AT first glance, Sir Edward Elgar and Tommy Cooper didn’t have a lot in common.

After all The Dream of Gerontius wasn’t written “just like that, ha ha ha ha” with a lot of hand waving.

Although, seeing as I wasn’t there at the time,I suppose it could have been.It’s just that the moustachioed Victorian composer doesn’t strike me as that sort of chap. You need a special mind to link the two, at which point enter stage left Charlie Williams.

I’ve written before about Charlie, who’s about 9ft tall and doesn’t get any shorter as the years roll on. His day job is in IT, but he’s also a successful author, the main plank of his output being a series of novels set in the fictional town of Mangel, which is Charlie’s take on his home town of Worcester, and the adventures, scrapes and fornications of Royston Blake, part-time doorman at a local nightclub.

So far, there have been four Mangel books and the other day Charlie pitched up at the Worcester News offices, ducked into reception, and introduced me to the latest in the line.

It’s called Made of Stone and even by the colourful imagination of its writer, is a long way across left field. There are vampires, werewolves and zombies, all mixed into the general pond life that passes for Mangel on a Saturday night and it’s not the sort of thing you’re going to find at the tourist information office.

But how do we get from Royston Blake to Elgar or even Tommy Cooper?

These days Charlie Williams, born and bred Worcester (the maternity hospital at Shrub Hill) and a former attendee at the Royal Grammar School, has moved out of town to live near Kempsey.

About 100 years ago, Sir Edward also lived in this rather large and rambling village just south of the city, at a country property called Napleton Grange – but that’s not the full picture.

When he was writing his first books, Charlie worked for an IT company in Milton Keynes and used the solo time commuting to think up ideas and situations for his plots. These days, the same happens when he’s walking his dogs on Kempsey Common.

“When Elgar lived at Kempsey, he would walk the common for inspiration,” said Charlie. “I think about him sometimes when I’m doing the same.

“It’s quite strange really, making the connection. But the peace and quiet does give you time to think and clear your brain.”

However, the contemplations of the two have produced startlingly different results. For while Elgar was inspired to compose soaring symphonies, Charlie Williams has taken a walk on the wilder side of life.

Not only have his rural musings among the buttercups and bindweed produced a couple of books in the Mangel series, they have also helped him formulate the next idea along his conveyor belt, a story Charlie describes as “a pub noir”, in which the licensed premises are visited by the ghost of Tommy Cooper. Or are they? That is the question.

Fact or illusion. Appropriate for a magician.

What is no illusion is that Charlie Williams is doing all right.

Not enough to dispense with the day job yet, but well enough to a be a rising force on the literary scene.

His Mangel books have been translated into French, Russian, Italian and Spanish and published in America as well as the UK.

Charlie has talked about them at book festivals in France, Belgium and America, as well as several in the UK, including Hay.

His work has been compared to American pulp author Jim Thompson and film director Quentin Tarantino. On which topic, what about a Mangel movie?

Roll the opening credits with Land of Hope and Glory booming away as some poor soul gets their head kicked in outside the public toilets in Angel Place. Just like that.