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    Castlebury
    Castlebury
    Castlebury
    Ebook104 pages1 hour

    Castlebury

    By Oliver Franklin

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    About this ebook

    Everybody likes a sequel, so... Six years have passed in the city of Oxford and business is the name of the game, but which kind? A small, vibrant start-up that keeps honest books and provides work for local people, or a sprawling pharmaceutical giant that interferes with Government, suppresses innovation and crushes all competition? After meeting up with an old friend, Castlebury starts doubting his career path. “You have to make choices, Roland...” Well said, that man! It’s a classic dilemma of conscience versus career and after all, who wants to suffer for the cause of right? Enter David Noakes. Here’s a man suffering for the cause of health. He doesn’t know it yet but he’s up against the sorcery of Babylon. That’s pharmakeia, Baby! Lastly, remember the feud between Daniel and the bikers? Well, it hasn’t gone away...

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOliver Franklin
    Release dateDec 20, 2019
    ISBN9781005337544
    Castlebury
    Author

    Oliver Franklin

    You will read some of it in the books...

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      Book preview

      Castlebury - Oliver Franklin

      Castlebury

      by

      Oliver Franklin

      Copyright © 2017 Oliver Franklin. The author has asserted his moral rights

      The two lectures by David Noakes are adapted from The Westminster News

      http://thewestminsternews.co.uk/

      Copyright © David Noakes

      First published in 2017 by Buddlewood House

      Cover by P J Truscott – https://pjtruscott.wixsite.com/pjay/

      Logo by angwerproductions.co.uk

      Typesetting, page design, layout by DocumentsandManuscripts.com

      The right of Oliver Franklin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the copyright, design and patents acts pertaining. All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this work may be made without written permission from the author.

      Dedication

      To whom it concerns greatly –

      If we don’t get to speak before this book is published, I hope you approve of it. Forgive me if I’ve erred in some of the minor details. And I hope it benefits the cause!

      Introduction

      Six years have passed since we last visited Oxford. Inevitably life has moved on albeit not for everyone. If you care to visit you may still find a homeless person hanging around the shopping centre, especially on Sunday evenings, although the churches recommend not giving them money directly but making a donation to the various projects set up to help those in need. At the other end of the spectrum thanks to the New World Business consortium, which seem to have achieved at least some of their goals, electricity in the city is now virtually free and there are large numbers of electric vehicles on the roads. The environmental lobby, Clean Oxford are trying to get all non-electric vehicles banned from the city centre but are encountering stoic resistance from classic car owners. Classic car in this context means anything made before Hybrid cars of the early 2000’s or the more recent Free-Energy vehicles.

      Concerning people whom you may know: Mark Oriel is an Ordained Minister and leading a new congregation in Milton Keynes. Occasionally he has a run-in with the Bishop but, on the whole, it’s going well. He is married with two children – Rupert and Grace.

      Kavanagh is also married – to Gabrielle Taylor – and they are expecting their first child, but don’t know whether they’re having a boy or a girl so it’s rather exciting. They have a number of boy names and girl names lined up, just in case. Top of the boy list is ‘Eustace’ and top of the girl list is ‘Sarah-Jane’. Kavanagh is running the letting part of his father-in-law’s property business and doing very well, having invested a chunk of his own Trust Fund in the venture some years ago. His grandparents are sadly both deceased.

      Daniel Taylor and Hannah Westbrook are unfortunately divorced but these things happen from time to time and there is some talk of reconciliation…

      Martin and Diana Oriel still live in Riverside Walk, although they no longer need such a large house. Martin now believes but his wife doesn’t. They like to have rooms available to accommodate their sons and daughters in law when they visit, and other guests as the need arises. Being in their fifties, they’ve decided to take things a little easier and have appointed a housekeeper.

      Dominick and Castlebury remained close friends after leaving school and are still very much on the scene. They started up a tech company with a loan from Dominick’s dad and launched their own crypto-currency called the Casdom, which is presently trading a eleven cents on coinbase.com. Before Free-Energy really took off in the city they installed a 5 KW solar array on the roof of their office in Langford Locks and are using the spare power to run a quad core processor and high-end graphics card to mine bitcoins, which have recently hit $3500. This story is really about them but we’ll come to that in a bit…

      Oh, and in case you were thinking I’d forgotten about Daniel – how could I? He is now twenty-five, a confirmed bachelor and working thirty-nine hours a week as Assistant Librarian in St Stephen’s House, which is a recognised training establishment for the Church of England Ordinands. Daniel also teaches piano part-time for some extra money as, even with the new Left-wing Government installed, the minimum wage is pitiful. He only takes his students up to Grade 5 however as he isn’t a professional himself. Nonetheless he is enjoying the quiet life he always wanted since the age of twelve, despite the fact he earns less than his parents’ housekeeper and has consistently defied their high academic and professional expectations of him.

      He lives in his own tiny little flat very close to the college where he works, which Kavanagh bought him for his twenty-first birthday present, and is still singing in the church choir. He is no longer leading the Youth Group and the new Minister at St Aldate’s is a little too liberal on important doctrinal issues for Daniel’s liking. So he has reduced his involvement to Thursday night choir practise and the Sunday morning service. His legacy at St Aldate’s although he doesn’t realise it, is that about fifty young people are taking Christianity much more seriously than they would have done otherwise and many of these are soldiers of the faith.

      Daniel is still very good friends with Kavanagh and keeps in touch with his former school mates and other colleagues. He occasionally corresponds with his brother when Mark needs advice on some difficult issue and he is pen-friends with Rose, who is now living in the US. Most folk use e-mail and instant messaging today, but Daniel and Rose like writing each other traditional letters using the snail-mail system. The letters can take a whole week to arrive – imagine that! I suppose there is a certain amount of excitement in the waiting, rather like when your birthday is approaching or, better still, Christmas Eve.

      Anyhow in spite of this Daniel is something of a hermit and seems to like it this way. He keeps his desk very tidy at work. He stays late some evenings to help the cleaning staff, although he isn’t paid for this, of course. He enjoys answering questions when the Ordinands are searching for something in the library, or just confused about what they believe and wanting some friendly advice. He still goes to Zoopla’s occasionally with Kavanagh for a curry – his usual dish these days being chicken biryani and he visits his parents every week – usually on a Wednesday.

      One way of looking at it is that, having had seven years of near continuous mayhem and adventure, not to mention death, from aged 12 to 19, maybe he has been appointed seven years rest and recuperation? It seems fair to me, anyway.

      And lastly, Dominick refers to him as his ‘step-in-law’. It’s rather convoluted but came about because Dominick’s sister, Gabrielle married Kavanagh, who is generally regarded as Daniel’s stepbrother. So, there you have it!

      Now on with the story.

      Chapter 1

      Making Money!

      In Oxford the tech business was definitely on the up. It was an industry-wide phenomenon brought about largely as a result of the surge of interest in Free-Energy and the new wave of technology that came with it. Langford Locks Industrial Estate was doing it’s best to get in on the action. A dingy place at the best of times but it was a bright Monday morning late in November – which made up for it. This also meant that Christmas was only just over four weeks away. Yay! That more than made up for it.

      How time flies since we were last here!

      Anyway the air-conditioned office was cool and quiet

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