Barry Dobey

Hello, my name is Barry Dobey. I was Born in 1962, and have lived in Bedlington, Northumberland for most of my life. I was a keen footballer in my younger days, centre forward for numerous Sunday league football teams and I played a number of seasons Saturday football for a local Northumberland club, Alnmouth FC.

I am a keen fisherman, both sea fishing and fly fishing for trout and I took up golf at the end of my footballing days, enduring the immense frustration of not being able to kick your opponent when you are losing, like you can in football, but nevertheless, loving the sport.

I am Married with two grown up daughters, I worked in Horticulture at the early stages of my working life, before developing Horticulture therapy departments at a social services adult Day Centre in Gosforth, Newcastle, then another horticulture department at a charity run day service in Forest Hall Newcastle.

I qualified in Adult teaching and taught dementia awareness to my staff team, when I went into management. I also qualified in management and I was part of the service's Day Care senior management team when serious spinal injury, unfortunately ended my career.

I am a strong believer in fairness and equality in a workplace and I believe my strength in leadership was in bringing out the qualities of individuals to enhance my team and I learned the importance of positive work culture, as I supported the service to develop to be the best of its kind, at the time. I was well known for being a very fair boss and I was very proud of what my team were achieving before injury cut short my working life.

After suffering serious spinal injury, I underwent three major spinal operations to correct my spine, taking two years to recover back to a near as possible normal life.

Unfortunately, my injury ended my working life and I retired early.

In my two years of limited mobility, I took up glass art and writing, both activities of keen interest to me, that I'd never had time to partake in, in the past.

From being unable to walk to the end of my driveway, in 2017 I gradually got back to my feet on a strict walking plan and I now walk seven to ten miles per day, with my Jack Russell Terrier Socks Dobey. I have resumed golf, with the surgeon's consent, but, Unfortunately I am no better at it to this day.

I wrote my first book, Leadership For Children, a collection of nine adult children's fables, outlining the catastrophic consequences of bad leadership, while in recovery from my third major surgery. The book was written, not just to describe the behaviours of the bad leader, but also the motivation behind the behaviours. A dark satire, that describes just how far some people will go to hurt others, if boundaries were removed or placed in the control of a bad leader.

Leadership for Children is also written with a very strong anti - bullying message. Having witnessed workplace bullying in my past, I have an aversion to bullying and I take every opportunity to lampoon bullies and their followers throughout the book. I originally illustrated this book, but published without the illustrations. At the reader's request I would be happy to show illustrations on my facebook page, Barry Dobey books.

I have to add, Boris Johnson was not Prime Minister when I wrote Leadership for Children. The catastrophic leadership habits he displayed while in power and sycophantic following are described in the book, because they are common to all bad leaders. I have to say, though you can see a lot of similarity between my characters behaviours and the behaviours Johnson and his followers, in every story.

My second book, American Cliche again came about from my limited mobility, after surgery. Watching numerous crime films, while convalescing, I was drawn to the amount of cliches occurring, even in five star rated films and I became curious as to what a story would look like if it was a running series of cliches, from start to finish.

American Cliche is a dark satire of American crime thrillers, again with a strong anti - bullying message, where the reader engages in a cliche filled, but powerful story, with very strong characters holding a thrilling storyline together..

I wanted to come home for my third book 'A Burning Grudge.' A horror set in Bedlington, Northumberland, the novel describes a global pandemic, which quickly escalates into a zombie holocaust.

I swear the corona virus pandemic occurred during the writing of the book, pure coincidence that I was describing a similar catastrophe. You have my word I wasn't jumping on a pandemic band wagon. With this novel I feel I have achieved my aim of having a popular themed novel, set in Bedlington, as well as a strong, powerful storyline, with my customary anti - bullying theme.

I published my fourth book, 'The Curse of Evis Edward Arr.' near the end of 2020. With this novel I wanted to take the lead character on a journey, away from the comfort zone of an idyllic life and completely out of his depth, drawn into a pursuit of Satan, himself and thrown from a mid 1700's Welsh fishing town, eventually into the trenches of the first world war.

Throughout the writing of this novel I endeavoured to describe, not only the far reaches this young man was being taken, to what were very wrong places, for him, but also the motive of the entity, who is sending him there, certain that it is the right thing to do.

The entity believes the young man, if shown the catastrophic future that lies ahead for the world, can, with his enhancements, save the world from future destruction.

The Curse of Evis Edward Arr is available on Amazon and has received five star ratings and good feedback.

My Fifth book, A Murder of Crows is the sequel to A Burning Grudge, Horror, set in my home town of Bedlington. The story picks up where Burning Grudge had left off, as the survivors in a zombie pandemic struggle to survive the dangers they encounter from both living and dead.

Reginald Clinkard is the sixth book I wrote. This is also the second book in a series, the Reginald Clinkard serial killer series.

Sequel to American Cliche, this book focusses on the life of Reginald, the serial killer from American Cliche, from his childhood, to current day. Reginald was not the lead character in American Cliche, but I felt his story was so interesting it needed to be told and I am delighted with how this book has turned out. Although not one of my best selling books, I still believe American Cliche and Reginald Clinkard are the best novels I have written.

My seventh book, Rebecca is the third in the Bedlington Zombie series. The story picks up where Murder of Crows left off, but, while continuing the story onwards, I have also focussed on three of the characters and their back - stories, going back to the start of the pandemic. Rebecca is one of these characters, a young child who survives a bite and finds the dead have no interest in her.

She is taken in by the survivors living at Breakers bar and soon discovers she has a connection to the dead. This connection turns out to be the only chance the Hollymount Square survivors have, when they are attacked by a massive horde of dead, led by another bite survivor.

I have just published my latest book, Leadership 2 for Tory Children. This is book 2 in my Leadership series, a political satire, outlining the catastrophic consequences of terrible political leadership.

The ten stories are set in a forest, where the animals are experiencing, in parallel to us, the same political challenges, we have.

Leadership 2 consists of ten dark adult / children's fables that describe the worst of leadership qualities political leaders could possibly possess.

I have had excellent feed back from readers who have rated my books on Amazon, as well as on social media and I have a Barry Dobey Books page on facebook, where readers can comment, ask questions and keep up to date with my writing. Everyone is welcome to visit the page and I answer all comments.