There are loads of new short stories in More Ports More Storms, my second book of the Zander Trilogy, and I wanted to share with you one such story which involved  Zander, many years before he got involved in Sailing.

How much is Fiction, I will allow the reader to decide, but let me say that I was there and have the T-shirt to prove it!

In the late 1960’s, Zander was training to be a Chartered Engineer and was required to work at a place called Harthill, where construction was underway to create the first Motorway Service Station in Scotland. It would service the traffic for the M8 Motorway between Edinburgh and Glasgow. The main M8 construction took place between 1965 and 1972 and to this day is the busiest route in the country.

One of Zander’s jobs, was to manage the explosives on site. These were used to blast the earth and rocks to make way for the heavy mechanical diggers to continue the road planning.

The story goes on to describe how Zander became friends with a site worker, who introduced him to his sister and therefore made life more bearable – as working on a construction site during all weathers, with nothing but mud and the noise of men and machines to keep you company, is no fun at all.

His new  found friend, unknown to Zander, was up to no good with explosives, and Zander unwittingly becomes involved with Jewellery robberies.

A robbery at a Jewellers, using explosives from his watch?

How could this be, as Zander personally counted all the contents of the explosives cupboard every day.

With all stories involving Zander, nothing is ever as it seems!

The outcome was that his ‘friend’ was using him, and pretending that the sister liked him, while all this time, the ‘friend’ was planning robberies using the Site explosives to open safes.

Zander all along had though that the sister was actually attracted to him for his ‘intelligence, humour and good looks’!

But that is what makes the Zander stories so much fun.

Taken from p24, Out with a Bang, in More Ports More Storms.