Welcome to CJSidwell, a marketplace for the original works of CJ  Sidwell and SJ Mayo

My Grandad, Sydney, knew a lot about everything. He’d been a gunner in the First World War and had stories to tell.  After the war Grandad corresponded with a German he’d met and wrote letters to him on his old typewriter. He also wrote letters to the Coventry Evening Telegraph about every subject under the Sun.

He’d met Agatha Christie and corresponded with Gracie Fields about growing Aspidistra. He shared with Gracie his secret which was watering the plants with cold tea.

Grandad had met the, then, Prime Minister Harold Wilson at the Scilly Islands and the pair corresponded for many years. He even arranged for Harold to attend a home match between Sydney'Sydney's  team Coventry City and Wilson’s team Huddersfield Town.

Grandad Sydney was married to my Father Ted’s Mum, Carrie who was very quiet and struggled to get a word in edgeways.

Carrie’s Uncle was the local artist Sydney John Bunney who was quite famous but was something of an enigma. Bunney had passed away long ago in 1928 and there were no family photographs of that side of the family.

Even my Grandad, Sydney, knew very little about Sydney John Bunney but it became clear that he wasn’t alone. 

Then, in 2000 came a book, ‘Sydney Bunney’s Coventry impressions of a graceful city’ and that showed that it wasn’t just my Grandad, Sydney, that knew very little about Sydney John Bunney.

This project began as research into my family tree but ended as a book about my mysterious great, great Uncle the artist Sydney John Bunney…

When I was growing up my favorite author was John Wyndham and I loved his 'Day of the Triffids' which I first read on holiday aged about 15. I later came to his wonderful short Science Fiction stories.

Around that time there was a delightful television program called, 'Tales along the river banks'. These tales involved the adventures of real-life little mammals like hamsters sailing down the river in little boats. I have alway loved rivers and I love estuaries even more because when they grow up thats what rivers become.

In Coventry we have 2 rivers. The Sherbourne River flows under the city and comes out near where we live and the River Sowe flows even nearer to us. When I say 'us' I am referring to my 2 old school friends Simon and David. Every Sunday, sometimes other days, we 3 walk up and down Coventry's 2 rivers. We have done this from before the Covid 'Lockdowns' and we still do the walks to this day.

We walk for exercise obviously but for our mental health too. Men don't really talk about things like that unless they have something to do together that allows them time to talk of course. We talk about all sorts of strange things sometimes and some of those things gave me ideas for short stories.

This is a set of 6 short Science Fiction stories plus a Novella that I started writing in 2011. The novella story is set in a school like the one I worked in at that time. The school in the story is near a river and all of these stories are set near , or in one case in, a river. 

These are, 'Tales from along the river banks'.

Christopher Sidwell - Author - May 2026