By Steve Cooke
During these strange times many of us have found reading a good book a great way of getting away from things, escaping into a world of the imagination.
A book that I can highly recommend is The Key To Yesterday by Jonathan Young and Dennis Houghton.
The pair are keen not to give anything away that would diminish the experience of reading this wonderful novel, as they say, ‘We have decided not to give a synopsis as to do so would have the reader using the clues to pre-empt the story instead of just letting it unfold.’
A wise decision! On reading The Key To Yesterday you are quickly transported into the lives of lead character Sean Clarke and the array of fascinating people he meets, taking you on a fast-paced rollercoaster ride of twists and suspense.
Co-author Jonathan Young has a fascinating back story. He was born in Belfast Northern Ireland and is now living in Manchester. From the mid-sixties as a singer guitarist with many groups and musicians, notably Van Morrison. [Van wanted him to join his group THEM!]. Through years as a solo artist in Manchester, writing football songs such as The Men of 68 that was played at Sir Matt Busby’s Memorial and World Cup songs for both Northern and Southern Ireland plus Manchester Morning which is a staple in local pubs and clubs. To joining the famous singing group the Bachelors in the 1990s. As an actor he has appeared in Coronation Street, Shoot to Kill, The Glory Boys [as Rod Steiger’s bodyguard], and the lead character Derrick Burns in The Van Boys, which got rave reviews at the Cannes Festival. Most recently he has been, with his good friend, our very own Jimmy Cricket and Colin Meredith, in Jimmy’s play No More Fiffing and Faffing'
Dennis Houghton was born and bred in Oldham and educated at Courthill Grammar followed by an apprenticeship as a designer draughtsman at Ferranti’s in Manchester. However, it was as sales representative for various electronic companies that he would spend most of his working life. What was to be his final job was with the UK branch of a Swiss firm called Lemo UK for whom he would do a lot of traveling both home and abroad. This would entail meeting and getting to know a lot of new and different types of people which would come in very useful when creating characters for his books.
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY is available at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Key-Yesterday-Jonathan-Young/ £9.99
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