Aug 2026 – Charlierobinsonbooks

Where It All Began 24

The wind whistled through the narrow arrow slits, and the crows cawed as they circled above. My eyes are locked upon the empty space between the inner and outer walls below, where men must have bled out in battle centuries ago. I was deep in thought when she slapped a hand on my shoulder. “There you are! I was looking everywhere!” To say I was startled is a huge understatement, but she thought it was funny. Carcassone 1992.

After Paris I decided to head south. Fruit picking seemed the obvious choice for work, after all I was an accomplished grape harvester, and I figured there’d be more work in the south. We visited Carcassonne because it’s a famous castle, and it was used for the movie Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. We all like a bit of Costner don’t we? And who can forget Alan Rickman?

But it was time to make some money. Now, at the time my French was pretty good, at least speaking it was. We camped in a field owned by Fred and Elsie, they might have been called Raphaël and Geneviève, but I thought Fred and Elsie suited them far better. They told me to go to the market at 5am and speak to les producteurs. For those of you who aren’t fluent in the language these are the producters 😂 In other words Growers. Upon arrival I headed directly for the cafe and asked the owner, in my best French, where I could find les producters . He kinda shouted about three sentences. This was my first inkling that speaking French and understanding French are actually two different things. I gave him a smile, in truth I probably looked ‘gaumless’ and left. We asked a few producters if they had any work but to no avail. A few days later I called in on a farm, the farmers wife leaned from the window and I asked if there was any work. She spoke for about five minutes, as I listened attentively. I thanked her and returned to the van. Sally asked me what she had said. I looked at her and said. “I haven’t the faintest idea.” 😂 Without labouring the story this was the overriding theme for the next four months.

One day we had a crash. Who puts traffic lights behind a tree? Later, after we had swopped details, I realised my insurance had run out. Luckily I had a friend back in England who could be described as ‘Shonky’ Liz Makenzie describes the word very well on her blog Mywordshare. He sent me a backdated insurance certificate three days later. Shortly after that the van was broken into, strangely all they stole was my income tax documents which I had intended to complete, en route. I’m not sure if that would make my tax debt null and void, but at least I had a witness in Sally. 😉

After four months it began to dawn on me that this wasn’t Gran Canaria, we couldn’t go fishing, and Sally wasn’t Peter, although she was having fun (stop it! we’ll keep this a family show 😂) she was getting a little fed up. Decent amenities were rare, plus we were running out of money. So my offer to return to England was well recieved. But I couldn’t go back to where I’d come from. I looked at a map and decided that Torquay, Devon had a certain attraction. After all, in 1815 Napoleon Bonarparte gazed from HMS Bellerphon at the Torbay coastline and said “Quel bon pays,” comparing it to Porto Ferrajo on the island of Elba. Hence the term, The English Riviera. If It was good enough for the little corporal, it was good enough for me. I was sure some form of adventure could be extracted from the place. 😉

Happy Trails, Folks x

Where It All Began 23

I had two weeks before we were due at the ferry terminal in Hull and decided a rest would be in order. I booked a week in Gambia for Sally and myself. I’d never had a holiday but now, years later, I’m told my life has been one big holiday. Gambia in 1993 was one of the poorest African nations with a small tourist industry. We were instructed to never leave the hotel compound. A young man, Ebrahim, who squeezed and sold grapefruit juice on the beach, offered to take us out and show me around. So we sneaked out, hopped on a bus and went for a look round.

It was obvious there was a rising tension, the place had an atmosphere, and subsequently there was a military coup a year later. We visited his family home and met Charlie the crocodile at the Kachikally Crocodile Pool. Another boy, Cultural, worked the beach selling cannabis. These boys, or “bumsters” as they were called had a scam going. Ebrahim warned me about the scam, but made me promise to tell no one that I was aware or that he had told me, otherwise he would be beaten. The “bumsters” would sell you the cannabis and immediately afterwards signal a corrupt policeman. He would then threaten you with the infamous Mile 2 Prison, the Gambia’s notoriously grim maximum, security jail unless you paid a fine. You would then be marched to your hotel safe and he would take all the money you had. Drugs were never my thing anyway but I had some very interesting chats with Cultural, during his various sale pitches. These ranged from Bob Marley, Rastafarianism, to Nelson Mandela, as he claimed he was South African with a Jamaican accent. Ebrahim later told me he was from a local village. 😂

We returned home and I began to get rid of everything that wouldn’t fit in my camper van. Finally, all I had left was my Snap-On tool chest, weights and diving gear. I dropped them off in a secondhand shop for a half decent price. When I laid everything out the bloke asked. “Who are you? Rambo?” 😂

The following day we docked in Zeebruggue and drove straight to Paris. It was rush hour and driving around and around the Arc de Triomphe trying to find the correct exit was so much fun, some very angry drivers over there! There was an amzing restaurant I needed to visit, Nos Ancêtres les Gaulois, you paid 18francs, which covered your meal and unlimited wine. At the end of the evening each table broke into song. One table began to sing “On Ilkley Moor Baht ‘at, its an old Yorkshire song that tells of advice given to a young man who courts Mary Jane on Ilkley Moor without his hat. I asked if they were from Yorkshire ? But it turned they were from Holland, go figure.

