The Naked Cossack

About the Book

Fate decreed that the Cossack survived the incidents that happened to him and the dangerous situations he was in during the war years. His memories of those days of war gave him many years of struggle to survive the onslaughts from the Bolshevik elements from within the division he had fought with during the fight against the hordes of Yugoslav and Italian partisans.

The English officer who found the Cossack, befriended him, and afterwards married his sister after searching with her to find her brother in Austria. The story takes so many twists and turns and visits so many beautiful countries in winter and in summer.

Amsel, the Cossack’s arch enemy, a Yugoslav partisan, and leader of a large group of men who had decided that they must seek out and destroy all Cossacks in their area, unfortunately, the Naked Cossack was one of the many that they sought, because a minority of the Bolsheviks had found out about the Cossack Andrei’s close association with the Tsar and Tsarina’s great wealth, after their assassination.

This dangerous mission was passed on to him, and his sister, after the assassination of their own father. Andrei the Cossack owed much to the British officer, Captain Hugh MacDonald who had befriended him throughout the bitterness between the Yugoslav and Italian Partisans, to ultimately find that the Cossacks’ most dangerous enemy was the Bolsheviks.

About the Author

Clifford, in his early days, suffered set backs to his health. He was sent to a Sanatorium: The Berks and Bucks, as it was known then. The time came to return home, it was unbelievable that he arrived home he had quite forgotten what his parents looked like.

The years rolled by, and the 1930s came and Clifford found himself, like thousands of other young men, having to prepare himself for the bitter struggle that was coming against Adolf Hitler. This was one of his biggest challenges, for he had left school with very little education due to the health problems. He had great difficulty writing, but this did not deter him.

He found that he was able to compensate for his education loss, by burying himself in books. His enquiring mind taught him if he came upon a word he didn’t understand, to enquire what the word meant, and how to pronounce it.

Clifford’s family was a typical Yorkshire family. His father had served in the booking office on the railways, and later became a steelworker in the local steelworks (Sammy Fox’s as the firm was known). There was a coal mine at what was always called the top end of the steelworks. Clifford’s two elder brothers worked down in the pit until they too joined the steelworks. His elder sister gave some of her time to working in Blackpool in the early thirties.

The younger sister, Madaleine, who had suffered meningitis in her early years, gave the brothers and sisters a sense of wonderment. She could only write her name backwards, as with anything else, time healed this, and she slowly recovered to resume her normal life style. Clifford moved to the south of England in the 1960s, his driving skills had over the years become professional which gave him a feeling of exhilaration on being posted to driving many of the Royal family and V.I.P.’s. The excitement of following a police escort as they sped to the next rendezvous, to be there not a minute too soon, nor a minute too late.

Clifford then moved to Derbyshire where he began his writing.