Stuart McLean

#2

There are some things which even the closest friendship cannot survive ... Neighbours Edie Kelsey and Lil Horton have been friends for over twenty years, sharing the joys and sorrows of a tough life as the wives of fishermen in Grimsby. So it was no surprise that their children were close and that Edie's son, Frank, and Lil's daughter, Irene, would fall in love and marry at a young age. But the declaration of war in 1939 changed everything. Frank went off to fight, and Irene and baby, Tommy, along with Edie's youngest son are sent to the countryside for safety. With Edie's husband, Archie, fishing the dangerous waters in the North Sea and daughter Beth in London doing 'important war work', Edie's family is torn apart. Friendship sustains Edie and Lil, but tragedy follows and there's also concern that Beth seems to have disappeared. But it is Irene's return, during the VE day celebrations, that sends shock waves through the family and threatens to tear Edie and Lil's friendship apart forever.

#3

In Vinyl Cafe Diaries, master storyteller and humorist Stuart McLean takes us into the deepest recesses of the Vinyl Cafe. Learn all about the secret lives and hidden passions of the seemingly ordinary folk from the radio show. What is Dave doing by himself in a Halifax hotel room with a duck? -- What purloined item has Sam surreptitiously stuffed under his mattress and why? -- What is it about the book club that Mary Turlington doesn't dare tell Morley? --- Why is Morley skulking around with a man named Frank on the eve of her fortieth birthday? -- What grisly secret is Stephanie hiding in her father's picnic cooler? -- Why in the name of decency is Morley parading around in Stephanie's clothes? -- What are in the mysterious brown-paper packages that Sam is receiving in the mail? -- And why is Dave wearing the awful Grateful Dead T-shirt?. Vinyl Cafe Diaries exposes the answers to these urgent questions in twenty never-before-told (well, okay, told on the radio) stories of strange secrets, odd dreams, high hopes and, of course, hilarious adventures.