of Norfolk being paid tuppence to help push a cart uphill, the wonders of the body, trees which grow on the tops of trees, uses for waste materials, and the discovery of glycerine.

Black and white photos of the following are appended:
James Clarkson, Esq., Barrow
John Coward, Esq., Ulverston
The late William Gradwell, Esq.
The late William Park, Esq., Barrow
The late Benjamin Townson, Esq.
Mr Henry Percy Poole
Miss Ethel Mary Horne
Miss Margaret Elizabeth Levens
The late John Poole, Esq.
F.W. Poole, Esq.
Henry Inglis Orr
W.R. Nash, J.P.
Private Wm. Hutton
Mrs G. Teasdale
The late William Nash
Miss P. Nash
Miss Dora Horne
The late Miss Eliza R. Nash
W.R. Nash, 50 years ago
The late Mrs M.J. Nash
Private Francis Carter Hodgson
Private Henry R. Atkinson
Private John Pearson
Private James Townson
Private Christopher Young
Private William McGuire
Private Frank Webster
Private John Langstreth
Gunner Clement Mossop

The Cartmel and Lower Holker Almanac 1917 is a fascinating book, produced in the middle of the first world war, and gives an insight into life on the Cartmel peninsula during 1916 - 1917. The black and white photos illustrate business men and their families, and some soldiers in uniform. The data section includes a large number of names, places and activities, so if your ancestor came from the Cartmel area you will surely find this of interest, as will local historians and genealogists wanting to get a feel for life in the rural north during World War I.

The book has been scanned locally from an original copy and the CDs are produced in Cumbria. CD will be shipped in a protective padded envelope. The original book has staple holes and tatty edges to the pages, and the wartime paper has discoloured in places, so all this shows up on the scanned images, but the text is completely readable.

Some scans from the CD may be seen in the gallery here: GALLERY

The Cartmel and Lower Holker Almanac 1917 is now available on eBay, price £5 plus £2.50 UK postage: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/130671778647.

Saturday 17 March 2012



BJ (Barry) Morgan talking to Sally Moon on BBC Radio Cumbria recently about his new book, Moonbeams.

Sunday 8 January 2012

Barry in print: Moonbeams, by B.J. Morgan


"A glimmer on the horizon attracted his attention. Earth's Moon was rising, as it had done for millennia and would do so for millennia to come. As he watched it climb, Paul remembered the fear that this sight had struck into the hearts of mankind..."

One galaxy, two budding Galactic Empires, a recipe for disaster? Follow the struggles of Jan Oremus, Demil Verne, Paul Trevell, Admiral Stern, and others as they make their first tentative moves towards escaping from the planet of their birth.

Barry says...

Moonbeams came to me in a flash (is that a pun?) some 30 years ago and has fought to see the light of day ever since. Often on the 'back burner' of life but the flame never went out. Now published on Amazon through Kindle Direct Publishing, an option for new authors that the digital revolution has made possible.

I was an industrial chemist for the greater part of my working life, and now am a self-employed computer repair technician (always had an interest in electronic things - fixing TV's when only a schoolboy.) Quite a change of direction, but after 33 years playing with smelly chemicals I thought enough was enough, and being made redundant proved to be the catalyst (once a chemist, always a chemist!)

Moonbeams by B.J. Morgan is available from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006TOFA9C and you can meet the author here: Barry Morgan on Amazon

Click to open the Publisher spec sheet

Now available as a print-on-demand book from Create Space: https://www.createspace.com/3774801

Saturday 7 January 2012

2012 - another year before us...

At the start of the year I like to assess where we are going, set out our aims for the coming year, and put in place the mechanisms to help us achieve them. Over the past couple of months we've been exploring how useful social media is to online businesses - both our own and our clients, to ensure we're making the best use of it to benefit us all.

As a part of this we've been attending something called Twunch on a monthly basis. A Twunch is a Twitter lunch, at least that's how it began, with a small group of us exploring our knowledge of Twitter and how we can best utilise it. From there Twunch has grown a little to encompass other aspects of social media, and will in time cover Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and any others we find.

Our initial group has been Twunch_SL (for South Lakeland) but we now feel it's time to spread our wings a little and see how much interest there might be in Twunch in the Burton & Holme areas. The idea is to meet for a 2 hour lunch one day per month, say 12 noon - 2pm, at a central location. This could be the memorial hall or the pub, etc. and the host provides soup, bread & cake, Twunch provides technical support, and everyone who goes along pays £5 to cover the costs of lunch etc. The group size needs to be no more than 10 people initially. If anyone's interested in getting involved, please contact Anne via Twitter on @AstarteWebDes or use one of the contacts here: http://www.yobunny.co.uk/astarte/