On the bench - for 650 years

It's 650 years since the role of the magistrate was created which has become the cornerstone of the British justice system. Today, justices of the peace still handle 95 per cent of criminal cases, and civil ones.
They were originally, in 1361, knights and landowners but as property and wealth ceased to be criteria, JPs acquired their image as hat-wearing, middle-aged, middle-class, largely female women who were paid for their time, which they aren't  Though the balance has gradually shifted to include a wider segment of society,  it's still more difficult to get more men on the bench because of their work commitments. 
Sentencing may have changed from being thrown into the duck pond or confined in the stocks, to the imposition of fines and imprisonment but the system is one of the few to have survived the centuries and remain an essential and effective method of imposing penalties on miscreants. 
In my book, The A-Z of Punishment and Torture, you can read more about this fascinating subject, including and the varied and imaginative, cruel and sometimes amusing ways people have dealt with those who step out of line.  It's available as a hard back and an e-book.

Make No Bones About It - Skeletons Are The Best Wedding Gift!

While all eyes will soon be focused on the Wedding of the Century, a book which exposes the Queen’s role in keeping prisoners behind bars indefinitely is steaming up the e-book popularity list.  The A-Z of Punishment and Torture is beating Bewrite Books’ record, outselling all other ebook editions in its catalogue over the past decade. My publisher thinks the nuptials looks suspiciously like a diversionary tactic on the part of the House of Windsor!  After all, what would the Royal bride think of a mother-in-law who is part of the quaint tradition of holding people in custody until the fancy takes her to let them go? 

To be fair, the system of indeterminate incarceration, originally known as ‘Detention At His Majesty’s Pleasure’, was written into the statute books in 1800 by an Act of the British Parliament during the reign of George III.  It became better known as ‘Queen’s Pleasure’ because for most of the 2010 years since, the turnkeys have been women – Queen Victoria for sixty-four years and the reigning Queen Elizabeth II for the past fifty-eight.

The A-Z is a catalogue of cruelty, but often humour and horror sit side by side - the first gibbets chopped off heads with such vigour that they often bounced like balls into the spectators. 

Of course, kings and queens have been known to wield their power to punish in all manner of ways over the centuries.  Fortunately, things are different now but it’s always interesting to have a peek among the family skeletons.  What do you buy the happy couple who have everything?  Ah, now I know what to send them!

Worlds Apart

I'm currently helping with research on a book to be published days after the Royal Wedding.  It's a far cry from The A-Z of Punishment and Torture but creating a book, whatever the subject, involves the same journey from inception to publication during which your world expands with the new knowledge you glean along the way.  I have to confess I had only a sketchy grasp of Royal liveswhen I started, but now I feel almost 'involved' with them.  They have stepped from my computer screen, and the newspapers and magazines I have used for research, and gradually become flesh and blood people, who laugh, cry, hurt and endure, just like the rest of us.  I suppose that's the joy of book reading.  Within those pages are other lives, with all their complexities, or similarities to our own, which enrich us with their contribution. 

Rough Justice

Are you watching the fascinating series, Garrow, about the 18th century London barrister who champions the victims of the rough justice which existed in those days?  William can't bear to see women and young children being sent to the gallows for trifling offences.  Garrow was a real person who became a politician and judge and who reformed our advocacy system.  He introduced the phrase  'innocent until proven guilty', insisting that defendants' accusers and their evidence be thoroughly tested in court.
My book, The A-Z of Punishment and Torture, highlights some of the kind of cases Garrow would have defended and the lives he would have saved, had he been able.  We owe him a great deal.

Life is full of surprises ...

... and some of them are very pleasant.  It has been a joy to receive so many wonderful reviews of my book, some from old friends and journalist colleagues, and others from perfect strangers.  I realise the subject matter may not be top of most people's gentle bed-time reading material, but it seems that everyone has found some subject in it that has caught their interest - or made them shudder!   I'm delighted that the A-Z has been so well received.  Thank you.

Here At Last!

At last the day has come, and my ebook is out there in the ether.  It’s odd to have a book published which I can’t see or feel.  It was also an unusual experience to go through the production process with a publisher who is based in France, an art director who is in Canada and an illustrator in the North of England.  Not a word was exchanged between us, verbally at least, and any differences of opinion seemed to be easily resolved in the silent world of the written word.  (You can only shout by using CAPITAL LETTERS!)

My first foray into the world of ebooks forced me to think about their place in our rapidly changing world.  Our ‘convenience’ culture demands that everything in our lives - food, entertainment, information - comes with a wide choice and easy accessibility.  Hence the phenomenal rise in popularity of the ebook.  I love the idea that this way of  producing books saves many trees, as well as giving people greater, and more economical, access to books. 

Few of us have the time, or inclination, to plough through weighty tomes on serious subjects.   That doesn’t mean we’re not interested in historical facts. My book was written as an overview of punishments through the ages without sending the reader to sleep.   I can’t guarantee they’ll be no nightmares though!    

A Book To Raise Eyebrows

After many years writing for newspapers and magazines throughout the world, I ventured into another unknown and accepted a publisher's invitation to write a book.  It was hard work but both challenging and satisfying ... so I decided to write another.
If you don't know me, you can only imagine the flurry of raised eyebrows when the title emerged, accompanied by a chorus of astonished query.  "What's someone like YOU doing writing something like THAT!"  While it wasn't pornography, The A-Z of Punishment and Torture is, I must admit, in many ways a far cry from anything I had written before.  However, in other respects, it was for me simply a matter of reporting the facts, hard or otherwise which, as a journalist, I had done for decades.  In the same way a surgeon regards his patient as a section of flesh to be probed and corrected, I took the tales of torture and cruelty and wrote them down, without judgement or sentimentality.  I did try to minimise the more gory parts as the object of this book was to inform rather than to shock.  It was intended to present an overview of the ways in which humans have punished each other over the centuries and as a reminder of how some still do.  There are moments of levity to lighten the load and some splendid illustrations. 
Now where shall I turn for my next challenge?