We had an enjoyable five days exploring, but then it was time to move on and find some work! I needed to head south. Next stop Carcassone…

Happy Trails, Folks x

Malham Tarn

Malham Tarn hike is quite lovely, probably lovlier when the sun is shining. But we decided to go on the first rainy day of the summer. These hikes have taken a different turn these days. Now I see them as potential TikTok posts, apparently I am an influencer 😂 My last Godfather post on TikTok\Instagram recieved 5,000 views, not as many as Lady GaGa yet but I’ve noticed that in the six months I’ve been doing it I’ve sold 2-3 books a month. Not a lot but 2-300% more than previously 😂 Anyaways I digress. Just over 4miles it was an interesting walk. Apparently Malham Tarn was formed 10,000 years ago.

As you hike futher on you get a good view of the cliffs opposite the Tarn with a pleasant hike up onto the moor, and some visible wildlife but they were quite still😉

There were some eerie looking houses on the way. With, I figured, a certain Miss Haversham interior as they looked deserted.

Places like this are great for pondering, and I do like a good ponder. In fact if I wrote as much as I pondered I’d probabably have ten books finished by now 😂 Once we got up onto the top I was surprised to find a smelt mill. Built in 1815 by Lord Ribbelsdale to process lead, copper and zinc.

Even with the inclement weather it was a good day out. With ice cream at the end. The scenery fit with our current viewing as we are watching the final season of Outlander. If you’re familiar with it the heroine passes backwards and forwards through time by pacing her hands on the “Stones” I gave it a try but as Gillian remarked. “Oh! you’re still here!”

Happy Trails, Folks x

Where It All Began 22

The next three years I spent building my boss’s disco business. We had a major recession which started in 1989. I pointed out that in Chinese, crisis can mean opportunity. I embarked upon a major sales campaign, visiting every hotel in the area, taking coffee with hotel banqueting manageress’. They had resident disco’s but these guys could be a little unreliable, so I gave them a backup option. To be honest that wasn’t really work 😂By 1991 the recession lifted a little and the seeds I had sown matured, we had gone from 10 disco units to 30, and had claimed 20 hotel residencies. The concept was, we installed the units, paid a DJ for the gig and collected the units afterwards. Plus we’d employed someone to help with installations and collections. By this time we were the largest operators in the north of England. I had a few relationships, but girls generally want someone who isn’t out most nights until the early hours, so they didn’t last long. One pleasure I took was that I had no T.V for four years.

I was still running and I’d done the York and several other Half Marathons in 90mins. I was a DJ in demand myself by now. Mainly because I played music from the 50’s to the 90’s I also used Barn Dancing as an icebreaker, and had a collection of ballroom LPs. I prefered the upmarket marquee gigs which usually finished at 5am. I could also be a bit cheeky, but one evening my mouth got me into a little trouble. I was doing a private girls school dance for the 6th formers and they’d asked for some Barn dances. I announced a dance called Strip The Willow. Before my brain engaged my mouth, I asked “And who wants to be Willow?” The principle wasn’t over joyed.

But, as always I had the wandering bear someway deep, down inside. I decided it was time to travel. I informed my employers I would be leaving a year later. This may sound like a long notice period but by now I was running everything, they were lovely people, I needed time to plan, and I didn’t want all my hard work to go to rack and ruin. A year soon passes, we had found someone to take over, he was one of the more mature DJ’s, and seemed very keen. I had decided I was going to go wherever my fancy took me, first stop would be France. I had bought a Volkswagon Camper. And I was finalsing my plans when I met Sally (real name but she won’t mind) We hit it off from the word go, and when she informed me she had always wanted to travel it seemed I had a travelling companion.

Not a very exciting post this week, but there’s a change coming 😂

Happy Trails, Folks x

Where It All Began 21

So here I was in 1985, a farmworker for my sister on £10 a week. My nephew and I worked from 5:30am until around 9:30pm Monday to Friday that summer. It was a cattle farm with a few milking cows. We bought stirks. A stirk is either male or female, and we bought them between 6 months old and 18 months old, fattened them up and sold them at market. Life was simple, and I managed to fly my eldest son over for all the school holidays, the youngest was not allowed. On Saturdays and Sundays we showed cattle at Country Shows. That year we won nineteen Championships. Many years later, in the nineties, his son, my great nephew carried on the tradition from an early age.

