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Springtime at Hope Hall is the first in a new heart-warming trilogy by the familiar face of BBC Songs of Praise and successful author, Pam Rhodes.

Inspired by the Memorial Halls in Britain that are the glue for local communities, Springtime at Hope Hall brings together a series of endearing stories and colourful characters who all congregate at their local Hall.

Its rooms are filled with gossipy grandmas, body popping teenagers, dance groups, a choir without one decent singer to their name, knitters who natter, caterers who bake glorious cakes, slimmer’s nibbling chocolate, and a nursery group where it’s the grown-ups who are near to tears.

It's all in a day’s work for administrator Kath, whose job it is to make sure Hope Hall offers something for everyone in the community. Mind you, some of her team members have struggles of their own - caretaker Ray, nursing his wife, Sara, who has terminal cancer and Maggie, their wonderful cook, whose husband of twenty-five years has just left her for a woman half her age.

Whilst the team work to pull off their ambitious Centenary Easter Monday Fayre, Kath realises that reinforcements are needed. Brash, loud and inexperienced though she may be, Shirley comes onto the scene to save the day. The Fayre is a triumph but when Kath’s old flame unexpectedly arrives, she suddenly has some tough decisions to make…

Hanging from Hope Hall are stories of struggle, passion and joy. It’s a place that’s full of friends and neighbours with stories that will have you giggling one minute and dabbing your eyes the next. Like so many Memorial Halls dotted around the country, Hope Hall is at the heart of life and the local community." [Midas Public Relations]

"As I stand at my kitchen sink and look across at what we optimistically call our herb garden, to one side I see an old wooden sign on which are carved the words 'Arthur's Garden'. Arthur doesn't live here. My wonderful great-uncle died nearly thirty years ago having spent most of his long life in the Victorian terraced house in which his mother had brought up eleven children. The sign had stood in the garden there for decades, a gift to the man who'd always cherished that small patch of Kent, creating a riot of glorious colour which lit up the row of long, narrow strips that tumbled down to a line of back gates from which you could look across the lane to the local coal yard below." In Arthur's Garden, Pam Rhodes collates a heart-warming collection of songs and poems, advice and tit bits about the glorious, very ordinary, English garden - told through the life of her Uncle Arthur. This is a gardening book, with a story.