Books by Steve J Plummer
This is where you will find details of all Steve's books.
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Biographies
Salamander Dreaming - The Story of Jean and George Russell is the true account of an ordinary couple from Guernsey whose lives became anything but ordinary.
Deciding to sell up everything they owned and buy an ancient former pirate-radio ship, they set out to start a new life alternating between the Mediterranean and Canary Islands.
They reached neither, finding themselves shipwrecked on a wild and unwelcoming stretch of the Atlantic coast. This is a story of amazing enterprise and perseverance as they battled all the odds to realise their ambitions - or at the very least, to protect their young family.
Enlist! The Story of One Man's Determination to Serve His Country is the true account of the author's grandfather.
Talbot Wheelwright was a London stockbroker when war was declared in 1914. Like many others, Talbot did not hesitate. He swiftly married (for the second time) and leaving his four children in his young wife's inexperienced hands, disguised his age and joined the Army. Selected as officer material, it was not long before he found himself commanding an infantry company in the trenches of northern France. The battle which followed did not go well for his battalion - or for Talbot personally.
Extraordinary determination to serve finally convinced his commanders, leading him to the front line in Mesopotamia and, finally, to the north-western frontier of India.
A Man of Invention is the account of the author's great-uncle, John Sylvester Wheelwright (known always simply as Jack). A well regarded and talented fine art designer, he had a promising career mapped out when war broke out in 1914. Like his brother Talbot, he had no hesitation in volunteering and, given his love of boats and sailing, joined the Royal Navy. Within a few weeks, he was doing a job which was untried and dangerous. It also had nothing to do with boats!
Jack was one of the first young men to join the Royal Naval Air Service, flying precariously fragile airships in the Dardanelles and later, over the unforgiving North Sea. A self-taught engineer, he introduced a number of life-saving innovations, displaying a talent which impressed no lesser a figure than Winston Churchill when two decades later his nation was once again plunged into war. This is a story of energy, invention and unshakeable determination.
Genealogy and other histories
The Wheelwright Family Story is a detailed account of a family from Lincolnshire, England, A few years after the original Pilgrim Fathers emigrated to North America, Reverend John Wheelwright, hounded by religious persecution, followed them. He and his descendants founded towns which still thrive today, created businesses with names we still recognise, and carried their enterprise into South America, back to Europe, Africa and beyond. To say this is a family saga is no exaggeration, spread over four centuries and the result of research carried out by successive generations of the same family. Today, and for the last fifty years, the author has continued that tradition, exploring and adding detail to this truly extraordinary journey through history.
The accompanying volume, The Wheelwright Genealogy, is a valuable reference work, produced in the style of a registry report which details the names and dates of twelve generations of the family, descended from Wyll'm Wheylright of Farforth, Lincolnshire. It includes biographies of many of those who followed and shows each line of descent, their spouse(s) and children.
Have you always assumed the escape of Allied offices from Stalag Luft III, which spawned the famous 1963 Steve McQueen film, was the biggest prisoner of war escape of the Second World War?
Think again! The Greatest Escape is the true account of an even more spectacular and, arguably, successful break-out of war-time prisoners. It took place in 1945, just weeks before Germany's capitulation - and it happened on British soil!
Read how the British authorities struggled to hide the truth from an increasingly concerned nation and how, as the days passed, many of the prisoners were captured, more often than not by the brave actions of police officers and civilians.
Finally, the Ministry of Information announced proudly that every one of the escapees had been accounted for - but were all the prisoners actually recaptured?
Fiction
The Legendary Lieutenant is a tale inspired, once again, by one of the author's ancestors. Although placed against the background of 1840's India and the harrowing events of the Sikh Wars, it tells the fictionalised story of Lieutenant Charles Wheeler and of two of his descendants who, fervently believing in their ancestor's military heroism, attempted to piece together the details of his life.
Was Charles truly a hero - or the victim of a misguided career path and a desperate attempt to gain paternal approval?
The Sterling Papers - Volume One: Sterling Goes East
Welcome to the world of Wilberforce "Will" Sterling, boy sailor turned Royal Marine infantryman, who unwittingly becomes a Grenadier Guardsman. More disastrously for Will, he is also adopted as the soldier-servant to his former school-mate, Sebastian Horatio D'Arkley; an officer destined to become one of the most nefarious military commanders of the nineteenth century.
This first volume sees D'Arkley blundering and bluffing his way into joining an American trade mission to the Far East, only to be put ashore in disgrace in Sarawak, Borneo.
It is left to Will to extricate his officer from captivity and the mounting consequences of his own excesses,
The Sterling Papers - Volume Two: Sterling In The Crimea
Forced to travel on from Sarawak with Sebastian D'Arkley, they find themselves ordered to the battlefields of The Crimea. Employing his effusive bravado, D'Arkley attaches himself to the entourage which follows his senior commanders and adds his own touch of confusion to the notorious order which led to the fateful charge of the Light Brigade.
Despite this blunder, Will's officer gains promotion and, adding to his already inflated ego, inherits his late father's baronetcy and wealth.
Returning from The Black Sea, Will's determination to leave his officer's employment is strengthened by the discovery that he has fallen in love with a young nurse, Mary Tilling.
The Sterling Papers - Volume Three: Sterling In Trouble
Still attached to Sir Sebastian while returning to England and, Will hopes, to the arms of his young lady, they take a break in their journey in Gibraltar.
There, his officer contrives to desert his homeward bound ship, preferring instead the comfort of a local bawdy house.
Blamed for this breach of discipline, Will is convicted by a court martial, demoted and condemned to a spell of hard labour. Despite this, D'Arkley contrives to block Will's passage home to Portsmouth and life as a civilian, while also ensuring that Mary, his intended bride, along with her parents are informed of Will's fall from grace.
The Sterling Papers - Volume Four: Sterling And The Mutineers
Despite being released from military imprisonment, his sentence served, Will remains under close guard, thanks to D'Arkley's influence and his fear that Will could speak publicly about his various misdemeanours. D'Arkley transfers temporarily to the Indian Service - to the relief of his Grenadier commanders - and believing it will serve his career prospects, they join the Bengal Horse Artillery. Far from the colonial privilege D'Arkley was hoping to receive, they are thrust into the turmoil of the Indian sepoys' mutiny against their British rulers.
The Sterling Papers - Volume Five: Sterling And The Italians
Released from the Indian Service, D'Arkley and Will return to Portsmouth and the newly established "military village" of Aldershot. While Will is able to regain Mary's affection, a mysterious visitor engages his and D'Arkley's services, sending them as agents to gather intelligence of the growing unrest between the people of the Italian states and their Austrian rulers. Despite their strict orders to remain uninvolved and incognito, D'Arkley's love of the limelight has devastating results.