I did this for two years, believing I had found a vocation. I was still running, often rising at 4am to get a long run in. But there was a bear in me somewhere, and restlessness began to eat away. Saturday nights we always went out, roaming from one country inn to another, there were a few scrapes😂But, there were also mobile DJ’s operating in some of them. Yup, you know what’s coming! My brother-in-law borrowed £800 for me and I purchased an old van, some disco gear, and Dial A Disco was born. By driving around the area touting for work I got two regular gigs a week, a heavy rock night for bikers on Thursdays and a dance night every Friday. It involved two types of dress code. The landlady on Friday’s nicknamed me Miami Vice 😂

My sisters husband was now working on the farm, finances had improved and I wasn’t in as much demand. I took a flat in York and went to work for an agency, Nightowls, who gave me as many gigs as I wanted. Their dress code was a little different to what I was used to.

I remember one particular night I was doing the after party for Bramham Horse Trials in a huge marquee. Late in the evening, on a packed dance floor people began to run, there was screaming. The crowd parted to reveal a young man with a chainsaw attacking the centre post. He had been refused entry, gone home got his chainsaw, and climbed under the tent to wreak his revenge. Such is country life 😂 He was talked down eventually and the marquee remained standing. Six months later the couple who owned the Disco Agency offered me a full time job as manager. It looked like life was about to take yet another turn.

Happy Trails, Folks x

A Day Off And A Bit of History

As a DJ (that’s a different story) I spent a lot of time around York, (or as the locals call it “Yark”) but not much sight seeing. So we decided to visit, walk the walls and grab a bite to eat. The Roman fort dates back to 71 AD, but the actual walls were built in the 13th and 14th centuries. And you thought I was old?

Whenever I visit places like this I get inspired, at least I like to think I do. Five caesars visited York unless you count Constantine but he was already there when he was proclaimed Emperor, so I guess the Romans were quite fond of the place. I have to admit the only one I know is Hadrian but I always thought he was a bricklayer. It’s 5k to walk all the way round, and there is a great view of the rear of York Minster it was wooden originally in 627 AD, turned to stone by the Normans in 1080, but the one we see now was built 1220 to 1472.

It gives you time to think, and I got a TikTok video out of it. You’ve probably realised by now this isn’t a lesson in history 😂 I did get some ideas for the new book though.

After the walls I got my reward. Food, there always has to be food involved with any trip or else I don’t go 😂 This time it was the Ivy, which is related to the one in London. I’ve been there. There’s something about these places, where writers and artists frequented in the 1920s. The Ivy in York is a spin off from the one in London, and the food and service is amazing.

I like to eat vegetarian sometimes when I go out as I’m a bit of a carnivore at home. This time I went with a Cheese Soufle and a Sweet Potato Curry. A pint of Guinness, half a bottle of Merlot and a double Jack Daniels. Well, c’mon a day off training? I may as well enjoy it 😂

That’s probably my last treat for a while as it’s the Yorkshire Three Peaks run in five weeks. Twenty four miles and 5,200 feet of elevation.

Well, y’gotta mix it up a bit? 😂

Happy Trails, Folks x

Don’t Let The Old Man In

Okay, I stole the title from Clint Eastwood. I doubt he’ll sue me, he’s not aware of my existence. It’s something he said when asked why he was still actively working. I think they meant active or even possibly alive.

But he does have a point, and if he hadn’t said it I probably would have. I’m often asked. “How old are you!!!?” Not because someone is enquiring about my age, but because of something I’ve done or said. I remember when I was fifty five and decided to retrain as a carpentry lecturer (ooops spoiler for Where It All Began number 35 😂) My neighbour asked me, “Don’t you think you’re too old?”

Really? Who decides these things? Obviously health plays a big part in that, and I am blessed that I can still function. But it is possible to “Think yourself old” That’s why I refuse to give in. Recently I’ve been inundated with injury after injury, and had to cancel three races. I guess that’s what 50 years of running does to you. But I do the physiotherapy (and trust me I hate physiotherapy😂) And this latest calf injury is starting to repair. So, I’ve entered the Yorkshire Three Peaks Race, Jersey Marathon and the Dalby Forest Marathon. I blame the films I watched as a kid Monte Carlo or Bust, Genevieve, and Lassie. They never gave up 😂

Recently we got in touch with one of my old flames and she asked my wife, “How is the old nutter?” I have no idea what she means. 😂

Happy Trails, Folks x