Rough Diamonds

WRITING TO RACE AT LE MANS 24hrs 2018 Motor Car Endurance Race

What makes me somewhat different to other writers, I had a massive stroke in 2011. It left me totally paralyzed on the entire right side of my body. But, that was then. I’m slowly, very slowly, recovering.

I've started with the launch through an intensive campaign of my book, which is called Rough Diamonds. I’ve been writing my book off and on since 1994.

Family ripped apart! A killer read...
In the sixties, this killer read takes you to a mining village called Scallyclare in South Africa. There is deceit, evil, malice, negligence, blackmail, rape, murder. It starts when the three children's Grandfather give them three uncut diamonds. Along with those, he gives them each a bracelet with their names engraved on. The diamonds and the bracelets become their blessings and their terrifying curses... This killer read is not for the gutless!

Rough Diamonds is going to fund my dream to return to motor racing wIth the ultimate goal to take part eventually in Le Mans 24 hours in France in 2018.  (I raced in South Africa in the seventies). This is the greatest sports car race in the world. I attended the race in 2016, and it was phenomenal, mind-blowing! I was joining over half a million people watching the race. The racing car is emblazoned with the bright, in-mistakeable colours of the cover of Rough Diamonds, and the car will recognize my backers. I feel my book Rough Diamonds will make a great film and have started the ball rolling.

I was brought up on a coalmine in Durnacol, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa as a young boy. This is where the story takes place. My Grandfather secretly kept the three uncut diamonds in a tin at the back of his cupboard. He died and my mother discovered them. I imagined how I would see the rough nature of the diamonds, and did an abstract visual for the cover of my book on the way they would have glinted in the bright sunlight. (Uncut diamonds can glint).

Life was filled with adventure and thrilling moments. I spent a life in advertising and motor racing. Filled with a sense of adventure, widely travelled, a capable chef, raced and rallied cars, competed in three day long, gruelling canoe marathons, ran an ultra marathon of 87 kilometres (I pathetically baled after 36km....), and an average snow skier. I used to be a part of an eight man wine tasting group, (called the Circle of Eight - there were eight of us), I've rejoined a wine-tasting scheme. In both groups, we don't take the wines too seriously.

My first book was a non-fiction Some Picnic!, about our gourmet picnic business in South Africa. My wife suggested: "We need to get a quiet little place in the mountains, where we can chill out on weekends." But the opposite happened - we ended up hectically working almost every day of the year on a picnic business with a difference. This book is a true story which takes place on Horizons, a high-end, gourmet picnic destination in the Midlands of KZN, South Africa. It follows the inspiration, the setting up, the running, the problems with the staff and the selling of Horizons.