I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety

After I retired I spent many a happy hour researching both my own and my husband's family histories. Eventually though, I came to a dead end after I had explored every aspect of the lives of even the most distant relatives. I had already sorted through a box of old photos that had been in the loft for years and had labelled as many of them as I could. Now I turned my attention to an old, homemade, hard backed notebook with the initials N.B stencilled on the deteriorating hessian cover. I knew that this was a collection of photographs and postcards that my dad, Norman Buckle, had stuck in the book accompanied by captions in his tiny, precise handwriting. Folded into the book were lots of pages torn from an old diary for 1943 and several sheets of notepaper covered in that same spidery handwriting. This was to become the starting point for my book I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War Two . Link to amazon UK book pa

One of the most exciting aspects of the epublishing revolution is the proliferation of new writing that wouldn't be handled by the traditional publishers. I'm thinking particularly here of personal memoirs and family stories. I got into epublishing to help my husband bring his novel  Magnificent Britain  in front of an audience. It was several months after the launch of  Magnificent Britain  that I began to think about publishing a diary that my father had written during World War II.  I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II  was released as a Kindle ebook in October last year and I'm really pleased that I took the decision to publish it; my dad, who died many years ago, would have been amazed. I've downloaded and enjoyed reading several WWII memoirs and also this diary from a much earlier era.  From Trincomalee to Portsea: The Diary of Eliza Bunt 1818 - 1822  is a fascinating diary transcribed