This has got to be the age of the martial arts book. Every time I switch on my e-mail lately I get a message from someone telling me about the new book that they have written (or are about to write) about the martial arts, self defence, self protection etc., and it’s great. This is the information age and information is currency. Some books though (it would appear) are worth more than others. I am looking at one of the worthier ones (propped up by my computer) as we speak. What makes one book worthy and another less so? And what qualifies me (for that matter) to know the difference? Having spent a long time (nearly a decade) working with, in and around violence and violent people and having written a few successful books myself I feel qualified enough to sort the wheat from the chaff. This new book published by New Breed under the prolific eye of charismatic Jamie O’Keefe is definitely wheat. It’s author - a certain Mr Alan Charlton has been around in the martial arts for a very long time (he used to go to training on a penny-farthing) and has been taught by some very notable instructors, he is undoubtedly, and in martial arts terms (as Darrin Richardson described in the books foreword) a jewel in the crown. He is also a hugely personable man with a reputation as both a realist and a gentle man. But being personable and being gentle as laudable as these qualities are - might make a good friend but they do not guarantee a good book. What does deliver a weighty book, one with the information to keep you safe on our violent streets, is empirical information and an author brave enough to tell you how it is as opposed to how he thinks you want it to be.

Many books on self-defence fill their pages with physical techniques that would be better suited to a James Bond movie than a book on personal protection. This book Awareness Fears and Consequences is different in that it is not afraid of controversy and does not balk from the responsibility to tell its readers (in no uncertain terms) just how it is. This text is full to the brim with good information tackling such subjects as awareness, fear, the consequence of violence, fighting back, action triggers to break the freeze syndrome, the innovative and much talked about fence (if you don’t know what it is you should know what it is) the very controversial pre-emptive strike, how you stand in the face of the law (regarding your right to self defence) deception (as used by the attacker and - potentially - as used by you to attack the attacker), woman and their role in self defence, cross training and how it can help with street defence, knives, bottle, sharp sticks - need I go on?

This book is very comprehensive and its author one of the most informed and empirical in the business. It will help, and in a world that has a threat at nearly every corner you need all the help you can get. Read this book and add the information to your unconscious files so that you are better prepared should a mugger, rapist, killer ever get you in their sights.

Well done to the lovely Alan Charlton for producing a splendid first book, let’s hope it is the first of many.

Geoff Thompson.

Coventry 2001