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    Douglas the Dragon: Omnibus Edition
    Douglas the Dragon: Omnibus Edition
    Douglas the Dragon: Omnibus Edition
    Ebook133 pages2 hours

    Douglas the Dragon: Omnibus Edition

    By William Forde

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    ‘Douglas the Dragon’ symbolises ‘the power of love.’ A young orphaned dragon is found and adopted by a young boy and becomes a much-loved dragon in the village. When the boy is killed by a volcano, the dragon is eventually evicted from the community. The dragon spends 50 years in exile sitting upon his volcano of hate and getting angrier and angrier- until his anger explodes and he seeks revenge.

    Old age and death are stages in a person’s life that all children find difficult concepts to understand, but this is eased considerably when ‘death’ is associated with the concept of ‘rebirth.’ At a time of separation, bereavement or loss, children become more isolated, non-communicative and vulnerable. Allow Douglas to help them ‘live again’ through his own experiences of illness and near death.

    Douglas negotiates the life stages of being orphaned, adopted, accepted, loved, rejected, feared, outcast, reformed and then made redundant. He leaves his beloved village and past to seek a new way of life, and finds an angry female dragon whom he eventually changes with his love, returns to his beloved village, marries her and starts a family of baby dragons.

    By 1971, I had founded the process upon which all ‘Anger Management’ groups would thereafter follow and freely gave this knowledge to the world. Within the space of two years, ‘Anger Management’ (a phrase that I coined), had mushroomed across the English speaking world.
    After 25 years of researching and specialising in Anger Management, Relaxation Training, Behaviour Modification and Stress Management, I started writing children’s books. My primary purpose of writing for children was to convey to them through my books, the basic principles of ‘Anger Management.’

    The expression of ‘Anger’ by a child is a natural and healthy process that ought not be discouraged by adults. When a child expresses anger, the adult is alerted to the fact that something is wrong, but the repression (non-expression) of anger by a child conceals personal hurt and a degree of emotional disturbance, which could lead to them feeling ‘unloved.’

    The most popular of all my children’s books have been the four stories of ‘Douglas the Dragon.’ They have been publicly read in thousands of Yorkshire Schools between 1990 and 2005.Numerous teachers have used them to help children come to terms with the emotional upset that moving house, changing schools, being separated from part of one’s family, bereavement of loved ones or being excluded from community activities can produce. Child Psychologists, Educational Welfare Officers and Trauma Therapists also used the stories to help abused children express their righteous anger, thereby enabling the progression of their emotional development through the facilitation of healthy expression.

    The central themes of the ‘Douglas the Dragon’ stories evolve around the issues of Anger, Fear, Love, Separation, Bereavement, Second Chances, Effect of Exclusion and the unwelcome experience Sudden Change can produce. Indeed, the late Princess Diana once phoned me when Princes William and Harry were aged around 9 years and 7 years, and asked that I send her a copy of ‘Douglas the Dragon’ along with a copy of ‘Sleezy the Fox’ so that she may read them to her children at bedtime.

    There is a two-headed dragon that lives in the heart of every man, woman and child; a ‘Dragon of Anger’ and a ‘Dragon of Love.’ Both dragons compete for the control of our thoughts, feelings and actions, but only one of them can be victorious. The ‘Dragon of Anger’ will destroy you unless you evict it from your body in the form of healthy expression. We cannot get the ‘Dragon of Anger’ out of our bodies until we allow in the ‘Dragon of Love.’

    The ability to express the ‘Dragon of Love’ through our thoughts, words and deeds will lead us on to increased self-acceptance, greater happiness, improved health and personal freedom; bringing us closer to our true selves, our

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWilliam Forde
    Release dateJan 26, 2012
    ISBN9781465709455
    Douglas the Dragon: Omnibus Edition
    Author

