Blitz
By Vince Cross
Edie Benson is my personal favourite character from these books, probably because she reminds me of some of my own family. I was born not very far from Lewisham in south London where this story is set. Read about how Edie and her family deal with the trauma of the nightly bombing and find an inner strength they never knew they had.
About
Putting the right word in the right place…
Finding the best medium for what needs to be said…
It’s hard to achieve.
It’s an endless source of fascination and frustration…
I’m Vince Cross, and I’ve been learning my craft as an author and musician for more than three decades.
I write books for children, and compose music for them too.
I blog about walking and spirituality.
I produce music and speech for English Language Teaching courses worldwide.
I’ve also been a teacher, a session pop musician, the manager of a recording studio, the director of music for a church, a writer and composer of radio and TV commercials, jingle packages, incidental music for TV…even stage musicals.
I like what I do and the people I do it with.
Be a part of my world by reading my books, or commissioning a new one.
Thanks for dropping by.
Books
Here are some books of mine you might like to read.
All of these books should be available through Amazon and similar suppliers, and they may be in your local library too. ‘The A Club’ is out of print, but if you would like a copy, please contact me, and we’ll work out a way of getting one to you.
Alone in the Trenches
The horrific events of World War 1 are still in many people’s minds. I was never sure I could write about the subject, but then we came across an intriguing story about a little Belgian girl and a British ‘Tommy’. I think my book will bring a tear to your eye whether you’re eight or eighty. I hope you’ll find this a helpful introduction for younger readers to an important and difficult period of history
Berlin Olympics
I wanted to write a book for Britain’s Olympic year. It’s set in and around pre-World War II London, before my heroine Eleanor goes off to swim for Britain in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. If you’re interested in the history of sport and the rise of Nazi Germany you should like this.
Blitz
Edie Benson is my personal favourite character from these books, probably because she reminds me of some of my own family. I was born not very far from Lewisham in south London where this story is set. Read about how Edie and her family deal with the trauma of the nightly bombing and find an inner strength they never knew they had.
Hero at Dunkirk
Your life and mine might not have turned out so well without the heroism of people like 15 year old Joe Read. This is the amazing and true story of how Joe and his dad helped rescue hundreds of soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940. If you watched the flotilla on the Thames for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee you may have seen their boat the ‘New Britannic’ now newly restored.
Egyptian Princess
Like many people, I’ve always been fascinated by the ancient Egyptians and how they lived. My character ‘Asha’ is the real life Queen Hatshepsut, the first female Pharoah. I’ve re-invented her as an early ‘free-runner’, and imagined how she might have come to power as a young teenager somewhere around 1500 B.C. Someone suggested that the language in this book sounded too modern. That’s the point, I think. These people were both astonishingly like us, and completely different.
The A Club: The Blogs of Abi Goodenough
Abi Goodenough is a clever girl, there’s no doubt about that. But her friends, teachers, parents and just about everyone else she knows all want a big piece of her. Why can’t they see she needs some time and space for herself? As Abi’s problems pile up she uses her blog to tell the story of three hectic months in her teenage life.
Bighead
Andy is confined to his wheelchair after a car accident. But he’s an excellent guitarist and despite Andy’s doubts his mates know that their band BIGHEAD can’t function without him. Will they win the Battle of the Bands and go on to fame and fortune? This is a short book for those who find reading more difficult.
War Stories: Home and Away
A great offer from Scholastic Books. My Blitz story about Edie Benson bundled with Sue Reid’s War Nurse and Jill Atkins’ Sophie’s Secret War. Three books in one!
Music
Learning a new language can be fun! For more than thirty years leading ELT publishers like OUP, York Press, Pearson and CUP have asked me to write and record music for their world-spanning teaching courses. I haven’t counted exactly, but I think I’ve set more than seven thousand sets of primary-level lyrics to music, plus making ‘cover versions’ of nearly eight hundred chart hits adding excitement to courses for teenagers.
Equally popular in the UK have been our recordings of traditional nursery rhymes. They’re hard to find now, but in their day some of these collections found their way into millions of homes and cars. We’re hoping to re-package these rhymes for today’s children through our new enterprise Music Box Songs. I’ll keep you updated on progress…
I still spend a lot of time writing and recording music. My output has included backing well known singers, composing for TV and film, recording jingle packages, commercials and library albums, writing stage musicals for Butlins Holiday Camps, playing the church organ and conducting choirs. Between times I ran a commercial recording studio for nearly ten years.
I’m a spoken-word producer too, with a wide range of contacts, including artists, agents and facilities. If you have a project and need some help, I’d love to hear from you.
NEWLY RELEASED in FEBRUARY 2021
(widely available on all platforms):
HEAD AND HEART: VINCE CROSS and BRENDAN READ JONES
Quiet American
The woman at the window
Oldies but goodies
And here are a few tracks from my 1999 CD: ‘Covering My Tracks’
It felt so good
Culloden
North West Six
Ten on Sunday
Easter Sunday
Good Friday
Maundy Thursday
Palm Sunday 2021
Sunday 21st March
Sunday 14th March
Sunday 7th March
Sunday 28th February
Sunday 21st February
Sunday 14th February
Sunday 7th February
Sunday 30th January
Sunday 24th January
Sunday 17th January
Sunday January 10th: Epiphany
Sunday 27th December: Happy Christmas!
Sunday 20th December
Sunday 13th December
Sunday 6th December
Advent Sunday 29th November
Sunday 22nd November
Sunday 15th November
November 8th: Remembrance Sunday
Sunday 6th September
Sunday 30th August
Sunday 23rd August
Sunday 16th August
Contact