Wirral authors Ian Sloan and Howard White contemplate their novels

Globe: Tell us about the background to your books

Ian: We began writing after my dad introduced us, when we were both drivers at Laird Street bus depot, in the old Merseybus days.

Howard: Showing our age now!

Ian: We're both huge Spike Milligan fans and had a mutual interest in writing comedy.

We had used our idea of Inspector Morose in a TV sitcom script, together with a lot of other characters, and got nowhere with them.

Globe: Hence the attempt with books ..

Ian: Howard had written a script, again for television, that had us both laughing rather more than is healthy; but it looked better, I thought, in story form.

It was a parody on a specific episode of Morse which, as is our usual style, quickly drifts away from the original storyline. That became eventually the first story in book one, Being Morose.

Globe: How many stories do you write per book?

Ian. We've written six per book.

Globe: Are they all parodies?

Howard: No, it's about 50/50. Some are completely original ideas, others are based somewhat loosely on the stories Colin Dexter wrote so well.

Ian: By co-incidence, both books have three parodies and three original works. All centred around the same characters.

Howard and Ian during recent book signing

Globe: Tell me more about your characters.

Howard: Not easy …

Ian: Alright, I will then. Our main character is Chief Inspector Endofleveldemon Morose.

Globe: A bit of a mouthful?

Ian: I always felt that in the original series, and in the books, too much was made of the mystery of Morse's first name. It was played as a big secret.

In reality, he worked with police detectives, how long could he keep his name a secret? If it had been a suspect keeping their name a secret, they would have found the name in no time. Tax records, employee files, NHS records.

Howard: We decided to get his name out of the way early in the first story. Morose thinks it’s a secret, but everyone knows it already.

Ian: We took the characters of Lewis, Max the pathologist, and Strange the superintendent, and gave them proper roles in the stories, but the rest of the characters are made up.

Howard: "Made up" as in, there is no parallel in the Colin Dexter novels, but we have based them very firmly on people we know.

Ian: That'll get them all paranoid! As Howard describes our stories in the intro to Being Morose, it all takes place in a Dystopian parallel version of Morse's Oxford.

Our Morose is an aggressive, antisocial drunk with no understanding of other people.

Howard: I really wanted to do a kind of, Inspector Morse meets Viz comic with a healthy measure of Spike Milligan, Mike Bentine and a lot of Tom and Jerry violence.

You know the sort of thing, people aren't really going to watch Tom and Jerry or the Roadrunner, and write letters of outrage about the decline in morals, and acceptance of violence in modern media, and how the world is going to end next week.

Globe: Have you any boundaries for the humour?

Howard: Yes. Very much so, in fact.

Ian: We wanted to avoid subjects that could really cause offence or upset. No racism, no sexism, no suffering, sadism, or actual physical violence.

Howard: ... But we kept all the bad language in.

Ian: Yes, we needed to keep it funny!

Globe: You seem very liberal in your insults.

Ian: Yes, but the insults are spread around all the characters, no one gets away. We're unkind to them all, in measures proportionate to their appearances.

Globe: Aren't you afraid of upsetting people?

Howard: We did an evening at West Kirby Library, last autumn, and I was a bit nervous about reading it out, swapping voices all the way, to total strangers; but, no one objected, in fact, they seemed to love it. That was a very good evening.

Globe: Book two, Raise a Glass to Inspector Morose, sees the development of the characters.

Howard: As far as we could, without losing the feeling of book one. I had wanted all along to give the 'trusty sergeant', Harris, a home life, and I think we have.

Morose, on the other hand, is relegated to living in a disused pillbox with a flock of crows.

Globe: Tell me more about Harris' family?

Ian. His wife accumulates a huge amount of money, his daughters solve a lot of the cases without moving from their rooms. They do, however, have difficulty with concepts like cooking, painting the house, and even using doors properly.

Howard: Other regulars include the superintendent, whom we’ve re christened "Weird" instead of Strange, a few more WPCs, a desk sergeant who never seems to go home, and an odd character called Constable White, who tries to be funny and everyone hates.

Globe: Where did that idea come from?

Howard: Me in real life, I think.

Globe: Ian, are you hidden away in the characters anywhere?

Ian: I like the idea of being Superintendent Weird. He's more than a little demonic and scares the living daylights out of people, much like me! I also have two horns and a forked tail.

Globe: Have you met with success?

Ian: As far as self – publishing goes, yes. We've had a very good set of reviews on Amazon, which is nice.

Howard: We've only had one returned in anger, with a complaint about the foul language, Which cheered me up no end.

Globe: You've got two books out, Being Morose and Raise a Glass to Inspector Morose, are there plans for any more?

Howard: We're halfway through book three. If people don't buy more of them, we'll be writing a fourth book, as well.

Ian: There's a secret hidden word in book 2, first person to find it will win £2,000!

Globe: Is that true?

Ian: No.

Globe: Where are the books available?

Ian: All on Amazon, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Being-Morose-Howard-White-ebook/dp/B01DJL2LIK https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=raise+a+glass+to+Inspector+Morose , Waterstones online and our one and only retail outlet – Higher Bebington Post Office, get in early to avoid the rush!

or direct from us via our website :- https://offensiveghosts.com/ or our Facebook page :- https://www.facebook.com/endofleveldmon.morose/

Globe: Do you have any disagreements when writing?

Ian: No.

Howard: Yes.

Globe: Can't you behave?

Ian: No.

Howard: No.

Globe: Thank you.