By Emelyn Heaps
The Beginning
I am a new author and my first book, titled Heaps of Trouble, published by The Collins Press, is now on the bookshelves since the end of September 2010.
Within the next few minutes I am hoping to capture your interest to such an extent that you will part with your hard-earned cash and rush out to buy it. from your local book shop, or on line at Irish publishers Collins Press Ireland or Amazon.
Some comedian said of Michael Jackson that he could relate to every person in the world because, at some time, he was their colour. Well, like him, I believe that I can relate to most people – except those with money – because of the circumstances of my life.
I come from a broken home with alcoholic parents and I lived on the streets of Dublin as a teenager. I married young and at the age of nineteen, I purchased some forty acres of mountain land. I developed the farm and sold it just in time to get divorced from my first wife, Christine, (yes, there were more wives!).
I started my own furniture business in Fermoy and spent over seven years developing and test flying one of Ireland’s first commercial light aircraft with the intention of doing what Henry Ford did for the motor car – bring flying to the masses. My mistake was that the masses didn’t want it or if they did, they weren’t aware at that time.
Fermoy Viaduct 1987
Late Late Show 1987
In 1988, I emigrated to the West Indies where I spent a quarter of my life involved in some of the most bizarre construction projects in the universe, before finally settling in County Clare with É well, I can’t tell you that bit yet, as you wouldn’t need to buy the rest of the books that I intend to write.
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That is always assuming that I can convince some publisher to circulate them, or secure the services of an agent who knows more about the publishing world than I'll ever know. And that, of course, will be up to you the reader, because if you like my first book, you will rush out to purchase Heaps of Opportunity, which i have finished scribing and is now being edited. So go on out and spend the few shillings on it, as you will enjoy the read..
Oh. One last item: like some other authors, I cannot place letters after my name or boast that I am a professor of something or other. But I can state proudly, I am dyslexic, which makes having my first book published truly an honour.
The Story, Heaps of Trouble
My first book, Heaps of Trouble, is a story about being brought up in a toy shop situated in Emmet Road, Inchicore, Dublin, and the title sums up what it’s all about – trouble, in one form or another.
It is an account of my youth during the late 1950s and 1960s with parents who spent most of their time at logger heads with each other. It details my younger days spent at Goldenbridge Convent, the explosion that
killed my sister and the subsequent court case in search of ‘compo’. I explain how the outcome of this tragic event affected me and my parents and the general mischief that I got up to as a streetwise gurrier during my teens. There are also some tales of attending school at CUS in Leeson Street and working as a porter in St James Hospital during the summer holidays.
‘It’s all been written before,’ you might cry, but not about Inchicore and not in the humorous vein that I have depicted, all centred around what had been a vibrant toy shop before the accident in 1966.
From the first page to the heart-stopping finish, I draw you into my triumphs and disasters with hilarity and sadness never far away. And then there is a love story that has lasted some forty-one years.
