So my book of coronavirus short stories - Tales From The Lockdown - has been on sale at Amazon for a couple of weeks now and it’s slowly raising funds for Hospice UK.

Subtitled, Six Short Stories of Rural Life Written During The Coronavirus Lockdown, it’s all about the sort of things that might have happened during these very curious times.

Buy the book and help raise money for Hospice UK

And if I am honest, I was hugely uncertain about doing the book - and then about getting it out there in front of an unsuspecting public. For once in my long and rather arrogant life, I lost a bit of confidence - which might be something that’s happening to a lot of people because the newfound sense of isolation doesn’t exactly bolster one’s feelings when it comes to facing the big bad world.

In my case, losing self-confidence came as a bit of a surprise because you have to be ridiculously over-confident to be a free-roving journalist - which is what I was for the past 20 years working for a highly respected regional daily newspaper. And I really do mean highly respected - few papers anywhere enjoy as much support and respect as the Western Morning News does across the South West peninsula. Back in the day, we understood the mainly rural community we served - and the people of that community thanked us by giving us their trust and support. Of course, I cannot say what happens now as I no longer work there, save to file a weekly column for the popular Saturday edition.

However, I’d like to thank my old friend Philip Bowern at the Western Morning News and Richard Bache at the Western Daily Press for giving the book such good coverage.

But back to self-confidence - and the lack thereof. The job of roving feature writer required the sort of self-belief that allowed you to walk into situations and - surrounded by complete strangers - seize the moment until you were absolutely certain you’d got the story. And by “got” I mean you were confident that you had a full understanding of whatever was going on so that you could communicate it to the wider world without making any mistakes. Believe me, walking away from a complex situation as a journalist without having a full understanding of the facts is as stressful as landing a Boeing 747 with three flat tyres.

It’s no good muttering to yourself: “What did he mean when he said so-and-so?” You need the self-confidence to allow yourself look stupid. You need the belief in yourself that allows you to say things like “Sorry, can you tell me one more time until I get it absolutely right…” - and do that in front of lots of other people. It doesn’t matter what they think - what is crucial is that you have got it right - and that you can tell it right.

So one needed a great deal of confidence in oneself - in one’s ability to ask for the story and in one’s ability to understand it - and that was before you wrote a single word.

Not surprisingly after years and years of this, you do build up a ridiculous degree of self-confidence.

Part of the real-life scenery from The Long Walk Home

So maybe you can imagine how deflated I felt when it all ebbed away during the first part of the lockdown. I wrote the short stories and sat here at my desk thinking: “Are these any good? Perhaps they are crap. Maybe they are boring. Why am I even bothering? Who am I and why would anyone care about my poxy little tales dreamed up in an untidy loft in a crummy cottage in a lonely valley…”

But for some reason I marched on and got the thing out - thanks partly to the system they have at Amazon - that vast all-embracing company which some people hate. However, Amazon does allow little guys like me to publish a book quickly and effectively. In this case, that is something I could not have done in any other way. I can’t think of any conventional publishing house that would have considered a slim volume of short satires - even if they had, it would have taken way over six months for anything to appear for sale.

I wanted something about the coronavirus lockdown that was written during the time and published then and there, so the experience would be hot and raw for readers. Publishing on Amazon was the only way I could see of doing that.

But of course, self-publishing is full of pitfalls. And one of the main problems is that no writer - no matter how experienced - can proof-read their own work effectively. Not really effectively, anyway. For some weird reason, you will never, ever, be able to weed-out all the little mistakes or literals in a script you have laboured hard over and spent hours with. I read through each of the short stories SIX times. Yes, really. Half a dozen times - finding the odd mistake here and there - until I was convinced I’d deleted every single spelling mistake and grammatical error.

I failed. I’ve had two messages from readers now saying they’ve spotted the odd error here or there. One guy has promised to go through them and send me a list, which is useful and good of him. I am pretty certain there aren’t many - but the little mistakes really irk with some people. And they certainly do with me.

This could be a scene from the story called The Impossible Affair

So far we’ve only sold a couple of hundred copies, which is hopelessly tiny in the greater scheme of things - but which will bring at least something to the Hospice Movement funds.

And… Here’s the great thing for me. A thing that has brought my self-confidence back to life, just a little bit. People are telling me they are REALLY ENJOYING the stories. Honestly, it is true! I have had dozens of compliments.

Now I even see the book has had two 5-star reviews on Amazon. Here’s what Susan Parr of Somerset has been kind enough to say…

“What a great story-teller you are Mr Hesp… Living as I do in Bridgwater I could well imagine all the places you’ve been mentioning in the stories, read them all in one sitting made me chuckle more than once. I’m sure we all know of at least one person who matches the main characters in each story. Again well done - a highly recommended book to enjoy in these strange times.”
And here’s Christine Porter of Devon: “Excellent. Would recommend. Highly enjoyable, entertaining read. As a resident in Devon, liked the local settings. Great idea to have lockdown stories.”

Thank you hugely. AND I PROMISE, AS FAR AS I’M AWARE, I DO NOT PERSONALLY KNOW EITHER OF THESE LADIES and I havn’et paid them to say such nice things. If I’m wrong about not knowing you, Susan or Christine, please accept my apologies - it’s an old man’s dodgy memory…

Another guy has contacted me to say he’s enjoyed one of the stories so much he even got a large map out to follow The Man Who Walked Home, as the story is called.

So, there you go. Another day another lockdown story. This time my own. But at least it’s all in a good cause.