Books with author Paul Hayes

Lily loves all things dark and mysterious, so when she discovers a magic mirror in a locked room it's like a dream come true. Or is it ... Lily now has a new friend who desperately needs her help. But she's also got an older brother who really needs to get a life. Lily will require all eleven fingers, plus a hefty slice of Grandad's chocolate ganache cake, to fix a long-forgotten tragedy that's very close to home.

'How to Lose Games and Irritate People' is a collection of stories and memories from the perspective of the manager of an amateur football team. Whilst still clinging onto my youth and playing the game I explore the reasons why I put myself through the stresses of managing adult footballers every weekend. The book is littered with wacky and wonderful stories of player cry offs for ridiculous reasons that are both funny and unbelievable. The job is unpaid and so I investigate the personality traits which makes me and thousands of other similar people up and down the country put themselves through it.The book also lifts the lid on the behind the scenes club politics which are part and parcel of an amateur football club.Whilst many of the tales relate to friends, family and individuals known only to a select group, the stories will resonate with everyone who has ever played or managed an amateur football club. This particular manager bases his experiences on the last twelve years in the Lancashire Amateur League with two of his local teams.

Footloose, screw loose is the memoir of a boy growing up in Canada and England between 1953-63. His parents Alan and Doreen emigrated to Adelaide, South Australia in 1950 from the UK, but rush home after Doreen falls pregnant with Paul in 1952. They go to Canada four year later and return to England in 1958. Then in 1963 they give Adelaide another go and Australia becomes the permanent homeland.There is much humour and many wry observations in his tale, despite at times his very trying home circumstances. There are vivid descriptions of eccentric relatives such as sadistic Uncle Dick who delights in shaking rickety Rocky Mountain trestle bridges when people are half-way across and perched hundreds of metres above a boulder-strewn raging torrent.Or Paul's good friend Robert who narrowly avoids being sent to reform school for vandalising building sites at the tender age of eight. It was only the lack of previous offences that prevented Paul from suffering a similar fate.Then there is the German Shepherd owned by the call girl neighbour of the family who had sole responsibility for the four-year-old boy on excursions to a Vancouver beach. There are harrowing accounts of 1950s Manchester slums and attending a pre-Vatican Two Catholic school where the formidable Miss Clark maintains order and sharpens multiplication table skills with a swift rap on the knuckles with a foot-long timber switchThen there is the bucolic beauty of the Cheshire countryside in summer and the same landscape buried under snow in the legendary winters of the early nineteen sixties. There are trips to the seaside, the Peak District and London.Finally there is an account of the long sea voyage to Australia via the Suez Canal shortly before it was closed. For a 10-year-old boy, this was the stuff of dreams, but it meant a heartbreaking permanent wrench from friends and rural England.

Lily loves all things dark and mysterious, so when she discovers a magic mirror in a locked room it's like a dream come true. Or is it ... Lily now has a new friend who desperately needs her help. But she's also got an older brother who really needs to get a life. Lily will require all eleven fingers, plus a hefty slice of Grandad's chocolate ganache cake, to fix a long-forgotten tragedy that's very close to home.