New book to raise money for charity

For over forty years, local man Brian Johnston has been involved in entertainment, compering concerts and appearing at after dinner functions and at events for numerous Church, charitable and other organisations throughout the province, and further afield.

Ten years ago he published a book of the stories he had told over the years, and that book has been bought by people of all ages and from every walk of life, many of the books finding their way right across the world. The money raised, in excess of £8,000, has all been for charity, initially for Marie Curie Cancer Care, and more recently for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

Over the past year or two, he has been often asked when he was going to bring out another book, so twelve months ago at the start of lockdown, he decided that it would be a good time to put pen to paper, and ‘More Humorous Stories’ has just been released. Again, all money raised is for MNDA.

Brian has always enjoyed entertaining through the guise of other characters, and so many years ago he created the ‘man hunting’ cleaning woman, ‘Daisy Hardcastle’ and ‘Wee Billy’, the mischievous schoolboy. So in addition to over 260 stories, he has included the dialogue that these two have shared with audiences over the years.

He feels privileged that Alf McCreary has been kind enough to write the Foreword for the book, which includes the following words: ‘Humour is one of the great joys at any time, but following the long period of lockdown and the great suffering caused by the pandemic, we need humour more than ever before. So I congratulate Brian on his inspired efforts and I wish him every success in this new and welcome venture’

Like so many other charities, MNDA has suffered greatly over the past twelve months, with limited opportunities for fundraising events to take place. Hopefully sales of this little book will help them to continue the tremendous work that they do. The money they raise is used to provide patient care locally including the provision of specialist equipment, and also for continued support of research into this terrible disease.

Anyone interested in purchasing the book can contact Brian either by email: [email protected] or by telephoning him on: 07773 765781.