Offthebookshelf.com
Clive Woollands
C.R. Woollands is married with three children, he was born and raised and still lives in Oxford. In 2005 he was made disabled from an accident at work and is now housebound and in a wheelchair.
He has taken that time at home, not to think of what has happened, but to continue with his writing.
He is a writer of different genres, but writes mainly horror. Within his writing he enjoy’s background research in not only the characters but locations (He spends time in areas his stories are set, to get a feel of the place) and subjects the characters are involved with (police work, medical, etc.).
He started writing, on a whim, just after the birth of his first son, with which he wrote a biography of his life for him when he was older.
With that completed he started his first story, Never Say Die, a thriller set in the West Country of U.K. With it being his first story, he didn’t know how to lay out the story, how long a story had to be, etc. When it was completed (he thought) he looked to see about getting it published and found out where he was going wrong, and that for a novel it was too short, so he put the story on the shelf and for the next couple of years it was collecting dust.
With his next story, Blood Moon, a horror story, which he writes under the pseudonym of Robert H. Tempest. The story is set on the Norfolk Broads, he went in with his eyes open, knew how long it was supposed to be and how to layout the story, so he took his time to get it right and is also available on offthebookshelf.com.
While he writes mainly horror under the name of Robert H. Tempest, he uses his real name to write true crime and true stories.
All Books By This Author:
- The Wheal Eliza Murder
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A true story set on the moors of Exmoor in 1858. On July 25th 1858, Widower and father of five children, William Burgess, took his youngest child, six-year-old, Anna Marie Burgess, to Porlock in Somerset, to stay with her Auntie and Uncle, as the rent her father was paying at there recent lodgings, was costing too much. All of Burgess’s other children had been put in service and was no longer staying with him, and after losing there cottage because he could not keep up the rent, Burgess moved about the area, with the only child he hadn’t put in service. But instead of taking Anna to Porlock, he killed his child and buried her in a shallow grave and made his way to Porlock, where after breakfast, returned to his lodging telling everyone Anna was was in Porlock. In the evening, a couple of days later, Burgess burned all of Anna clothes and after hearing from a friend, that he had found a freshly dug ‘dead’ which the miners in that area called turned soil, and fearing that Anna’s body would be discovered, dug her up and took her body to a disused mine, where Burgess had once worked and threw her body down the mine shaft and then left the area. Remnants of burnt clothing were found and the police informed. The remains of the burnt clothing were identified as belonging to Anna Burgess and when a despatch rider was sent to Porlock to see if she was there, confirmed, that she wasn’t and that William Burgess had disappeared, started a hunt for Burgess and the supposed body of Anna. Burgess was found in Swansea, Wales and when he was brought back, he wouldn’t tell where Anna’s body was and begun the hunt for her body.
Over the years, there has been many books telling the story, but they all depict the story,
based on the memoirs of Reverend William H. Thornton, in his book called, ‘Reminiscences and Reflections of an Old West Country Clergyman.’ Thornton book
was written in 1897, 39 years after the incident and although we all know that memories can play tricks, his memoirs recall’s the incident as ‘That of him taking charge of the investigation, and giving instructions on what to do.’
By using the old records and the newspaper reports from North Devon Journals and The
Taunton Courier, this story tells the in-depth look at not only Anna and William Burgess, but also Burgess’s so-called nemesis, the Rev William Thornton, the investigation by Chief Superintendent Cresent Jeffs, the hunt for William Burgess after he absconded to Wales and the hunt for Anna’s body, the trial, the sentencing and finally the execution of William Burgess.- Genres: True Crime
