Gordon Frederick Coggon: a nuclear test veteran's story

Welcome to Conversations with Authors, where I – Alison Thompson, AKA The Proof Fairy – meet amazing authors and find out what inspired them to write and what advice they would offer other aspiring authors.

My guest today is Gordon Frederick Coggon, author of The Life of a Yorkshire Lad, which came out in December 2020. Gordon's book is the story of his life, from growing up in a small Yorkshire village to the present day, and includes a detailed account of his time in the RAF on Christmas Island in the 1950s, when he witnessed some of the UK Government's nuclear tests.

In our conversation Gordon talks about how boredom led to him writing his life story, why writers need to have thick skins and how he went about completing his memoir at 82 in order to support the work of LABRATS.
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More About Gordon Frederick Coggon

Born in 1938 near Doncaster, Gordon Frederick Coggon’s life experiences range from seasickness on a North Sea fishing trawler and building drilling rigs to witnessing the explosion of the United Kingdom’s only true hydrogen bomb at Christmas Island in the 1950s.

After a long second career driving buses and HGVs, and having survived cancer and diabetes, Gordon finally retired at the age of 71. In 2020, and now aged 82, Gordon found himself locked down during the Covid-19 pandemic and ready to share the story of this Yorkshire lad’s extraordinary life.

Buy The Life of a Yorkshire Lad on Amazon

LABRATS International

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Conversations with Authors is a Proof Fairy Production and hosted by Alison Thompson, AKA The Proof Fairy. To find out more about Alison and the services she offers authors, including proofreading, book formatting and cover design, visit http://www.theprooffairy.com