Robert’s Bio

Robert’s Biography (yes, it’s authorized!)
by Joyce Sandilands-Whittle

An Unplanned Career
In mid-1995, for the umpteenth time finding himself on crutches and unable to move around a great deal, my husband sat in front of his computer … typing with 1-finger! (He says he can keep up to his thoughts this way.) Over the next few years, a wonderful new career began to take shape … for having nothing else to do for the first time in his 62 years, Robert surprised us all by writing fiction and enjoying it! After that, a little voice in my head nagged so hard at me, in August 1998 I decided it was time to start work on publishing the 3rd book he had written …Lizzie: Lethal Innocence.

Robert now has 10 (by early 2010) published novels, 3 of which are Canadian (BC) bestsellers. Each year he meets thousands of tourists and passersby in downtown Victoria, BC where he sells his books at his market stand at Bastion Square. This has been his position and passion for the past 9 years (April-Oct), and yes, some of these days are mighty cold and/or wet! Some of the comments he hears are: “You are always so happy” or “friendly” or “good looking” or “what a wonderful voice you have” – the latter prompting us to produce an audio book of his bestselling book Lizzie and later, in 2005, a partial autobiography on CD entitled Laughing Through Life, Tales of a Yorkshireman.

Robert loves meeting his fans and prospective readers at markets, shows, and book signing events, and they have finally stopped asking, “Why aren’t you home writing?” 

Many thousands of you have spread the word about our books all over the world and we thank you sincerely. They are in many Canadian Libraries from which we receive royalties. Libraries seem to love our books because they are so widely read by all ages and they are clean!! We sell our books right here on this website or you can phone us too, especially if you plan to pick up the books. Otherwise, we can now give you a better shipping deal via the internet and paypal.

Whitlands Publishing is our own company and Joyce looks after this website … thus the authors receive 100% of the proceeds from all sales.                         

But despite his full schedule, he somehow found the time to allow the love of sport to invade his young life playing soccer and County Cricket in which he particularly excelled, representing England at 13 years-of-age. He was notorious for his skills as a wicket keeper beginning at the age of 12  (trained by his mother throwing eggs – another story in itself!). At 16, he began a 10-year career as a highly sought after professional wicketkeeper around England, at the same time graduating from Leeds University as a Mining Engineer and having his own trucking business on the side.

After graduating from Mining College with a Mining Engineering Degree at the age of 19, he was told that by British law he was too young to receive it and would have to rewrite the exams when he was 25! Thus, he was hired by the British Coal Board, who had given him the scholarship to university, recognizing his skills as those needed desperately in the dangerous field of underground coal mines. They were willing to wait until he was of age … hiring him as a foreman and training him for the future.

Then, as a disaster team leader, he often suffered the consequences of what must have been the most extreme job of the era by spending too much of his early working life in hospital beds. On the upside however, he certainly gained the respect and gratitude of the many men whose lives he saved, and for the skilled job he accomplished for the Coal Board). Local hospital staff was often heard to comment that it was nice to have his pleasant personality around but they were sure glad to get back to normal when the fun-loving miner went back to work again.

In the mid-60s, recognizing that his reaction time was waning and possibly putting both he and his specialty team in danger, he packed his family off to Australia seeking a quieter and less dangerous life. Looking for a job while refusing to admit to his level of experience, his employees didn’t take long to discover some of his expertise and in time he found himself heading up a building crew in the Australian desert.

In 1970 he moved to Winnipeg, Canada on a bet and again found himself working the extremes … in the far north of Pond Inlet, Baffin Island, (now Nunavit) building a school and making friends of the Eskimos. He gained his Canadian citizenship in 1971, soon after arriving in Victoria, BC where he lives today. It was here in Victoria, Robert and I met some years later.  By the mid-80s we had formed a personal and business partnership, marrying some years later. In the meantime, always dabbling with new business ideas as with any true entrepreneur, he had several over the years and was never bored.

Robert’s Stories
But let’s move forward a wee bit … to the time of his first knee surgery in Feb 1994 when his life nearly ended and our lives were changed forever. Knowing he would be out-of-commission for 6 weeks for that surgery, I had just purchased a new computer and I persuaded him to use our old XT (80s computer) to try his hand at writing. He had always entertained us by telling wonderful stories of his youth and I wanted him to write his memoirs, particularly for his grandchildren and posterity. No one else would be able to tell Robert’s story quite like him complete with Yorkshire and other dialects, a twinkle in his eye and a ready quip on his lips!

However, true stories were not in the cards for the moment and to fill his recuperation period he began writing an adventure story of 18th C Yorkshire, a time he often said he wished he could have lived. Bob’s mother must have fed him history from an early age when they lived in their Yorkshire farmhouse with its 18″ stone walls because he remembers always having a thirst for the subject. He had also developed a wonderful ability to make-believe and these two interests quickly became intertwined. What happened next, however, was the beginning of a horrific health challenge with staph infection that over the next couple of years almost cost him his leg as he fought for his life. It laid him up for the better part of four years and I had the challenge of keeping both our independent businesses earning an income.

