Joseph Hucknall

A Life’s Tales

A Life’s Tales is a powerful memoir of a life lived in a past age, through poverty, strife, family life, war, conscription, sexual deviation, and climbing a career ladder to ultimate fulfilment with a life-long partner.



It’s a life lived with compassion, insight, ambition and an adventurous spirit; a life fighting against discrimination, and a constant search for self-improvement.



Starting in 1935 these intimate, sensitively written, and engrossing memoirs span seventy-seven years of social change… Ranging from the poverty of a northern industrial childhood – shared with eight siblings – through the war years, to an adolescent awakening of homosexuality. This is followed by conscription into the Army, progression through the Woolworth company until its meltdown and into a period of creativity and ongoing self-discovery.



Told with wry philosophic humour, the story is episodic and follows a revealing journey through family life and struggle, homosexual experiences, the challenge of leading a double life, to ‘coming out’ as a gay man and the eternal search for a loving relationship.

No Man Is An Island

The gripping historical sequel to The Boy in a Turban.

London, 1751. James Cudlip, born in Jamaica of a plantation owner and a slave woman, is adopted and brought to England by an English sea captain. Infused with a talent for music, he is now a music teacher and friend to the heir to the English throne, the future George 3rd. He is confronted by the animosity of the established Court circles and suffers personal tragedy in his search for love and fulfilment. Royal approval and reward gives James something to live for.

But will it be everything he dreamed of?