Ferris lashes back:

Julie-Ann's post about Captain Frank Shaw's extraordinary literary talent seems to have hit the Ferris mark.

"Well, 'stap me vitals', as I believe the stoker (was he called Corky?), 'the cavalier of the shovel', at one point exclaims in the Crickley cult book 'Captain Lash'.  Fancy Julie-Ann remembering this book after all these years.  [She's doing a bit more than remembering it - she's recording it for those who've been deprived of it thus far in their lives! Ed.] My copy and copies of some four or five other books by Captain Frank H. Shaw are in a box somewhere in the loft here in Selly Oak and haven't been looked at for some time.  The original copy of 'Captain Lash' came either from a charity shop in Cheltenham or, more likely, from Alan Hancox's marvellous and greatly-missed secondhand bookshop at the end of the Promenade. Who acquired it first, I cannot remember, but I know a number of us eventually had copies, as it was a regular fixture in charity shops in those days, along with books by Hall Caine, Rumer Godden and Storm Jameson. Am I right in thinking that Chris Phillpotts adapted 'Captain Lash' as a play that was performed at Ullenwood one year or is this a figment of my fevered imagination?"