They're Rugby Boys, Don't You Know? by Natalie Vellacott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Patience, Perseverance and Prayer are the required qualities, according to “Ma’am Natalie”, the author, that a person needs in order to produce any kind of change in one of the “rugby boys”. The rugby boys are a group of boys who are addicted to solvent sniffing in Olongapo City, Philippines and this book is a detailed account of her involvement in their lives, over a period of many, many months.

The Logos Hope Christian Missionary ship was in dry dock there in May 2012 and Natalie Vellacott one of the evangelist Christian missionaries. The log of events that the author writes about could not be described as gripping, amusing or a page turner in my opinion – but it was certainly intriguing and inspiring. Ms Vellacott deserves the respect of anyone who reads this account, and I suspect of anyone who has the undoubted pleasure of meeting her! For me she demonstrated oodles of the three qualities I listed above in her regular encounters with the poor and unfortunate addicted children. It is particularly sobering when you understand that she did not land in Olongapo with that purpose in mind.

As each boy’s story unfolds the reader quickly discovers the problems that had to be overcome, and their very gradual growing confidence in Natalie is almost painful to read about. The number of poignant moments is only equalled by the very many disappointments along the way; thus the comment about patience and perseverance. It was impossible to hear about the boys’ plights and not care about their individual outcomes, their future prospects – and even their survival. Not every reader of the book will be “a believer” of course, so perhaps they can replace the word Prayer with Hope, for I suspect either are frequently needed – even essential - to support the patience and perseverance to carry on.

There were many times as I read this book that I was reminded of Charles Dickens’ account about the plight of Victorian street urchins of London, in Oliver Twist. There did not appear to be a Fagin in the background of the Philippines, and Ma’am Natalie is certainly no Nancy, but the depth of compassion shown by both young women leaves the reader full of sadness and respect for their efforts to help others. I’m sure that Natalie Vellacourt’s readers, including myself, will be left wondering what more they can do to help the many others less fortunate than themselves. “If not me – who?”


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Train to Nowhere by Gloria Piper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This absorbing novel is a sci-fi story mixed with an element of fantasy. In it the two main characters, Garland and Hedge, are in conflict through an event in their past which does not become obvious to the reader for quite a while. The Train to Nowhere is on a continuous journey with its “passengers” of Orphans and Landeds for reasons that are never explained. There is another community, Nomads, who are free to roam and trade “outside” the train. Garland feels a strong need to be free and to escape his controlled but comfortable life on the train. I liked the way that the author plunges the reader into life on the train and into the contrasting lives of Garland and Hedge. My curiosity about how this future came about led me to continue reading and the tale of each protagonist grabbed me from chapter 3. But I was disappointed not to find out what had caused the situation they were in. For example why was the train pulled by a team of 21 horses? And if there was no power available for transport how come there were computers everywhere, on and off the train, which would require much electricity? Had there been a catastrophe on Earth that led to overpopulation, or was overpopulation a major cause of this strange resulting stratification of society?
While I am a strong supporter of letting the characters in a book reveal the reasons behind the context in which they find themselves, I thought that there was not quite enough information given to explain some of the things that bothered me at the end. However, that is not to say that I didn’t enjoy Gloria Piper’s novel, because it was just that – novel! It was well written generally, with the exception of a couple of editing issues and the use of some expressions that did not sound correct. For example: “The trail faded at an upsurge in the prairie…” jarred my senses because “upsurge” is better referring to feelings rather than objects. And often characters “rotated” to look elsewhere when the simpler, more appropriate, verb “turned” sounds more “normal” and less like an acrobat.
I cared about Garland and was rooting for him and Mystery Rider right up to the last page. The relationship between these two and between Garland and Little Byte was very well done and Ms Piper shows a real talent for describing a characters inner thoughts and fears. There were many passages in the book when I would have liked to have seen fewer full stops and more commas and semi-colons etc. In other words a lot of times the frequent use of very many, very short, sentences had a kind of staccato effect which detracted from the descriptive flow of the scene portrayed on the page.
Fans of Orwell, Wyndham and Bradbury would enjoy this fascinating tale of conflict and sci-fi suspense. The imaginative use of computer terminology in everyday language, such as deleting and VR to mean dying and unreal; the skilful handling of emotions; and her originality for a tale well-told leads me to conclude that the author will attract many more fans in the future.


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