IF ONLY SUOMI BOOK COVERBook and Kindle on Amazon
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| Al in 1972 |
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LEEDS STREET
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| Paddy |
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Showing posts with label Book. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book. Show all posts
Tuesday, 28 July 2026
8-minute reading from IF ONLY SUOMI, a book by Alun Buffry
IF ONLY SUOMI BOOK COVERBook and Kindle on Amazon
Friday, 17 July 2026
Sunday, 19 April 2026
Tuesday, 3 March 2026
Extract from Myhat in Egypt Through the Eyes of a God
Myhat in Egypt Through the Eyes of a God
Ana pointed to a worker who was doing something amidst a field of green crop. He was wearing just a loin cloth. It was very hot, much hotter than Ed had expected for quite early in the day. Ed felt overdressed in the djellaba over his jeans and tee-shirt, with me still clinging onto his head.
When they reached the worker, Ana spoke to him in Arabic.
The man shrugged and said something back. He was staring straight at me; I knew that I fascinated him and he wanted me on his head – not that Ed knew, but I would not have minded for a while, just to see through the man's eyes.
“He's saying hello, I think,” Ana said, turning to Ed.
“It's not Arabic though, it's more like Berber, the language they still speak in the desert in Morocco. I didn't know they spoke it here. I'll try and ask him where we are.”
Ana tried a few words and pointed around the place where they stood.”
The man pointed across the river and said “Oo – are – set.”
Ana looked at him and pointed also across the river. She said “Luxor?”
The man shrugged and said “Happy”.
Ana said said something that was not English and smiled. “Temple of Hatshepsut?” she asked.
Another shrug.
“Temple Karnak? Ramasseum?”
No response to that, just a big smile on his face and a small bow.
“Oo – are - set! Oo – are - set!” he said pointing and laughing.
“I don't know those words,” said Ana, “maybe it's somebody's name, like his boss? Or just an oo - are”
“Oh well,” said Ed, “From what I can guess, if we go round the hill we should find the road back to the village or at least see something familiar. It's kind of weird here. It doesn't look at all right. I just can't fathom where we are.”
They bowed slightly to the smiling man and set out to walk around the end of the hill that covered the tombs and tunnels they had passed through. From there, Ed thought, they should be able to see Luxor and the Temple.
In fact they did see a town spread out on the other side of the Nile, quite a large place but it was certainly not Luxor.
There were no big buildings or hotels, no Temple, just what looked like a palace. There were no tourist cruise boats moored there, no feluccas, just small craft, going back and forth across the river. There was no ferry.
Ed was quite stressed out by now, I could tell, and I too was getting concerned that they were lost. Yet this side was not exactly a huge area, just fields between the hills and the river.
It just looked like somewhere completely different, as if they had exited the tunnels many miles up or down stream, somewhere they had never been before. They found no road, saw no trace of human habitation except for the few men working in the fields.
“The phone's still not working,” said Ana, “I think we better go back and find that boulder and get back to Ayman and find out what's going on. Maybe he knows where we are. Maybe he has been here himself.”
They walked back round the hill and scrambled up to find the chalk marks.
As Ed was about to climb through the gap above the boulder with the chalk mark, Ana asked “Is this yours?”
She passed Ed a small lighter which had a picture of the pyramids on. Ed flicked it, but it didn't work. He put it in his pocket anyway. It was a very hot day and I knew that Ed was keen to get back into the cool tunnels.
They quickly climbed back into the tunnel and followed the chalk marks, much faster than it had taken them coming this way, not stopping so much. There were several other tunnels leading off at points, so I sensed Ed was glad he'd marked the way. He had not noticed them all on the way through.
Just about half an hour later, they exited through to the garden in the dilapidated house.
“I'll phone Ayman,” said Ed.
As he looked at his own mobile phone, he said “Well I get a signal but my phone says it's only eight-thirty”
Ana checked her own phone. “Weird, mine too. But it must have been two o'clock at least when we turned back, the sun was really high and I'm sure we were away for longer than that. We've definitely been gone for more than a few hours. It took over an hour to get through to the other end and we were there for at least four hours.”
Ed phoned Ayman and said that they were back but that they had a problem so would like to meet him again later.
Ed and Ana left the garden, covering once again the entrance to the tunnels behind them.
They walked back to the hotel; sure enough it was only late morning.
They had black tea with milk and a late breakfast of corn flakes with milk, eggs and bread and sweet cakes and orange juice. They were both very hungry.
Ed took out some maps of the area and began scrutinising them.
“I can't work this out at all,” he said, “whichever way we went and wherever we came out on the hillside, we ought to have been able to see Luxor and the Temples and we should have found the road. And I don't know why there weren't any boats. There aren't any towns that size for miles”
He decided to walk the short distance from the hotel towards the river. Ana said that she wanted to take a rest so he went alone.
Ed saw everything was as as it should be. There was the river, the ferry and, on the East Bank, he could see the cruise boats and Luxor town along with its Temple and tall lush hotels. Plenty of people about too, as usual, carrying on their daily business, taxies and trucks, donkeys pulling carts.
Puzzled still, he went back to the hotel.
Ana said that Ayman had phoned her to say that Youssef would pick them up at six o'clock.
“I've been thinking about what that guy said. You know when he pointed and said Oo – are - set?
“Well there's nowhere here called that and I asked the manager at reception if he knew anyone called that or any place and he said no. But he said that centuries ago the old place was called Waset even before it was called Thebes.”
