On Tuesday 3rd October, British entertainer Joe Pasquale and I met up again at the Guildhall Museum in Rochester, Kent, along with our publisher Darren Laws of Caffeine Nights, to record an interview to mark the forthcoming publication of “The Lazarus Curiosity”, the second novel in the “Steam, Smoke & Mirrors” series.

 

It had been two years since we taped the first interview and as you can see, Joe still looks the same and I look much older but at least this time the top hat I am wearing is a marginally better fit.

​

A huge thank you to Alan, Sharon, Anthony and everyone at the Guildhall Museum for making us so welcome. The Museum, which is one of the best I’ve ever visited (and research for SS&M takes me to many), was founded in 1897 and is housed in two next door buildings: the wonderfully evocative 17th Century Guildhall and the River Medway Conservancy Board Building, built in 1909. Among the many extraordinary displays you’ll find a life-size reconstruction of part of a grim Medway prison hulk and a room dedicated to the genius of Charles Dickens, who lived in nearby Higham and used Rochester as a backdrop for “The Pickwick Papers”, “Great Expectations” and “The Mystery of Edwin Drood”. If you are visiting historic Rochester, a trip to the Guildhall Museum is a MUST!

​

http://www.medway.gov.uk/leisurecultureandsport/medwayarchivescentre/museums/guildhallmuseum.aspx

​

 

Picture shows Joe Pasquale, looking like H.G. Wells’s dad in a tweed suit, and me, still wishing I could rock the Steampunk look a whole lot better while apparently being goosed by one of the surrounding and distinctly unimpressed Victorian ladies.