Members' News: Jonathan Nicholas

A varied life has already inspired three books, with more on the way
‘I self-published my first book, Hospital Beat, with Matador in Leicester,’ writes subscriber Jonathan Nicholas
‘It is a collection of true-life stories from the ten years I worked as a community police officer in a busy inner-city Midlands hospital. It is a celebration of multi-agency policing and the way my colleagues and I worked closely with the NHS staff and security to make the hospital campus a safe place for all staff, visitors, and patients alike.
‘I never thought about writing a book until I realised that I had unwittingly gathered together some very interesting subject matter, and enough to make quite a large collection of stories. Friends who were not connected with the police couldn’t believe I’d dealt with doctors who’d committed sexual offences against female colleagues, another doctor who came back on his day off to steal a huge television, and just how much the entire campus was targeted by local criminals. Parts of the hospital are also haunted and the book includes first hand testimony of some very strange paranormal incidents!
‘So one day I decided to sit down at my computer and I just started writing. With so much extraordinary source material to hand I soon had almost 75,000 words. I decided to classify the book as crime fiction in the same way Thomas Keneally classed his book Schindler’s Ark as a work of fiction, because it gave me greater freedom to experiment with the characters and incidents, even though as in Schindler’s Ark the vast majority of it is based on fact.
‘I am a great believer in the saying “write about what you know’ so I have written and released two further books since this one with another two on the way. Some people would say sitting at a desk for eight or more hours a day at a computer is boring, but not if there is a real passion for writing!’
Website: www.jonathannicholas.org.uk

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