Carlisle’s The Kings Head, Crown and Mitre, St Bede's Church and Carlisle United all feature within a book which has been entered for one of literature’s most esteemed honours, the Booker Prize.
Carlisle native Peter Scholes’ Once Upon A Time There Was A Man follows a private investigator based in Lancashire whilst usually dealing with the mundane receives a request to find a man armed only with a birth certificate from 1929.
What follows is an unravelling journey which begins in the village of Prospect, near Wigton, before taking him ‘all over from Carlisle to New York’.
Peter, a former teacher now working as a driving instructor, will find out if he has made the longlist for the Booker Prize come June, with the winner announced in September alongside a £50,000 cash prize.
“I was dancing on the ceiling when I heard. I’d heard of the Booker Prize but I had no idea how prestigious it was. To be even considered is quite special,” Peter said.
“It’s set all over, but all my books are mostly set around Carlisle. Most of the characters are real people, friends, family and people I’ve worked with.”
Peter, who is a season ticket holder at Brunton Park alongside his daughter Jessica, self-published Once Upon A Time There Was A Man back in 2020.
However, after many submissions to publishers, his persistence paid off when the novel caught the attention of Veneficia Publications who have re-released it and kept it for submission to the prestigious prize this year.
“It’s almost impossible for new authors to get publishers.
"Luckily enough, this book is partly set in the South and it prompted them to look into it a bit more deeper.
“They all started reading it saying they got a bit of a wow factor from it,” he said.
Peter’s other books are also littered with nods to the city, such as With Every Breath which features real-life characters from Upperby and his novel One Last Waltz, centred around a fictional care home in Brampton.
He is currently in the process of finishing his next project, a semi-autobiographical exploration of his experiences as a fan of Carlisle United, The Place I Belong.
With contributions from fellow fans, including the News & Star’s Jon Colman, and the club itself, it is due to be released around May this year.
Once Upon A Time There Was A Man is available on Amazon, priced £20 (paperback) and £7 (Kindle).
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