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The Last Winter is a fantasy incorporating true life values.
'Complex, simple, devious and misleading'
Simon Sharp, London
'Having been privileged to have read The Last Winter I can say that readers are in for a treat'
David Balcombe, London
"I loved this story, essentially of time travel from a very female perspective, the hardness of life for a female in time gone by. Not Doctor Who whipping in and out of time, but someone being stuck in a time and not being understood, and the very real human emotions that come about with these changes.
I the story was very clever, very well thought out and well researched. I would thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who loves a story with many turns and twists, that stretches your imagination and emotions"
Teresa Canel, New Zealand
The Last Winter has been described as a psychological fantasy. To offer a synopsis of the plot would be impossible without spoiling it as it does not contain a 'twist in the tail' but is, in its entirety, a kink.
However, it appears to be about a modern young, poorly educated mother and what happens to her and her daughter over a period of twenty or so years when she finds herself under impossible and inescapable circumstances.
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Here are two passages;
He- - -Him- - -His. She- - -Her- - -? Shay- - -Shim- - - Shis.
Sexual uncertainty, generally labelled hermaphroditism leads to incongruity between appearance and genetic makeup. Conditions fall into three categories: female pseudohermaphroditism, male pseudohermaphroditism, and true pseudohermaphroditism.
True hermaphrodites may have either XX or XY chromosomes or contain a mixture. Leading geneticists are now composing a case for a greater taxonomy: males, merms (male pseudohermaphrodites), herms (true hermaphrodites), ferms (female pseudohermaphrodites) and females. However, beyond the scientific arena, there seems little possibility that these gender identities would ever be accepted.
Quafferies 3
Winter 2352
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With days left to live, his appearance altered dramatically as his food intake diminished. He became withdrawn and sluggish and it was all too obvious that the terrible price he was now about to pay had finally and fully dawned on his consciousness. He was transferred to the condemned cell the day before and that night, I was allowed to spend extra time with him.
Normally, the lock-up would escort me out of its walls at eight of the evening except for special circumstances but that last night, I was allowed to stay attended by the two familiar guards.
I read from the bible while he stared morosely at the straw covering the floor, occasionally picking some up, twisting it over and over his fingers. His eyes were already lifeless, as if he himself had already departed from the body and left an automation in charge of it, long enough to go through the final act.
He refused a priest even to the end and we conjectured whether that was from stupidity or a form of bravado. A nosegay was offered to him by way of an unknown gift and he took it gladly.
Just before twelve, the Sexton of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate performed his duty and rang the Newgate hand bell outside the cell and we listened silently to the mournful and quaintly sounding passage which I knew, he knew by heart;
"All you that in the condemned hole do lie.
Prepare you, for tomorrow you shall die.
What all, and pray the hour is drawing near.
That before the Almighty must appear.
Experience well yourselves, in time repent,
That you not to external flames be sent,
And when St. Sepulchre's Bell in the morning tolls.
The Lord above have mercy on your souls.
Past Twelve O'clock"
The custom originated back in the early part of the seventeenth century it is believed and a Robert Down gave £50 to the church for the ringing of the Great Bell on the morning of executions and the ringing of a hand bell outside the condemned cell. The tradition continued until 1890 and then ceased for the parish priest had it stopped because a nearby resident was ill and it was never resumed.
The morning came and with my many syllogisms falling on deaf ears, I offered him four drops of tincture of opium to serve as an anodyne and a palliative and I remember he took it gladly as a preventative for the horror which awaited him.
That morning another soul was to meet her maker too, a foul-mouthed wretch whose insidious crime of baby farming left her with few friends.
Thomas' final end though was dignified I am glad to report and mercifully swift. It being a drizzling rain that morning did not diminish the thirst of the crowd though and we heard their baying long before we took to the beechwood plinth. He found the courage to walk the short distance to the drop board, still somewhat entirely unconvinced I'm sure of what was about to happen and stood, awaiting his closing stages with a degree of nobility as his limbs were bound, the halter was placed around his neck and William Calcraft drew the thin white cap over his face. Although the tincture I had given him had helped, and his eyes were glazed, he still stood which was more than the woman did who collapsed in a giddy faint. His hand was shook and he was muttered a few words, apparently by way of caution to remain steady in his place on the drop.
As the bellows of the upturned faces of the crowd subsided, for the knowledge of the unseen reality sobers and awes even a rowdy gathering, his words were enigmatic to the last. When asked if he had anything to say, he uttered the synecdoche, 'everyone's far out', the meaning of which still eludes me today. And then he thanked me and on the clock, eight seconds later, met his personal void. I proclaimed him dead a half hour later. To his credit, I will never forget the courage he found as he faced his final few moments of life. To receive what the law gave. Factum est.