I am a retired company director and I was born and reared in Irishtown Dublin in 1935 and with nothing to do I took to research and writing for a hobby, My first interest was in researching and recording the history of my ancestors, a task that is ongoing to this very day and my second interest is in recalling memories of time past, ie "going to the pictures and or speedway on a Sunday afternoon". and from the latter two interests, I have managed to write and self-publish four books. Two on the history of old Dublin cinemas and two on the history of Speedway .
My work is "a labour of love"and not a money making opportunity, {were it a money making exercise, I would have been better off packing the shelves of supermarkes for less than the minimum wage.
However I do manage to cover costs and that is my only real need. However overseas postal carges are crippling and are a major obstacle to oversseas sales. I e. posting a copy of my book to any European address outside of Ireland is a whacking €7.50 and to the rest of the world, i.e Australia and America the cost rises to €10.40, so my sales so far to the rest of the world are somewhat limited.
However again, I am now trying to overcome that obststacle by way of package deals, please see new "Buy Books"which I will construct quite soon and definately before July 17,2010.
Ross Garrigan of Brisbane, Australian a most well known writer and reseacher on the history of speedway,verly kindly posted the following on the "Speedway History Forum" and I quote as follows.
This week I received in the post a copy of George Kearns' new book {some 65 pages in lenght} "Speedway History Revisited: The Early Years 1896-1928. Thanks to George for sending it to me.
George first emailed me several years ago when he was researching for his book "A History of Speedway: The Dublin Experience"
This new offering contains some fascinating reading. In the section on pre 1928 motorcycle racing in Australia, George devotes considerable pages to discussing the Hoskins/Maitland Showground topic. I have never previously seen so much material documented on this topic in the one publication.
At the start of the book George makes the comment. "I make no claims in this booklet but simply present the facts and observations that resulted from my research..."
What impresses me is the way George went about his research. If he wanted information he couldn't uncover himself, he left no stone unturned to find people who could provide him with what he required.
I am fairly certain George is a member of this forum.
Terry Pattison, a serious Dublin Speedway enthusiast from Dun Laoghaire, who still crosses the water to attend major event meetings in England, writes, "Your books are excellent George"
Des Kerins, also from Dublin is not only a Speedway enthusiast, but he also enjoys great memories of old Dublin cinemas as his mother once worked in the old Tivoli cinema that once adorned Burgh Quay just off O'Connell Street Dublin and the Queens Theatre in Pearse Street and his fathers last post was as manager of the Fairview cinema, Dublin
Des also entains form memories of Speedway in Dublin's Shelbourne Park, where as a teenager he would pedal his way down to Shelboirne Park from Inchicore to await the arrival of the riders and their bikes on a open lorry from the Ferryport at Dun Laoghaire and his thrill of the day would be to have the honour of pushing one of those bikes down as fars as the pits area. He also attended meeting in the Chapeizod Stadium and Santry Stadium, where he often met up with Mike Tams.
When this work was finished , the riders took the bus to town and when they arrived back they each had large bags of tinned food, which Des believes was still under ration in Britain in the beginning of the 1950 era.
Des has read all my books and only last week he emailed me with the above fond memories and to thank me for all the wonderful memories he gained from the reading of same.
Brian Lear who supplied me with a lot of information on speedway racing in New South Wales, emailed recently to say that he had just finished reading my book and that he felt I had covered the Hoskins issue with great accuracy and that he loved my style of letting the newspaper reports tell the story. I don't think, he wrote, that anyone could dispute the facts as you have presented them. and praise from Brian is praise indeed.
