What’s Tha Playing at Nah? (ePub)
Imprint: Pen & Sword True Crime
File Size: 435.4 KB (.epub)
Pages: 151
Illustrations: 20 black and white illustrations
ISBN: 9781473858145
Published: 6th April 2016
Welcome to What's Tha Playing At Nah?, the fourth volume of Martyn Johnson's acclaimed series of stories about policing during the 1960s and 1970s. Whether 'on the beat' or 'as CID', once again Martyn enthralls, surprises and shocks his readers with tales set in an almost forgotten era: a veritable Lost World of people, places and phrases in his beloved Sheffield. Steven Spielberg please note.
Who will you meet on the journey? Well, there's the usual myriad of lovable characters, from Big Derek the doorman and Mr Dar the tailor to 'Caribbean-singing Henry' and cross-dressing 'Doreen'; and not forgetting Cecil the resident barman at 'Mucky Mary's'; Marlene the prostitute, and 'old Fred' the tramp. Among the less savoury are Mr Dirty Bastard, Mr Car Thief, Mr Money-grabber aka Nasty Pimp, Mr Sticky Fingers the burglar and Mr Nasty the rapist; and several 'perverts' of the worst kind.
As usual, Martyn's down-to-earth honesty and humour shines through the pages; but he never loses sight of the human condition in all its forms: good, bad, sad and happy.
Another good collection of old fashioned coppers' yarns.
Robert Bartlett, Police History Society
As featured in
Sheffield Star
One of my favorite police authors. This is a series of books about the career of a British Police officer. The key here is most of them are sweet. No small feat when you are writing a cop book since cops deal with some bad stuff. Mr. Johnsons is able to find the good in everyone so while there are some bad folks in these books who do bad things there are many loveable rogues as well, I recommend you start with the first book in the series and go from there but you can really start anywhere. If you like Nicholas Rhee (fiction) you will like Martyn Johnson (non fiction).
John A. Antonelli, Amazon Reviewer
5 star review.
About Martyn Johnson
Martyn Johnson was born at Darfield, the son of a coal miner. Leaving school at the age of fifteen, his first job was as a blacksmith. His work changed dramatically four years later when he joined the Sheffield City Police Force where he served as a 'beat bobby' until 1969. A two-year spell in CID followed but, missing grassroots policing, he returned to the beat for a further seven years. Passionate about local history, Martyn is a well-known metal detector and has appeared on many BBC Radio Sheffield programmes talking about his hobby.
A long-time resident of Wentworth village, he also assisted and advised Catherine Bailey when she was researching her best selling book, Black Diamonds.