Fond memories of a magical West Sussex childhood

John, aged 71, who now lives in Santa Barbara, California, recalls: “My grandfather Tommy Grantham’s farm was situated in West Grinstead, a small village, seven miles south of Horsham. Bowshots wasn’t much of a farm, just a wood, a couple of fields and a stable yard where my grandfather sold horses. For my brothers and me, it was a magical place that allowed our childhood imaginations to run free. The fields became our Wild West, where we pretended to be cowboys herding cattle across the plains; and in the wood, we built forts and tunnels that an escapee from Colditz would have been proud of. I often wonder how it was that I was born at this time and into such a place. Many of those born in the shadow of the Second World War, especially those growing up in the bombed-out docklands of the East End, saw their lives in monochrome, but I look back on a childhood through a lens of vibrant technicolor.

“Living so far away in California, my childhood in West Sussex has an even deeper significance. I hope by writing this book, it will convey the reader back to another time, another place… and give readers some much needed laughs in a troubled world.

“The starting point of the book is in fact the ending. As my father drives away from Bowshots Farm and we head for Southampton Docks to catch a migrant ship bound for Australia, my head fills with thoughts of the life I’d known in West Sussex; a life full of horses and horse people, trailing away through the rear-view mirror. The book is aimed at anyone with an interest and attachment to Sussex, plus anyone with a love of horses, farm animals and quirky characters. If you are looking for an escape to a different world, a different Sussex to the one we know today, this is your book.

“For me the whole writing process was one of joy. Looking back through old rediscovered diaries I’d written as a teenager and finding stories long forgotten, and making them come to life. A Horse In My Suitcase is a prequel to Pom’s Odyssey. The memoir is the first in the Pom’s Odyssey series. My next book so far untitled will be about the third phase of my life in California.”

In Pom’s Odyssey, a wartime tragedy sparks a British teenager's dream of moving to Australia; a dream that turns into reality when at age 18 he becomes a participant in one of the largest planned migrations of the 20th century. With little money, a questionable education and absolutely nothing in the way of marketable skills, he steps ashore from the SS Australis onto Terra Australis and soon finds that the mythical place of his imagination is far removed from the reality. His journey from boyhood on a small West Sussex farm to coming-of-age in the vineyards of the Riverina and on the blue waters of Sydney Harbour is packed with a colourful cast of characters, who unwittingly teach him life's lessons as he struggles to find himself and his place in a strange new world.

“Pom's Odyssey is dramatic, funny, and whimsically entertaining, proving that if one takes the road less travelled, surprise is a constant companion and the reward at the end of that road will be the journey itself.”