STARLIGHT

In Starlight Geoffrey Lewis tells a tale of schoolboy friendship set against the backdrop of the Oxford Canal in the days when the commercial trade was in decline, the canal itself threatened with closure. It is a story whose mood ranges from heartwarming humour to unbearable poignancy in which he conjures up the world of the 1950s as the outcast lock-keeper's son takes the townie boy under his wing. The newcomer discovers the world of the canals as historical events and real characters flit past in the background; the author leads the reader through the long heat-wave of the summer of 1955, as it was seen by an eleven-year-old boy living in a little North Oxfordshire village.

Autorentext
Stephen G. Miles was born in Oxford, in 1947, and educated at the City's High School and Hatfield University (then a polytechnic). He has since followed a varied career, including spells as a research chemist, security guard and professional photographer. After many years in the motor trade, and eight years as the owner and captain of a canal-based passenger boat, he is now retired and concentrating upon writing. After a childhood spent close to the Oxford Canal, his love of the waterways led him to live aboard a narrowboat on the Grand Union Canal for sixteen years. Now back on dry land, he lives in Milton Keynes, not far from the canal, and recently took on the duties of Captain on the historic pair Nutfield and Raymond which are to be seen at many waterways events through year.He has been writing seriously since the late 1990s, and has a number of novels in print under his well-known pen-name of Geoffrey Lewis. He is also a regular contributor to Classic American Magazine. Photographer, bell-ringer, real ale drinker and American car enthusiast, he is currently engaged upon a number of new writing projects, including a children's fantasy adventure trilogy after the style of Tolkein, of which Thunderchild is the first volume; and of course more stories set in the working days of England's canals!