Unearth Hidden Narratives
Books That Inspire and Intrigue
Discover a diverse collection of literary works that bring history, ghostly tales, and personal journeys to life. Explore and enrich your reading experience.
About
My name is Laurence Green and I am a fairly ordinary bloke. Twenty years ago I started writing and it has been one of life’s greatest pleasures. I am a retired French and English teacher who worked for far too long at my old school in Totnes, South Devon.
I won a writing competition in 2005 for a ghost story around 200 words. This gave me the confidence to continue and I researched and wrote a novel about a young Cornishman called Thomas Ching who went to sea and was eaten by cannibals in the Torres Strait in 1834. I then found that my brother-in-law was related to him.
Two collections of ghost stories followed. The first ‘Westcountry Stories of the Restless Dead’ is based on local legends and settings and sold out two editions. I had to buy a copy from a charity shop to have one in my library!
The second ‘No Admittance after Dark’ also did well but is still available. It is more wide ranging than the first collection but just as weird.
I then wrote a biography of my grandfather Major/Flight Lieutenant Bernard Green MC who survived two world wars. He fought in the First and Second Battles of the Somme, Messines Ridge, and Passchendaele. He was wounded twice and joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve in 1939. He was shot down over Denmark, spent five years in various PoW camps and was the oldest officer to escape from Stalag Luft 3 in the ‘Great Escape’.
Next came the only full biography of the Cornish poet Charles Causley which won the Cornish Literary Guild Salver at the Holyer an Gof Awards in 2014.
I was then commissioned to write a biography of the composer George Butterworth from a military point of view and had a wonderful time getting to know his first cousin and wandering about on the Somme battlefield.
A rather niche book on Faith versus Religion in Charles Causley’s poetry followed and, more recently a further collection of ghost stories called ‘A Haunted Parish’ based on a fictitious parish in North Cornwall and its rather rough vicar who constantly battled with his own rather disreputable past as well as attacks by demons, ghosts, elemental spirits, etc.
I have had five publishers; four were excellent, one was miserable. If you read my books you will see which is which!
I am working on a fourth collection of ghost stories with a mainly railway and military emphasis. It will be called ‘Night Gaunts and Psychopomps’. It could be the best yet...
I have lived in the same small Devon village for almost all my life. I am a churchwarden and spent four years in the Territorial Army. I was such a poor shot that I became the section machine gunner in the hope that I would hit something. I enjoyed soldiering and would probably have joined the army if I had failed my A Levels.
My passions in life include my wife Kathi and our three sons and seven grandchildren. I also enjoy church architecture and graveyards, railways real and model, reading (far too much!), comfortable travel, dry stone walling, gardening and, above all, writing.
