CORNISHMAN David Mudd has enjoyed a varied and colourful life ? newspaper journalist, TV reporter, Merchant Navy officer and, for 22 years, until he retired from politics, MP for Falmouth.
Such experiences were clearly enriching and provided an abundant trawling ground for enlightenment and anecdote.
Now living in Tavistock with his poet wife Diana he has put pen to paper to take some of the more entertaining facts and spin them into engaging fiction.
?Better With A Pinch of Salt? is a collection of short stories rich in character study and resonant with a wry but warm affection.
Mudd is a keen observer of the idiosyncrasies of human nature and exploits this gift to the full in the 20 short stories. Be it sharing a train compartment with a corpulent bore or a TV interviewer coping with a monosyllabic Scillonian centenarian on a first visit to the mainland, he extracts maximum mirth.
These days, when he is not writing, David is a regular lecturer on board cruise liners. Here he speaks, he says, about ?absolutely anything and everything historical, fictional, irreverent, and irrelevant about politics, politicians and parliament that comes into my head as I talk!?
Asked what his real interest is David usually replies: ?being really interested?.
It is that keen interest in everything around his that sparks off the inspiration for much of his quirky fiction.
The beginnings of this book were launched when he was at sea on board the liner Saga Rose and sitting in the aptly named Shakespeare?s Lounge. ?I decided to celebrate my 70th birthday by writing my first collection of short stories?.
The result is an engaging slice of fact whisked into amusing fiction ? all delivered with, and meant to be taken, with a touch of salt to help us savour the moment.
Copies of the book, priced £6.99 are available from David Mudd, The Retreat, Down Park Drive, Tavistock, PL19AH.