About William Frederick…

William got into this writing malarkey because ill health forced him to find some new way of making a few quid.  Finding himself with champagne tastes and a water income, the world no longer dovetailed with the lifestyle to which he aspired.  A new way forward had to be sought out, preferably one that avoided such things as getting out of bed in the morning, before a day spent in toil.  So, one day not so very long ago, in a land not so very far away, William picked up a pen.  He quickly realised that using a pen was, quite unexpectedly, far too much like hard work, so he put it down again PDQ.  A realisation arrived, as these things do, causing William to take another look at the laptop he was using to hack into the computer systems of MI5, MI6, the CIA and more courageously, the Brownies.  This might be a better writing tool than his trusty Biro.

Whilst marshalling his thoughts over what to write about, idly gazing out of the window, William hailed a passing troop of monkeys, each carrying a typewriter, for some help but was told, “Nah, sorry mate. We only do work for William Shakespeare.”  This was indeed a blow, but our heroic author refused to be daunted and continued with his task.

Asking himself over and over, “What should I write about?” he remembered that the teachers back at school were always advising their pupils to write about what they knew.  As advice goes, thought William, this sounds like a complete dud.  Why would I wish to reveal that I know nothing and then write about it?  “So, what do I know about?” he asked himself.  After a few pints of Nun’s Delight*, a big idea eventually trotted up and tweaked his nose.  “I know!” he said.  “I’ll write about MI5, MI6, Amsterdam, Weed and good old Rumpy-Pumpy!  Actually, that’s pretty much all I know about, but to give me an edge, I can make it amusing.”

When digging for material, through the MI5 and MI6 computer systems, William received a curt email from Mr Bertram Mainwaring, a Ministry Intelligence Analyst.  Mr Mainwaring was not at all pleased when he found that William was digging around in his country’s Official Secrets and insisted that he stop, forthwith.  “After all, we can’t have every Tom, Dick and William finding out what a bunch of incompetent idiots the Secret Services are, now can we?”

William was left with no option but to hold his hands up and offer Bertram Mainwaring a bribe, which was accepted immediately.  So, after the pay-off, Twenty Pounds… of prime Cumberland Sausage, had been handed over, William told Bertram of his idea and our two would-be heroes started to collaborate.  Soon afterwards they recruited Bertram’s recently revived ex-girlfriend and now bride-to-be, Gertrude Wusser.

One sunny afternoon, somewhere in the middle of chapter two, Bertram announced, “You know what old boy?  Regarding your ‘ideas for the book’ strategy.  I’ve always found that the best way to tackle such things is, to take it head-on, with no sort of idea or strategy at all.  Why don’t we adopt that as the stratagem for the book?”

The result of their directionless roaming, is Bertram & Gertrude’s Steamy Amsterdam Weekend!
As time passes, this will be called Book1 in the Bertram & Gertrude series of books.

* A beer from the Shepherd Neame brewery properly entitled ‘Bishops Finger’.