Mike Leaver – författare

This bizarre-but-true autobiography chronicles Mike Leaver's madcap travels and death-defying misadventures as a solo mountaineer.In pioneering Eddie-The-Eagle style, Mike overcomes childhood illness, climbing Birmingham's post-war bombsites, to build lifelong resilience to endure alone in often wild and perilous environments. Ride with Mike on his adapted motorbike as he tackles serious winter climbing in Snowdonia (featuring a miraculous, split-second rescue), the Lake District (getting hopelessly lost), and the Ben Nevis massif (with a Hogmanay Party on summit). Then brave a classic 1970s Brit-abroad road trip to the French Alps – scaling icy Mont Blanc rock unroped, wearing a yellow crash helmet, and using nine-inch nails inside glaciers!Join Mike in his self-converted truck as he travels to North Africa, walks across the Sahara Desert to swim in the Atlantic, and climbs the tallest mountain in Morocco's High Atlas in unexpected snow! Share his epic driving escapade to the High Arctic's winter wilderness: barely surviving Scandinavia's three highest peaks in Finland, Sweden, and Norway, and crawling frozen back to his lorry!Now a retired handyman and author, Mike enjoys his lorry-home lifestyle in a pretty Snowdonia town, while promoting more leisurely mountaineering, potholing, and sailing for older folk!

Upper-class teen Sara flees her parents' middle-England mansion after a disastrous party. She happens upon Nork, a mysterious young, orphan boy seemingly from nowhere. Together they go on the run. Evading the authorities and becoming ever more inter-dependent during their long journey, they finally land up in the Scottish wilderness. They find themselves in a small loch-side town, but will they become the victims of the ruthless, hotel owner McTavish – or can they discover a new life and purpose there? This is a coming-of-age story with comedy, romance and sexual references, that is both thought-provoking and amusing.

Yeti (male 28) seeks mate. Can be seen Christmas/Easter roaming Ben Nevis, Snowdon some weekends in between. Migrates to Alps around June. Very friendly, generally harmless, except on ski-slopes. Very safe experienced motorcyclist Britain and abroad – would get sidecar, if nagged. Please write. . . (Personal ad published in a national mountaineering magazine.)From an asthmatic childhood spent on post-war Birmingham bomb-sites, Mike Leaver escaped from cruel State boarding schools to careers as a lab technician, accountant, pleasure-boat captain, and local builder. Mike has also been: a homeless hermit inhabiting a derelict boat surrounded by drug addicts; an adventurer/mountaineer in the UK, Scandinavia, and North Africa; and finally, a semi-retired handyman writing books while enjoying an ideal life off-grid in a converted lorry in a pretty coastal town.Embark on an extraordinary journey of an eccentric pursuing dreams of love, writing and the path to happiness in a memoir that’s as charming as it is quirky.

Two teenage girls from opposite sides of the tracks in 1960s Midlands England are forced into prostitution in this engrossing tale of loss, liberty, and love.Weep at the relationship between clever Janet and spoiled Priscilla, as their handsome, young English teacher, Mr Edwards – and his corrupting father – become embroiled in their tortuous journeys.But then a smart heroine Tara fatefully enters the fray on a secret detective mission.Dramatic and topical events include a city-slum killing, police malfeasance, newspaper-business bribery, emotional blackmail, destitute homelessness, and a mountaineering adventure.This saga combines a socio-political struggle by the under-privileged against repression, with both feminine and asexual insights into love, to produce a thought-provoking, yet stylishly old-fashioned, romantic rollercoaster.