Bill WENHAM

I am an 88 year old Canadian but was born in Harrow, England.

In my rather varied career, I have worked in the British movie industry, for famous director David Lean, traveled the world free in the British Merchant Navy, served in the R.A.F and was a member of London,England's Metropolitan Police Force for a while in the 1950's.

In 1957, my wife Margaret and I emigrated to Canada where I worked for 26 years for Air Canada. I remained in the travel industry in senior executive roles until I retired in 1992.

We have a daughter, a son and four beautiful grandchildren, two boys and two girls, but sadly, Margaret, my wife of 61 years, passed away peacefully in July of 2014.

I have been an artist for most of my life and I also paint and produce the cover images for some of my Kindle books but I switched from art, and mainly to writing, in 2005, which I find I enjoy more.The paintings mentioned below may be viewed by visiting my Author Page.

Even so, in 2008, I painted a picture for an 89 year old Canadian WWII fighter pilot living in Dunnville, Ontario.

Rod Davidge had flown 132 missions, had been shot down twice and was the leader of a squadron of Hawker'Typhoons'. My painting depicts Rod leading his squadron in a strafing raid over France after D-Day. The original painting is now displayed at the Dunnville airport museum.

Some time during March of 2009, Rod called and asked if I would allow my painting to be used as an illustration for a British book about his squadron to be published in May. To provide the publishers with a suitable image, I returned to Dunnville on April 1st to photograph the painting and to have lunch with Rod. (The image shown is taken from that book.)

Afterwards, driving him back home, he asked me to stop at his local cemetery and said he had something he wanted to show me. Inside the cemetery, he led me to a grave site and there, along with his name, was my painting photo-etched into the black marble of his headstone! Rod said that he wanted his painting with him forever.

I was absolutely astounded and I don't think I have ever, in my entire life, been paid a higher compliment for my work by anyone.

The next painting is of an actual encounter during WWII between the fighter escort of a group of Dornier bombers of the Luftwaffe and a Spitfire piloted by another Canadian, Don Morrison.

Unfortunately, I was unaware that he had died 3 months before I had completed his painting.

The third painting was commissioned by a lady in St. Catharines, whose brother (Shown on the far right) and the entire crews of two Wellington bombers, was killed in a training exercise. The painting now hangs in a small memorial museum near the crash site.

The Lancaster aircraft of another heroic Canadian, Andrew Minarski V.C. is shown as it might have looked returning from a sortie during the war. This commemorative Lancaster is one of only two left flying in the world today. Here, my other painting shows it undergoing a major overhaul at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton, Ontario.

However, I have been advised by Amazon that some of my photos may not appear on all pages where my bio is displayed but the most important one to me, of Rod Davidge's Typhoon, will be.

After switching to writing, due to severe Arthritis in my fingers, I have produced 56 Ebooks using the 'hunt and peck' method of typing. All are currently published and available on Amazon Kindle including a book of short stories, some of which have now been expanded into novels and screenplays

I also entered 9 screenplays in the Amazon Studios screenwriting contest in 2011 but discontinued that activity when that year's contest ended in December.

As of May 25th. 2012, I began to upload several of my screenplays on to Kindle as well. They may be bought or borrowed but since they are copyrighted, I must be contacted direct if any of them are planned to be used for movie or similar productions.They are probably not very good, as far as screenplays go, and were produced only to to show how some of my books might appear as a movie script.

The very top item om my 'Bucket List' these days is to have a movie made from one of my books or screenplays or a television series from my detective stories! That would really be the icing on my writing cake.

I try to produce a good, readable story, with believable characters and dialogue and also with a twist if I can, because one of my main writing inspirations is a quote by Tom Clancy who says - 'The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction must make sense.'

It is a wonderful quotation and I try to put it into practice with everything I write. Tom will be sorely missed by his readers worldwide.

My method of writing is perhaps a little unusual since I usually start with a title and then worry it to death until I come up with a story to fit it. Then, funnily enough, I may completely change the title once it has done its job. I also find that my books seem to write themselves. It is sometimes like I am watching a movie and I just write down what I see.

I should also mention here that my three detective series' Inspector Meacham, Inspector Bruce and the new Inspector Charrington, were written specifically for Amazon Kindle and intended to be an easy and hopefully entertaining read of about 3 to 4 hours on a bus, train or plane on a tablet. They are also priced at less than the cost of a coffee and a donut. Another 'Charrington' has been uploaded recently and is called ''The Axeman Cometh". I have just uploaded 'What Lies Beneath.' to Kindle. It completes the 25 book series of Meacham, Bruce and Charrington stories and will also be the final book in these series.

It is also be the last book that I intend to write because my present wife and best friend, Ruth, and I intend to travel and have as much fun as we possibly can now, before our walkers get too rusty.

I can be found on Twitter as @BillWenham4, on Facebook or simply on Google as 'Bill Wenham's books'.

At my age, I also find that writing has been an excellent way to, as Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot puts it, keep the little gray cells active. It requires a great deal of thought, whereas painting, for me at least, required mainly manual dexterity which I had lost through Arthritis.

I sincerely hope Kindle readers enjoy what I produce and will to continue buy to my books.

In the Spring of 2017, I started to add Paperback versions of many of my books on Amazon Kindle. As of today, 46 of them are now on Kindle as Paperbacks and priced at Amazon's lowest price allowable.

If you don't like one of my Ebooks, please don't just refund it. Write a short review and tell me why, because after all, it was only less than the price of a coffee and a donut, wasn't it? If you buy a donut, eat half of it and don't like it, would you really take the remains back and ask for a refund?

And as for me, at 88 now, even if I do happen to make a million in royalties, I'm not going to have too much time to spend it, am I?

Bill Wenham