A miracle, however, was also beginning to develop in the guise of three full-length novels!

An Unexpected Talent!
In his first book (unpublished to date), a historical novel about a lad named Josh, a storyline began to emerge of his beloved moors and some fascinating characters quite possibly drawn from people he had met in his youth. He read me bits and pieces and we were both amazed at his incredible ability to weave a story without any thought or planning. We had definitely found his hidden talent and with nothing but time on his hands he soon completed his first full-length novel. By the time his R&R ended after a major knee-replacement surgery almost four years later, he had completed his third title!

It was this third novel that we found ourselves self-publishing in the Fall of ’98.  As Robert was now a Senior Citizen, we decided not to dally around waiting for the publisher to accept his manuscript and give him his big break! So when Deborah Wright offered her proofreading services at a discount, we jumped at the opportunity.

As a result, Lizzie: Lethal Innocence, a novel set in early 1800s England about a young girl much like Robert himself had been as a youngster, was born. We formed our own publishing company (Whitlands Publishing) and began learning the ropes about the publishing industry … but we had no idea what we were in for! However, 2,000 copies (of one-to-one sales) and 16 months later we launched our first sequel, Lizzie’s Secret Angels. We figured we must be doing something right with readers demanding a sequel and, as he had already written it (Lizzie is his favourite character), we obliged!

On April 1st, 2000, Lizzie’s Secret Angels was introduced to eager fans at the Victoria Art Gallery, our first and only official Book Launch as from here on we usually launched each new book at whatever show we were attending. Lizzie sales reached Canadian Best Seller status by late 2000. Today, we are into our 3rd printing – a magnificent feat for a self-published book of fiction, we were told! Over the next five years, we released the Victoria Chronicles Trilogy and the last two books of the Lizzie Series. The trilogy became hot sellers at the markets and shows we attended due to their factual content and his already well-loved Whittlesque Style of refreshingly home grown simplicity and no sex or gratuitous violence. The first two books of the Trilogy became Robert’s next two bestsellers and the third book won our 2nd Gold Medal in the 2008 IPPY Awards.

In 2003, we branched out into Audio Books (CD, MP3 and Tape) with Joyce narrating Leprechaun Magic and Robert doing a masterful job with Lizzie: Lethal Innocence (unabridged). You’ll find more information on our audio page.

To purchase our books, if you can’t get to our local BC shows etc., they’re available through this website. Some Vancouver Island, BC bookstores also carry some of our titles. We have been literally blown away by the success of these books. By 2008, due to collecting addresses we had sold books to visitors in approx. 65 countries, every US State, and all over Canada. Thousands of local readers had also supported us over the years for which we’ll be eternally grateful.

Our Marketing Efforts
Over the past 13 years we’ve attended thousands of market/show days selling our books in all kinds of weather and often frigid cold. We’ve met literally thousands of wonderful supportive people and always many who are shocked to hear we’ve done all of this mainly ourselves (except for the book covers, database, and the bookkeeping), assisted by one-day-a-week OA, Tara! We sold books at the BC Ferry Terminal Crafters Market at Swartz Bay for three summers and Robert has been in Bastion Square for eleven years now. The Sidney Street Market is now my main summer project and Robert assisted for 9 of the 11 years.

In 2003, Robert turned 70 on June 10th (picture to left) and family, friends and fans feted him at a local restaurant where he gave an impromptu talk telling some of the hilarious tales of his young life in Yorkshire. At last my desire for him to share his memoirs was coming to fruition.  In March 2004, he told even more of his stories at another event attended by fans. Then, armed with close to 50 stories on tape, Joyce met with Corrie of the Majestic Recording Studio editing and producing a much-anticipated new CD.  We introduced Laughing Through Life, a compilation of many of Robert’s wonderful life stories in the Fall of 2005. People say our CD is a hidden gem and we heard that one senior’s home in Victoria played a new story each morning over their speakers to give their lodgers an upbeat start to their day.

It’s now 2011 and for the past decade we have attended six Christmas Craft Showsat various location on Vancouver Island and the BC Mainland (for last 5 years in Chilliwack). Yes, we’re now trying to slow down but Robert only seems to know about high gear! He says he’s been working hard all his life and he loves it. So our books have become a labour of love that just keeps rolling on. Even though a few TIAs have been responsible for slowing down Robert’s writing ability, we still have his first two books to publish as soon as I am able to find the time to fit in the editing.

In the last two years my special projects were (a) to format the books onto ebooks (2010-11) and (b) sprucing up our badly neglected websites (2011). Ebooks were finished in the summer of 2011  and are available at all online stores where ebooks are sold. Our new, updated websites should be completed by December 1st, 2011.

We can’t thank you enough for your support and for taking the time to visit our website home. We hope you’ll come back often especially to read the Newsletter and discover our latest news. If you would like to go on our mailing list just contact us and/or join our Facebook Fan Club.

Now, go and do something nice for yourself or someone you care about . . . visit our book pages and buy a bestselling novel by J. Robert Whittle!! Locals, please call us instead of ordering on the website. You’ll save the shipping charges!!

Best regards,
Joyce and Robert