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A Coach Load of Chaos

by Rob Sissons

197 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #07-2832; ISBN 1-4251-6209-6; US$16.17, C$16.17, EUR11.05, £8.35

Tour manager William gets even with his school bullies - by inviting them on holiday! A hilarious romp around France, featuring romance, revenge, cheap wine, bad coffee and vintage buses.

About the Book

William explained that the nave had round-headed arches and had been built by the Normans.

"Gee! We have them in the States, you know, at Salt Lake City," Mr Murray remarked to his wife.

"Honey, I think those are 'Mormons'. He said 'Normans'."

William Simpson has everything he wants in life except a girlfriend. He loves his job, guiding coach tours of France, but he has never forgotten his schooldays and the bullies, prefects and teachers who made his adolescence a misery.

One day his boss offers him ten complimentary places on his next tour. Rather than take his friends, William looks up his old enemies, and invites them on a free holiday none of them will ever forget. Remembering their personalities, interests and foibles, William is determined to get his revenge in a very special way!

At the same time our hero has to look after a motley group of real holidaymakers, maintain the Entente Cordiale in his dealings with French hoteliers, save his coach driver's marriage and find out if he really is falling in love with his boss's bus-mad secretary - or she with him?

As Tour F443/07 wends its way through rural France, William wonders whether any of his victims will recognise him, and whether they will make it back home! While his passengers fill up on vin ordinaire, he discovers new uses for a Norwegian Tourist Board video and an old halfpenny.

A hilarious story about romance, money, revenge, cheap wine, bad coffee and an AEC Regent V with Park Royal bodywork.

Reviews

When ten spare seats become available on 'Scenic Delights of France', tour rep William Simpson decides it is time to seek revenge on his old boarding school French teacher and fellow Junior Common Room colleagues; managing to trick them into believing they have won a free week's holiday in France. It is during the tour that, whilst ensuring all goes well for his normal holiday makers William provides some unpleasant surprises for the others. Cheap wine, unpleasant coffee, attempted seduction and arrest are just some of his underhand plans.

The book is wittily written, and has a carefully plotted yarn. Author Rob Sissons takes the reader by coach through France, stopping off at the less salubrious hotel chains and visitor attractions. Sissons has a comic eye for characterisation as the wimpish William becomes a tour de force agains his arch-foes; however, at the same time managing to take compassion on septuagenarian Miss Crosbie who manages to lose herself and a bedroom door!

Meanwhile back in London the fey Helena Rogers (with her Beatrix Potter duvet) find she is falling in love with William as their romance develops through the many telex messages he needs to send to Head Office.

This is a jolly romp of innocence through France and rural Kent cleverly entwined with schoolboy humour and a laugh in every line. It is well researched and the reader will be left with aching sides and a knowledge of buses and coaches into the bargain!

Barbara Turner
Travellers News, October 2008

As part of my paperback fest this holiday, I have very much enjoyed reading A Coach Load of Chaos. Its author, Rob Sissons, very kindly sent me a copy of this, his first novel, inspired by his experiences as a coach tour guide.

Anybody who has been on, or indeed booked, a coach tour will instantly relate to the environment described in Rob's book and the detail that comes from an insider's experience lends the events a veracity.

With an offbeat love story (did you know love can blossom in the London Transport Museum or that an interesting chassis can keep a couple together?) and a plot encompassing school days and adult revenge, A Coach Load of Chaos is an admirable debut and a reminder of just how much creative talent is knocking about in the industry.

Maureen Hill
Travel Weekly, 28 August 2008

Guiding coach parties around Europe has given Rob Sissons a lot of happy memories and it also inspired his first book.

But it was the headaches, hold-ups and downsides of foreign travel, rather than its joys, that spawned A Coach Load of Chaos.

The story follows William, a tour manager who is offered the chance to fill 10 complimentary spaces on his next tour. Instead of inviting friends or family, he hits upon the perfect way to wreak revenge on his childhood bullies. Read more…

Kent Saturday Observer
8 October 2008

About the Author

Rob Sissons was born in Kent and has lived in the county for most of his life. He came to creative writing at an extremely young age; his first "book", Lambkin and the Men with Guns, was written on the day of President Kennedy's assassination: Rob's mother supplied him with crayons and sheets of scrap paper to keep him occupied during a family dinner-party while the grown-ups were watching the news from Dallas on television! He often wonders whether he is the youngest person who can recall that particular day.

After studying French and English literature at University, Rob spent two years teaching English abroad and several years working as a tour manager taking tourists around Europe. He has subsequently worked as a copywriter for one of the UK's leading tour operators, and has had articles and poetry published in a number of magazines. He originally planned to write a book about his experiences on the road, but decided that some of them were so incredible that no-one would believe them. Some real-life incidents, however, later found their way into A Coach Load of Chaos.

Rob lives on the Kent coast, within sight of the English Channel, less than a mile from the former home of H G Wells, one of his heroes. He is a qualified Blue Badge guide for London and South-East England, and his hobbies include travel, vintage transport, collecting things and swimming - occasionally with dolphins! A Coach Load of Chaos is his first novel.