Greg Stokes was born in Dudley in 1955. A chequered career has seen
Stokes ride shotgun for Dudley Co-op, work bars on Dudley Zoo, train
as a clinical chemist in Birmingham and ultimately develop and run a
specialist unit in Abu Dhabi that investigated infertility. His
return to the UK in 1985 held tragedy round the corner as his father
was murdered in the aftermath of the bombing of Libya by the US. In
1988 Stokes retrained as a social worker on Wearside and worked
through the grades to manage a busy children’s centre in Sandwell
before switching to community social work in Walsall. Stokes began
writing while in Leicester in the early 1980s. His first published
work was Black Country Stories and Sketches (1992), which continues to
sell steadily. This was followed by the much-acclaimed A Witness For
Peace (1994), which recounted the family’s fight for justice following
his father’s death. Tried By Prejudice (1999), his first published
novel, was based on his experiences of expatriate life in the Middle
East. The Gulf (2004), a collection of short stories, continued that
process. Two further collections of short stories have been published
since, Second City Stories (2006) set in Birmingham, and American
Toilet Tissue and Schrodinger’s Pussy (2011). The latter is a
collection of Stokes’ comedy. Two novels, A Pack Of Saftness (2004)
and Brierley Hills Cop (2008), a Kindle novella The Road to Number Ten
(2017), and three CDs, The Grant (2005), Doctor (2007) and Snowman II
(2017) complete his comedic output. Last Virion Standing – A Journey
to, Through and Beyond Hepatitis C was published in 2016.
In 2005 Stokes began live performances of his fiction at the
Alternative Black Country Night Out put on by the Creative
Co-operative of which he was a founder member along with Billy
Spakemon and Gary O’Dea. A second co-operative RoosterKateSpake was
formed when Stokes and Billy Spakemon were joined by Laurence Hipkiss
to promote spoken word performance in Dudley. Greg Stokes has
continued to support arts ventures in the Black Country acting for and
chairing Black Country Theatre as well providing the ticketing
platform for Lamp Tavern Live which puts on blues bands at the Lamp
Tavern in Dudley. Stokes presents the weekly Blues Show on Hope Radio
87.9FM.
Stokes has appeared on BBC Two’s Split Screen discussing media
intrusion, in several BBC One documentaries about the life of Lenny
Henry, and The Comedy Map of Britain. He has made numerous
appearances on Carl Chinn’s radio show on BBC WM. Other radio credits
include Saul Abner’s show on WCR, Jimmy Franks on WM, and Ian Henery
on Hope Radio.
Greg Stokes went back to clinical chemistry in 2003, initially
returning to City Hospital in Birmingham. He had a spell as a locum
at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital before joining Birmingham
Children’s Hospital in 2010 until he retired in 2013. He lives in
Dudley with his wife Anne.Authors Note to 2004 edition:
Although published in 2004, the stories in The Gulf were written
between 1984 and 1997. Some of the earlier stories contain language
that I would not use now. Alterations have not been made to the
original text to make to make them more ‘politically correct’ as the
alterations would be incorrect in five years time in the PC scheme of
things.
Author’s note to 2020 edition:
While the above is true in the sense that what is acceptable under
political correctness has changed, some amendments have been made to
the original text. These stories describe people from the Black
Country and from the British expatriate community of the UAE. Some of
these people are racists. The whole point of several of these tales is
to flag up the ignorance of racism. To remove the racists from these
tales would be to describe a couple of nonexistent places. These
racists exist, they are not the heroes, the reader should be able to
work that out for themselves. In the interests of modern day
sensibilities, the dialogue has in places been sanitised. The racists
remain very clearly as not the heroes. Sadly, despite modern day
sensibilities, I would suggest the racism is far worse in the Black
Country now in 2020 than it was in 2004, or indeed when these stories
were written.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
One night in 1984 I was to meet Yvette White for a drink in the Red
Lion “pub” in the Nihal Hotel in Abu Dhabi. She was late. While
waiting the thought came to me that I should write a collection of
short stories, half of them set in the Middle East, and half in the
English midlands. Over the years that collection has been added to
and these stories are the result.
As well as to Yvette, I am indebted to all those who shared my
“ex-pat” years, all of whom made contributions to these stories.
Particular mention should go to Gerry Jelenski, Mary Jelenski, Terry
Higgins, Ed Buller (An Eye For An Eye), Maureen Buller, Geraldine
Gribben (The Pot), Rob Elliott (The Pot), Ken Lanaghan, Paula Doherty,
Roy Richards (The Toffee Tin), Mary Fortune, Dave Tennant, George and
Nora Gray, Tony and Liz Alexander, Prof White, Yvette White, Sue
Martinez, Sandy Hume, Karen and Martin Clarke, Bev Frost, Pat
Corchoran, Jan Burgess, Ali, and Aziz. There are many more and I
apologise for omissions.
