PUT YOUR MUSE ON A LEASH, THE BITCH, SHE'S RUNNING AWAY FROM YOU AND TENDS TO CHASE RABBITS.
(Some heplful advice found in one of Dan's old exercise books. Attributed to R.K. Robertson, Dan's teacher to whom he dedicated The Opera House Murders.) 

                                                SOME REVIEWS OF DAN BILLANY'S WORK

Ken Worpole    Dockers and Detectives

. . . Billany's work touched me more than any other, as I read his posthumously published novels in the gloom of the old British Library. Then one day, shortly after the publication of Dockers and Detectives, I was sent a parcel out of the blue containing the original notebooks for The Trap.These hand written exercise books had been compiled in an Italian prisoner of war camp in 1943, and passed on to an Italian farmer for safe keeping when Billany had escaped, only to die - from exposure in the Appennines it is thought - shortly after. At the end of the war, the farmer had sent the notebooks to Billany's family address, where they arrived on 21st March 1946.In fact the text for two novels were contained in the notebooks, and both were eventually published as The Cage and The Trap published in1949 and 1950 respectively. I had been sent them by Billany's sister, Mrs Joan Brake, and after I learnt of her existence and sent her a copy of Dockers and Detectives. Soon after my wife and I were invited to visit her home in Somerset, partly to help annotate all of Billany's poems, letters and unpublished writings, which were eventually given to the Imperial War Museum. We became good friends.

  Dockers & Detectives is now available from Five Leaves Publications. Scroll over and click the cover picture of the book first published by Verso to find out more, or visit Ken Worpole's website http://www.worpole.net/

Ken Worpole    The unsung soldier who was Hull's lost hero

                       Dan Billany is a minor figure in 20th century English letters, but an original and haunting one . . .                        To view the whole article please click on the link to The Independent below http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-unsung-soldier-who-was-hulls-lost-hero-625319.html

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