About the Author

Brian Mercer, a writer and graphic designer, was born in London. He and his wife immigrated to Israel in 1994. From childhood he has always been fascinated by trains, and when their son was little he invented tales about a steam engine called Archie Charlie and his driver Fred to tell as bedtime stories. The idea of writing a full length Archie Charlie book came to him while commuting to and from London. He began scribbling the words on blank A4 notebooks during each journey, and this led to the publication of his first novel, Archie Charlie of British Rail. Since living in Israel he has written another book called The Memory Train. But this is more than just a book about the railway. This is a story of life, love and a dash of hummus, a classic Israeli dish. It's a tale filled with incidents which the characters have to cope with in their own inimitable ways, and still come up smiling. The author feels deeply about the characters and situations in these stories and hopes he is able to communicate this to the reader.