Mud Lane Books

Stephen R Drage was born in the English midlands and remembers being entertained by the anecdotes about rural village life he heard growing up. These experiences inspired the Mud Lane book series, tales of comedy, nostalgia and charm seen through the eyes of a young boy.

Hot Heads.

What do a stolen policeman’s bicycle, a kidnapped pig, and a Gypsy attack have in common? The dysfunctional inhabitants of the small village of Great Biddington find out when plans for a local fete unravel, tearing apart the social fabric of its fragile community. Hot Heads is a charming, laugh-out-loud comedy about rural life in post-war England.

“Mr. Rolonzio would never be present at Church. In his life, Catholicism took a back seat to football.
Each Sunday the best football game of the week was televised, and although it did not start until much later in the day, the head of the Rolonzio household was going to take no chance that may lead to him missing a minute of this important event. He said that he felt God would understand, but I thought he was a little fanatical in this regard. My brother once heard him say that he thought Jesus must support Leeds United, since his robes were all white and the same color as the Leeds player’s uniforms, but this supposedly powerful following did not explain the team’s gradual slide down the first division following a recent string of defeats.”

Mountain Misery.

A Short story in the Mud Lane series. Follow the misadventures of a family holiday in North Wales. A hilarious, disaster filled diary of grief stricken hardship, bad weather and misfortune.

“Never again!” I remember him shouting the day he returned from the woods, limping and soaking wet, with the burns on his legs visible through the singed holes in his trousers, and angry red welts on his face arms and neck. As he sat down and consumed more tea and cigarettes than I had ever seen him do before, the disastrous story began to unfold. Apparently he had been swinging an axe to remove a particularly stubborn tree and in so doing dislodged a hornet’s nest. The hornets had viewed the destruction of their place of residence in a very unfavorable manner and attacked him with a determination and resolve seldom seen in woodland creatures. Luckily Dad had been able to seek refuge by jumping into the pungent smoke of a fire where he had been burning some brushwood. After proving his superiority over the winged aggressors by tolerating the flames and smoke longer than they could, he sprinted a short distance to a nearby lake and jumped in to extinguish his burning clothes. Despite his well planned strategy he received multiple hornet stings. He had also twisted his ankle as he exited the lake.”