    William Forde

    William Forde was born in Ireland and currently lives in Haworth, West Yorkshire with his wife Sheila. He is the father of five children and the author of over 60 published books and two musical plays. Approximately 20 of his books are suitable for the 7-11 year old readers while the remainder are suitable for young persons and adults. Since 2010, all of his new stories have been written for adults under his 'Tales from Portlaw' series of short stories. His website is www.fordefables.co.uk on which all his miscellaneous writings may be freely read. There are also a number of children's audio stories which can be freely heard.He is unique in the field of contemporary children's authors through the challenging emotional issues and story themes he addresses, preferring to focus upon those emotions that children and adults find most difficult to appropriately express.One of West Yorkshire's most popular children's authors, Between 1990 and 2002 his books were publicly read in over 2,000 Yorkshire school assemblies by over 800 famous names and celebrities from the realms of Royalty, Film, Stage, Screen, Politics, Church, Sport, etc. The late Princess Diana used to read his earlier books to her then young children, William and Harry and Nelson Mandela once telephoned him to praise an African story book he had written. Others who have supported his works have included three Princesses, three Prime Ministers, two Presidents and numerous Bishops of the realm. A former Chief Inspector of Schools for OFSTED described his writing to the press as 'High quality literature.' He has also written books which are suitable for adults along with a number of crossover books that are suitable for teenagers and adults.Forever at the forefront of change, at the age of 18 years, William became the youngest Youth Leader and Trade Union Shop Steward in Great Britain. In 1971, He founded Anger Management in Great Britain and freely gave his courses to the world. Within the next two years, Anger Management courses had mushroomed across the English-speaking world. During the mid-70's, he introduced Relaxation Training into H.M. Prisons and between 1970 and 1995, he worked in West Yorkshire as a Probation Officer specialising in Relaxation Training, Anger Management, Stress Management and Assertive Training Group Work.He retired early on the grounds of ill health in 1995 to further his writing career, which witnessed him working with the Minister of Youth and Culture in Jamaica to establish a trans-Atlantic pen-pal project between 32 primary schools in Falmouth, Jamaica and 32 primary schools in Yorkshire.William was awarded the MBE in the New Year's Honours List of 1995 for his services to West Yorkshire. He has never sought to materially profit from the publication of his books and writings and has allowed all profit from their sales (approx £200,000) to be given to charity. Since 2013, he was diagnosed with CLL; a terminal condition for which he is currently receiving treatment.In 2014, William had his very first 'strictly for adult' reader's novel puiblished called‘Rebecca’s Revenge'. This book was first written over twenty years ago and spans the period between the 1950s and the New Millennium. He initially refrained from having it published because of his ‘children’s author credentials and charity work’. He felt that it would have conflicted too adversely with the image which had taken a decade or more to establish with his audience and young person readership. Now, however as he approaches the final years of his life and cares less about his public image, besides no longer writing for children (only short stories for adults since 2010), he feels the time to be appropriate to publish this ‘strictly for adults only’ novel alongside the remainder of his work.In December 2016 he was diagnosed with skin cancer on his face and two weeks later he was diagnosed with High-grade Lymphoma (Richter’s Transformation from CLL). He was successfully treated during the first half of 2017 and is presently enjoying good health albeit with no effective immune system.

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      Book preview

      Douglas the Dragon - William Forde

      Douglas the Dragon

      Omnibus Edition

      By

      William Forde

      Illustrations by Dave Bradbury

      Copyright December, 2016 by William Forde

      Revised April 2017

      E-book Edition

      E-book Edition, License Notes

      Thank you for downloading this e-book. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Author’s Foreword

      As so often in life, learning best comes from our most traumatic experiences. Almost sixty-two years ago, as a young boy of twelve, I was run over by a large wagon and received multiple injuries. My parents were told that I’d never walk again. For three years following my accident, a spinal injury prevented me from feeling any signs of life below my waist. The predominant emotions I experienced during this period were ‘Anger’ and ‘Fear’: intense ‘Anger’ at what had happened to me and ‘Fear’ of the inevitable consequences of never walking again. In time,

      ‘Anger and Fear’ consumed me. I stopped loving myself and felt unable to ‘Love’ others.

      During the remainder of my teenage years, and aided by prayer and the practising of numerous eastern disciplines, my ability to walk returned. There was no medical explanation for this at the time. While being unable to pin point the precise cause of this seemingly miraculous recovery, I had, nevertheless, stumbled across the bodily correlation between ‘Fear, Anger, and Love’ without realising it at the time, and how the malfunctioning of these three emotions govern our behaviour and shape our response patterns.

      In later life, as a Probation Officer serving in West Yorkshire, I found that my professional training left me ill-equipped to help many recidivists change their offending behaviour. After analysing the behavioural response patterns of 600 offenders, I found that the three human emotions of ‘Fear, Anger, and Love’, and in particular, the inability to appropriately express these emotions, constituted the core of their general unhappiness, dissatisfaction and offending behaviour.

      Remembering my own childhood experiences and my re-discovery of the behavioural correlation between ‘Fear, Anger and Love’, I abandoned the traditional Probation Officer method of working with offenders and, instead, constructed a group programme of work that I used thereafter.

      For the following 24 years, I operated hundreds of these group programmes with all ages of mixed sex in Probation Offices, Hostels, Prisons, Hospitals, Educational Establishments, Psychiatric Wings, and Community Halls. These were the very first ‘Anger Management’ programmes operated in Great Britain. I’m proud to say that many similar group programmes have mushroomed in Europe, America and across the English-speaking world ever since.

      The principle of all successful Anger Management work has three essential stages at the heart of its process; a process of which I am the original founder, and which I freely gave to the world in 1972:

      (1) Learn how to face and confront our ‘Fears.’

      (2) Learn how to manage and appropriately express our ‘Anger.’

      (3) Learn how to ‘Love’ ourselves so that we can be enabled to ‘Love’ others and sustain the changes in our lives we need to make our responses more appropriate and less problematic.

      Fighting for the heart of every man, woman and child are two symbolic dragons; a ‘Dragon of Anger’ and a ‘Dragon of Love.’ These two dragons fight for the supremacy of control over one’s behaviour; what one thinks, feels and does. However, they cannot co-exist within one heart and body. To expel the ‘Dragon of Anger’ from our heart we must first invite in the ‘Dragon of Love.’

