David Jones was born in 1941 in the industrial north. The factories have all gone now and the trees and woodlands have been allowed to thrive, providing a home for many kinds of British wildlife. Cycle paths and nature trails now cover the neighbourhood where both red and grey squirrels can be seen to live in close proximity and they don't even squabble. We have badgers, stoats and weasels, and occasionally we will get a visit from a fox. This is the environment that provided the inspiration for this story.

David Jones' book is a significant contribution to the understanding of the history of the Alliance Church in Congo and Cabinda. It is a fascinating narrative-from an excellent story teller-of how the history of the Congo Church is intertwined with the history of the Cabinda Church.

Sue and Nick Pye were a happy, loving couple. They were married in September 1988 and planned to start a family within two years. Sadly, they discovered they could not have children of their own, so decided to adopt. In December 1995 a six month old baby girl was placed with them and they were overjoyed. Their family was complete.

Rebecca was a lovely little girl, whose radiant smile captured the hearts of everyone she met, and her parents doted on her. When she started school her future looked bright - but then illness struck.

It was the beginning of a nightmare for the family and a desperate battle for Rebecca as the medical profession, baffled at first over her symptoms, eventually arrived at a diagnosis that she was suffering from a rare disease in which life expectancy was limited. The news devastated her parents. In a short time, their daughter deteriorated to the point where she was left fighting for her life and doctors told Sue and Nick to prepare themselves for the worst.

Rebecca was suffering from Leigh Syndrome, a disease noted for its degradation in one's ability to control movements caused by lesions on the brain stem.

Supported by family and friends, Sue and Nick kept vigil at Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Liverpool, for three months as their little girl, just four and a half, fought for survival. But what doctors hadn't bargained for was Rebecca's character and spirit. She clung to life, often being kept alive by a ventilator, but she fought the incurable disease sufficiently to return home.

Despite many setbacks Rebecca continued to confound medical opinion and live life, albeit with restrictions, to the full. Hers is an incredible and inspirational story . . .

'The mind of David Jones is capable of such breathtaking leaps across the centuries, that nothing can appear incongruous in his writings and they all help to shed light on him as an artist and as a poet.' Apollo Through a selection of letters to friends and literary peers, Dai Greatcoat presents a rare insight into the life and work of David Jones, and in so doing offers an autobiographical portrait of the author in his own words. Dai Greatcoat is the Welsh soldier of In Parenthesis, Jones's acclaimed narrative of the Great War, but the sturdy yet all too vulnerable figure, wrapped close in his 'misfit outsize greatcoat', is an apt symbol for the great poet and artist who died in 1974. In this volume covering the last fifty years of his life, Jones's correspondence has been edited and arranged with a linking commentary to form a remarkable biographical portrait. The letters - merry, irreverent, sometimes sombre and anxious, always amazingly open - are unfailingly entertaining and will reveal to his many admirers, as well as to those encountering his work for the first time, a figure no one could possibly forget.