Overview
The author’s works have been praised by numerous celebrities; the most notable being Nelson Mandela who described his African stories as ‘Wonderful’, the late Princess Diana who used to read the Douglas Dragon stories to the Princes William and Harry when they were aged 9 and 7 years, and a former Chief Inspector of Schools for Ofsted, who described the author’s writing to the press as being ‘High quality literature.’
As the founder of Anger Management in Great Britain during the early 70s, William Forde freely gave his anger management knowledge to the world and within a matter of a few years; ‘Anger Management’ groups mushroomed across the English speaking world. After founding the process of Anger Management, William Forde spent 25 years researching his work with both offenders and non-offenders, with aggressive and non-assertive response pattern types and with adults and young people who displayed ‘involuntary response patterns’ of excessive ‘anger’ or ‘fear’.
For 25 years, William Forde worked as a Probation Officer with The West Yorkshire Probation Service, during which time he operated his ‘Anger Management’ programmes in Probation Offices, Hostels, Hospitals, Prisons, Educational Establishments and Community Halls. His work in this area brought high success and national acclaim in his area of specialism.
By the time he retired as a Probation Office he had established a growing interest of working with children who displayed problems with Anger Management, along with difficulty in processing and expressing other emotionally disturbing emotions such as bereavement, loss, jealousy, bullying, and an inability to possess positive self-regard and love, etc. etc.
He became an author in 1989 and initially wrote books for young children that focused upon themes which involved dealing with the type of emotions his 25 years' experience as a Probation Officer had identified as creating emotional disturbance and inappropriate behavioural responses when not processed or healthily expressed. In short, he was using the medium of 'story telling' to openly and covertly acquaint his readership with ‘Anger Management’ principles and appropriate behavioural change.
From the many books that he has written for child, young person and adult, his most popular has been the Douglas the Dragon stories, which have been published and republished many times since 1990 and which the next King of England had read to him as a young boy by his mother.
Douglas the Dragon symbolises ‘The Power of Love’, which exists in all of us. There lives within the heart of every man, woman and child, two dragons: one is a ‘Dragon of Love’ and the other is a ‘Dragon of Anger’. Both dragons find it impossible to co-exist within the same heart and they are therefore in constant battle to be sole occupant and to control the thoughts, feelings and actions of the body they inhabit. If you want the ‘Dragon of Love’ to occupy your heart, you must evict the ‘Dragon of Anger’ from it. Only by putting ‘Anger’ out can one put ‘Love’ in! This previous sentence essentially represents the totality of 60+ years' learning for me! William Forde January 2012.
The five songs that accompany this musical play and their backing tracks can be freely downloaded from www.fordefables.co.uk/audio-downloads.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940033042500 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | William Forde |
| Publication date: | 02/08/2012 |
| Sold by: | Smashwords |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 1 MB |
| Age Range: | 5 - 11 Years |
About the Author
William Forde was born in Ireland and currently lives in Haworth, West Yorkshire with his wife Sheila. He is the father of five children and the author of over 60 published books and two musical plays. Approximately 20 of his books are suitable for the 7-11 year old readers while the remainder are suitable for young persons and adults. Since 2010, all of his new stories have been written for adults under his 'Tales from Portlaw' series of short stories. His website is www.fordefables.co.uk on which all his miscellaneous writings may be freely read. There are also a number of children's audio stories which can be freely heard. He is unique in the field of contemporary children's authors through the challenging emotional issues and story themes he addresses, preferring to focus upon those emotions that children and adults find most difficult to appropriately express. One of West Yorkshire's most popular children's authors, Between 1990 and 2002 his books were publicly read in over 2,000 Yorkshire school assemblies by over 800 famous names and celebrities from the realms of Royalty, Film, Stage, Screen, Politics, Church, Sport, etc. The late Princess Diana used to read his earlier books to her then young children, William and Harry and Nelson Mandela once telephoned him to praise an African story book he had written. Others who have supported his works have included three Princesses, three Prime Ministers, two Presidents and numerous Bishops of the realm. A former Chief Inspector of Schools for OFSTED described his writing to the press as 'High quality literature.' He has also written books which are suitable for adults along with a number of crossover books that are suitable for teenagers and adults. Forever at the forefront of change, at the age of 18 years, William became the youngest Youth Leader and Trade Union Shop Steward in Great Britain. In 1971, He founded Anger Management in Great Britain and freely gave his courses to the world. Within the next two years, Anger Management courses had mushroomed across the English-speaking world. During the mid-70's, he introduced Relaxation Training into H.M. Prisons and between 1970 and 1995, he worked in West Yorkshire as a Probation Officer specialising in Relaxation Training, Anger Management, Stress Management and Assertive Training Group Work. He retired early on the grounds of ill health in 1995 to further his writing career, which witnessed him working with the Minister of Youth and Culture in Jamaica to establish a trans-Atlantic pen-pal project between 32 primary schools in Falmouth, Jamaica and 32 primary schools in Yorkshire. William was awarded the MBE in the New Year's Honours List of 1995 for his services to West Yorkshire. He has never sought to materially profit from the publication of his books and writings and has allowed all profit from their sales (approx £200,000) to be given to charity. Since 2013, he was diagnosed with CLL; a terminal condition for which he is currently receiving treatment. In 2014, William had his very first 'strictly for adult' reader's novel puiblished called‘Rebecca’s Revenge'. This book was first written over twenty years ago and spans the period between the 1950s and the New Millennium. He initially refrained from having it published because of his ‘children’s author credentials and charity work’. He felt that it would have conflicted too adversely with the image which had taken a decade or more to establish with his audience and young person readership. Now, however as he approaches the final years of his life and cares less about his public image, besides no longer writing for children (only short stories for adults since 2010), he feels the time to be appropriate to publish this ‘strictly for adults only’ novel alongside the remainder of his work. In December 2016 he was diagnosed with skin cancer on his face and two weeks later he was diagnosed with High-grade Lymphoma (Richter’s Transformation from CLL). He was successfully treated during the first half of 2017 and is presently enjoying good health albeit with no effective immune system.