A look at Roy Gough and his work

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I’d like to introduce you to the work of a new friend of mine, Roy Gough. I met him a few months ago when he came to one of my book signing sessions. We’ve been in contact several times since. He’s yet another author who lives on the Costa Blanca, Spain. The area seems to attract writers. Maybe it’s the water!


Roy was born in the Marches area at Leominster in Herefordshire where he lived until the age of sixteen.
Starting his professional career as a cadet in the Metropolitan Police in 1953, Roy went on to serve in the Military Police, the Metropolitan Police, then on to the Surrey Constabulary and finally the Bedfordshire Police.


Within these Forces, he gained experience in all departments including the Thames River Police, Traffic Department, CID, Internal Police Investigations and Management Consultancy, before retiring as a senior superintendent in 1986.

Roy now lives on the Costa Blanca in Spain. For more information on his book and other writings, visit http://www.emissarytothegods.com/


Emissary To The Gods



Shortly to be published by Libros International, this historical action novel describes the struggle by the Celts of Western Britain to survive Roman repression and links ‘Caratacus’ and ‘The Fox’ to this early crusade. Caratacus was the greatest of Celtic war-leaders, while The Fox was a high ranking Druid Priest who shared the same period in history and was sacrificed to the gods to beg them to stop the ethnic cleansing of Wales, the Marches and the Druid Order.


Fascinated by forts and people.

A Celt himself, Roy was born in the Marches area at Leominster in Herefordshire where he lived until the age of sixteen. As a boy he frequently wandered the hills surrounding this small market town and soon became aware of the necklace of earthwork forts around it. Fascinated by these forts and the people who lived in them so many years before, he eventually terminated his professional career in law enforcement and devoted himself to unraveling their secrets.



Cloak of mystery.

Describing himself as 'a student of Celtic history', Roy is the first to admit that the cloak of mystery that enveloped the early Celts has not been easy to unravel. Extensive police investigative experience, a natural ability to interpret obscure facts and participation in local historical and archaeological associations has, however, helped him in his work.


Although he initially intended to write a straightforward account of how the early Celts lived and survived Roman oppression, ‘fate’ continually forced the name of the greatest of Celtic war leaders upon him. This was ‘Caratacus’, who was even lauded in the song of Roy’s old school, Leominster Grammar.


Bannock bread

Whilst switching his concentration to Caratacus, fate again took a hand. In 1984, the perfectly preserved body of a man was found in a peat bog at Lindlow Moss near Manchester Airport, apparently killed around AD62 in a Druidic sacrificial way. A specially marked piece of bannock bread found in his stomach was believed to have been a lottery ticket that won him the honour of being sacrificed to the gods, while a fox fur armband worn by him suggested that he was a Celtic aristocrat known as The Fox. As his death coincided with the end of the blackest year in early British Celtic history, it is likely that he was dispatched to the gods to beg them to stop the Romans annihilating the British Celts.


Spiritual guide and adviser

With both Caratacus and The Fox living through the turbulent years of the Roman invasion of their lands they would have been well known to each other. In his story, Roy not only suggested a friendship between them, but placed The Fox in the position of spiritual guide and adviser to the great war-lord. As well as describing the pride and ecstasy of their personal lives and loves, the book also provides a window through which the horrors of Roman repression are witnessed.

• Roy, I hope loads of people give your story a read when it finally hits the market. It's a frustrating time waiting for your work to appear in print. Your book certainly does the business for me. I look forward to the publication date.
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• Next post, Allie Boniface.
• Bedlam.
• .