      Douglas the Dragon symbolizes ‘The Power of Love.’ He teaches one that only by climbing one’s ‘Hill of Fear’ and expressing one’s love through what one thinks, feels and does, can one rid oneself of one’s ‘Hill of Anger’.

      During the 90’s, the late Princess Diana contacted me and requested that I send her a copy of ‘Douglas the Dragon’ to read to her young children, Princes William and Harry when they were aged between 7 and 9 years old. It pleases me to know that the next King of England and his brother had my stories read to him during their early years of life. It also pleases me to know that until her death, Princess Diana, believed in ‘The Power of Love’ and used it at every opportunity.

      During the new Millennium, because of my long-standing association with Anger Management, the National Lottery funded the production of ‘Douglas the Drag-on: Musical Play’. This play accompanied by the original songs for it and their lyrics can be freely accessed through my website, along with the four original stories of ‘Douglas’, which were professionally recorded in audio form, specifically for children whose reading ability or eyesight is poor.

      The ‘Douglas Dragon Musical Play’ is capable of being performed by children, young adults and even mixed theatrical drama groups of both children and adults combined. It can be freely downloading from my website by accessing http://www.fordefables.co.uk/douglas-the-dragon.html

      William Forde, December, 2016

      Contents

      Author’s Foreword

      Book One: ‘Douglas the Unloved Dragon’

      Book Two: ‘Douglas the Dragon gets Angry Again’

      Book Three: ‘Douglas Gets the Sneezes’

      Book Four: ‘Douglas and Desmorelda’

      Author's Background

      Other Books by this Author

      For the general audience

      Romantic Drama

      Connect with William Forde

      Book One: ‘Douglas the Unloved Dragon’

      Our story begins long, long ago when dragons roamed the world and wizards were the masters of all that they surveyed. This was a time when the forces of ‘Good and Evil’ were in constant struggle; a time when war was waged between the human emotions of Fear, Anger, and Love. The prize at stake was the greatest prize of all: control of the heart, mind and actions of every man, woman, and child.

      One mile, beyond the ‘Village of Marfield’, the hero of our story (a baby dragon), was being born through a slit in its mother’s stomach. Such entry into the world is known as a Caesarean birth. One half hour before its birth, a wicked wizard had slit the mother dragon’s stomach open with a knife and killed it. The wicked wizard believed that if he drank the warm blood of a female dragon that he’d killed with his own hands, he’d live forever.

      After the wicked wizard had drunk the warm blood of the female dragon he’d killed, he left the scene. He didn’t know that the female dragon was a pregnant dragon, and was due to give birth. Shortly after, a baby dragon was born through the slit in its mother’s stomach and it crawled into the nearby grassland. For the first few hours of its existence, the baby dragon’s eyelids were stuck and it couldn’t yet see the world into which it had been born. It only had its nose to guide it in those first few hours of life. It could smell two different aromas. One was the stench of death close by, and the other was the smell of life that came from the direction of a nearby village. So, choosing life over death, the baby dragon followed its nose through the long grass towards the ‘Village of Marfield’.

      ~~~~~

      Meanwhile, a young boy called Douglas and his widowed mother who lived in Marfield Village were having a friendly dispute.

      Go on, Mum. I’ll not be too long. Please let me go to the long grass and look for frogs, Douglas pleaded with his mother.

      Okay, relented Douglas’s mother. You can visit the long grass, but you must collect a loaf before you come home as we’re out of bread. And, whatever you see on your travels, my boy, you leave it there. You don’t bring it back home with you! We’re overrun with your stray animals. We’ve already got two cats, four dogs, a three-legged pony, a poorly goose and a white rat. And only last week you tried to sneak a frog with a broken leg into your bedroom!

      Oh, thank you, Mum. Thank you! Thank you! And thank you! You’re the best mum in the whole wide world. I won’t forget the bread, Mum, Douglas said gleefully as he started to run off.

      Douglas set out on his afternoon travels and after an hour he came across a creature crawling through the long grass in search of food and water. As the boy approached this strange-looking creature, he could sense that it was unable to see. Its large eyelids remained firmly closed and the skin that covered its body bore the wrinkles of something newborn.

      The boy, who loved all manner of animals, had never seen anything quite like it before. It had the build and size of a baby crocodile, the face of a camel, the wings of a buzzard and the legs of a giant-sized turkey. The skin across its chest was pulled tight in regimented lines; giving it the look of an armoured breastplate worn by centurions during the time of the Roman Empire. Most of its body was coloured green, apart from its spiky mane; which stretched from the base of the creature’s neck to the tip of its long tapering tail. The only sound it made came in the form of short snorts from the two large nostrils in the centre of its face.

      Hello there, fella, the boy said, as he gently picked up the creature to give it a cuddle. You’re a strange-looking creature if ever I saw one! You’re gorgeous, fella; simply gorgeous. I’d love to take you back home with me, but I can’t, fella, as mum would never allow it. She already says that I’ve got too many animals.

      As the boy cradled the creature in his arms, it opened its eyes for the very first time in its life, looked at Douglas and snorted loudly. This was the first time that the creature had

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