An interview with Mervyn Linford talking to Neil Leadbeater: This interview is published with the kind pemission of Neil Leadbeater and Quill &
Parchment Productions.
He currently resides in Lavenham, Suffolk
Mervyn, you have lived for most of your life in Essex and, latterly, in neighbouring Suffolk. Which of these two counties do you prefer and why is the concept of place so
important to you in your work?
“It’s not a game or a sport but a genetic imperative that makes us whole again every time we give it expression” - Chris Yates - How to Fish.
Fishing aside, you also have an interest in rivers, with some of your books following the course of rivers such as the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation and, more
recently, the River Stour which you have captured in all its seasons in your quartet of books ‘Bridge Across the Stour’. How would you sum up your fascination for rivers and the
inspiration that they have given to you?
Who are your favourite authors?
It holds
like the morning sun
yet you and I have denied
here succumbs
You draw me down
where I feel the pulse
There is a line between us that this pen
and as you rise towards me
your scales and my clear eyes at the point of meeting |
I have had six books published as ebooks:
Selected, New and Unpublished Poems 1980-2016
The Weather Man - a spiritual journey through the seasons in prose
The Willow Pond - A 1950s Chilhood in South East Essex - Autobiography
The Incomplete Dangler - 50 years of sea and freshwater fishing - autobiographical and satirical with b/w photographs
A Stag Amongst the Pheasants - a poetry selection
The Rise and Fall of Snowy Garden or A Hoot in the Darkness -
satire: the local wildlife takes control of the author who fights back and wins out in the end
Just put the name of the book or Mervyn Linford in your search engine and many different retailers and distributors of ebooks will appeaer on your screen. The above titles can be purchased from most of them - usually with the option of reading a page or two before you decide whether or not to buy.
Mostly Prose with some Poems & Colour Photographs
Published by Campanula Books (see links page)
2022 -158 pages- £9.99.
Published by Mica Press (see links page) 2017
£9.00 - 62 pages
Published by The High Window Press (see links page) 2017
108 pages £9.00
All my paperbacks: Prose & Poetry - Some with Colour Photographs
and some with Black & White:
The Incomplete Dangler - Fifty years of Sea and Freshwater Fishing - Mervyn Linford:
Littoral Press 260 pages illustrated throughout with b/w photographs £9.99
The Willow Pond - A 1950s Childhood in Southeast Essex - Mervyn Linford: Littoral Press 268 pages £11.99
Reflections - Twelve months, twelve moods along the Chelmer/Blackwater Navigation - Mervyn Linford:
Littoral Press 168 pages - illustrated throughout with colour photographs - £13.99
Bullshit & Bootlace Ties - Basildon Boys, Southend Girls - A Teenage Extravaganza - Mervyn Linford:
Littoral Press 268 pages £12.99
Double Vision - poems - Mervyn Linford & Clare Harvey: Littoral Press 48 pages £6.50
Collected Poems - Mervyn Linford: Littoral Press 319 pages £11.99
Lavenham to Leigh-on-Sea - Country ways/Coastal Waters - a country journal - Mervyn Linford:
Littoral Press 92 pages illustrated with b/w photos £9.99
Notes from the Fields - Wethersfield, Finchingfield and the Bardfields - A Country Notebook - Mervyn Linford: Littoral Press 317 pages &12.99
The East Seaxe - a book of poems and full page black and white photographs celebrating the coast and the countryside of Essex - Robert Hallmann & Mervyn Linford: Littoral Press 113 pages £9.99
Basildon New Town - A Memoir 1952-1969 - Mervyn Linford: Littoral Press 179 pages -
illustrated with more than 90 black & white photographs £12.99
Two Tree Island - poems & prose - Mervyn Linford: Littoral Press 124 pages illustrated b/w photos £7.99
The Beatitudes of Silence - a spiritual journey through the seasons in irregular sonnets -
Mervyn Linford: Littoral Press 64 pages £6.50
Autumn Manuscript - poems/pamphlet - Mervyn Linford: Littoral Press 50 Pages £3.50
The Wheel of Weathers - poems/pamphlet - Mervyn Linford: Littoral Press -
a poem and a b/w photograph for every month of the year £3.99
The Weather Man - prose - a spiritual journey through the year - Mervyn Linford: Littoral Press 144 pages £8.99
The Coggeshall Chronicles - A Writer's Year in the County - Essex & Beyond -
Mervyn Linford with 12 b/w lino cuts by Penelope Cline: Littoral press 234 pages £9.99
The Dengie Diaries - Country Journal - Littoral Press 272 pages - illustrated with b/w photographs - £11.99
Journey down the Stour 211 pages - £11.99 - Littoral Press 2018 - contains 70 plus b/w photographs
Please read the Blog on this website for more details
"The Angler's Other Eye" - 156 pages - £10.00 - includes 42 black and white photographs - Littoral Press
The Saxon Shore - 59 pages - £7.99 - includes an hour-long Cd of the poem - Littoral Press 2019
Poems for the Planet - Mervyn Linford - Littoral Press 2020 A4 Format £12.50 196 pages
The Killing of the Crystal Tigers, poems for the young and the young at heart illustrated in colour:
Poems Mervyn Linford - Colour Illustrations Jan Green - Littoral Press 2020, £12.00, 94 pages
Essex Imagined - Verse & Visions - Poems & Paintings - Mervyn Linford - Littoral Press 2021
- £11.50 - 65 pages
Beltane to All Hallows - summer and autumn in the Essex & Suffolk countryside - Mervyn Linford - Littoral Press 2021 - £9.99 - 182 pages - illustrated with b/w photographs
Meanderings - Paper Mills to Collier's Reach - a book length illustrated poem about a seasonal journey
along the Chelmer/Blackwater Navigation - Mervyn Linford - Littoral Press 2021 - £9.00 - 81 pages
Advent to Passiontide - winter & spring in the Essex & Suffolk countryside - Mervyn Linford - Littoral
Press 2019 - illustrated with full colour photographs - £12.50 - 230 pages
Bridge Across The Stour - Volume One Autumn - Country Journal - Prose, Poetry, B/W Photographs -
Mervyn Linford - Littoral Press 2021 - £9.99 - 174 pages
Bridge Across The Stour - Volume Two Winter - Country Journal - Prose, Poetry, B/W Photographs -
Mervyn Linford - Littoral Press 2022 - £9.99 - 160 pages
Bridge Across The Stour - Volume Three Spring - Prose, Poetry, B/W Photographs - Mervyn Linford -
Littoral Press 2022 - £9.99 - 197 pages
Bridgre Across The Stour Volume Four Summer - Prose, Poetry, B/W Photographs by Mervyn Linford -
Littoral Press 2022 - £9.99 - 150 pages
For details of my poetry collection Credo published by Mica Press
and my latest prose work The Incidental Marshman published by Campanula Books
please click on the Links button above