Mr Pilbeam Builds a Boat

Bill Jones

Quacks Books

£9.95

This comic and touching novel is set in the later 1960s mainly in a Yorkshire coast town very like Bridlington. It tells the tale of an obsessive who (so his wife thinks) has never grown up. Seymour Pilbeam runs electric trains round the living room, builds kites and sledges and is a stalwart of the pub dominos team. He’s gripped by a longing to build and sail a boat, though when the story begins, his experience is confined to books and experiments on the now-defunct model yacht pond. It’s a tale of friendship and the joy of craftsmanship, though with shocking damage to family relationships along the way. A heart-warming story for men in sheds and those who love them.