“I looked it up and he's right but that was four thousand years ago, in the time of Pharaohs Senusret the First and Amenemhat the Second.”
Ah, another Hat, I thought, maybe an ancestor. Remember dear reader, that I had also heard of a woman Pharaoh called Hatshepsut, who also had a temple built here.
Ana continued: “The books say they were Twelfth dynasty, after Mentuhotep the Second, Eleventh dynasty. They'd had a war with the North which lasted for about fifty years and then many of the Nomes were united. The town was called Waset. Waset was a Goddess.”
“Maybe what we saw was some sort of touristy replica or something, but it must be a huge site. We''ll ask Ayman about it this evening,” said Ed.
“Pretty weird. I'm going to ask Ayman if we can go back; we'll cross the river and find out what's going on,” said Ed.
Friday, 6 February 2026
From Dot to Cleopatra book reached Nigeria
I am pleased that through Books2Africa some of the last copies of my book "From Dot to Cleopatra" original paperback edition have reached happy readers in Nigeria.
This has encouraged me to release a new paperback edition and a hardcover edition both available on Amazon along with the Kindle edition.
Tuesday, 14 October 2025
Facebook closed down my book about my arrest, trial and imprisonment for cannabis conspiracies
Facebook closed down my book about my arrest, trial and imprisonment for cannabis conspiracies
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0993210767/
Thursday, 7 March 2024
Press Release: Norwich author has facebook group with almost 80,000 members
Press Release: Norwich author has facebook group with almost
80,000 members
7 March 2024
No Embargo
In 2014, Norwich author and UEA Chemistry graduate published his
first of many book on Amazon: "All About My Hat The Hippy
Trail 1972".
The book, strangely telling from the
point of view of a"hat", recounts Buffry's experience after
graduation and setting out eastwards in a small van with several
other graduates and little money. After several months he
arrived in India via Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and
Pakistan, meeting many people of different cultures, religions and
lifestyles on the way, a journey where drugs became an integral
part
of the experience.
Such a journey would be near-impossible
today, with many more dangers than in 1972, despite that we now
have
the likes of mobile phone and the internet, guide books and
gurus,
Alun Buffry says: "I did not set off either to
run away or to find anything but simply wanted to travel and see
part
of this wonderful world.
"Although I
ended up ill with dysentery and infectious hepatitis, penniless
and
hospitalised in Delhi, Kabul and Tehran, I would not swap the
life-changing experience for anything. Now at 74 years, I look
back
in amazement that I actually survived.
"In 2015,
after writing my memories of those days, I founded a Facebook
group
called 60s, '70s &' 80s Trails to India and Beyond. Remarkably
it now has almost 80,000 members from all over the world and
contains
a wealth of stories and pictures from people that made similar
journeys and people that live in the countries we visited."
Since
the publication of the book, Buffry has written over a dozen more,
recounting his other travels and experiences including his time in
prison for cannabis, poetry and science fiction. Having taught
himself to format and present his books, he has also offered a
free
service encouraging others to tell their own stories, most of
which
are also on Amazon and Kindle and linked though his web sire at
ABeFree Publishing.
Contact Alun Buffry at
alun@buffry.org.uk or find him easily on Facebook.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0993210716/ref=nosim?tag=webbooks05
https://www/buffry.org.uk/abefreepublishing.html
Thursday, 11 May 2023
Ten Pound Poms - The Ten Pound Australian Pommie by Beryl Jackson RIP
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1916310710/ref=nosim?tag=webbooks05
RIP BERYL, "We were sailing on the £10 scheme,
supported by the Australian government, as they were desperate to boost
their population of Australia in the 60's. The "Ellinis" was full of
immigrants, so much so, that men and women were separated, four men to a
cabin and four women in other cabins. My husband was on a separate deck
at the opposite side of the ship."
Thursday, 12 January 2023
Life on the Brim - Travels in India, Egypt and Ancient Egypt - two books in one
Life on the Brim: The Autobiography of a Hat (Paperback)
Two books in one. The adventures of Myhat on the journey to India previously published in “All About My Hat The Hippy Trail 1972” have been described as humorous and educational, whilst “MyHat in Egypt Through the Eyes of a God” takes the reader through modern day tourism in Egypt to fantasy time travel and murder mystery in ancient Egypt.
Now with 360 pages, the reader can enjoy the best of both.
MyHat speaks: “I am a Fedora hat, but no ordinary hat, as I am blessed with the power of observation. I can see and hear through the eyes of the head that I sit on, which enabled me to travel the world and learn.
“These are my memories of my journeys with Al and later with Ed and Ana.
“I first met Al in 1972 in Greece and we travelled on what became known as the Hippy Trail through Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan to India, where Al became impoverished and ill. After several stays in hospital we returned to the UK.
“Those were remarkable times, passing through countries and cities that nowadays, in 2022, are often inaccessible and far more dangerous than in the days of drugs and flower-power.
“Later I was passed to a new head, a man called Ed, and was fortunate to visit Egypt with his lady Ana.
“We
saw Cairo and Luxor with their many pyramids, temples and tombs in 1989
and 1990. Once again we visited Luxor in 2010, and travelled 4000 years
into the past where something even more extraordinary happened.
“So these are my tales of love, mystery, history and murder on the Nile.”
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1838440135/ref=nosim?tag=webbooks05
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0993210775/ref=nosim?tag=webbooks05
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