Friday, 3 April 2020

Research into the Bird Watcher who spies.


No real reasons for this story other than been born into a one parent family and that I have disabilities, despite of that I could read and write but couldn’t seem comprehend information, which didn’t make me feel equal to others and still doesn’t to this day but I have a imagination.
Every new term after a holiday or weekend when going back to school on a Monday morning, we always had to write in our rough books what we did during in our break from school. I either had too much going on in my head or nothing at all. I know they wouldn’t have liked it if I wrote nothing at all but I could always remembered what I did yesterday a few days ago but I could say so many years ago, therefore I used to write make up stories which they didn’t like either as they saw you as telling lies. I think it was the very strong tablets I was taking for Epilepsy that made me have an over act mind to no mind at all.

I was never really very good at many subjects but not too bad at English, art and swimming.
I was nine to ten years old at the time when Miss Cole told me off for making up what I wrote in my rough book round about 1979 to 1980.  I still see Miss Cole’s curly hair, Cracked and wriggled face. She must have been about 50 ish at the time, my age now. Dog Tooth checked cream, brown winter coat, cream low heeled shoes. Strangely I found it hard to like at the time, but I guess now I quite respect her, so it was probley not as bad as I thought. However,’ she was a needle work teacher, which wasn’t my skill or subject, still isn’t. It used to take me at least an hour to thread a needle.  She I was an only child up until I was thirteen, so it was more loneliness really to the point my Grandmother was my Mother, my Mother and Aunt were my sisters, Tony, Susan and Ben were.  With this character I will base her in the Bird Watcher that Spies.

The main character of this story is Lee Deans who was a bully but always wanted what he couldn’t have in life once he had been in so much trouble he’d look at other ways to make others unhappy, reason for this is raising awareness of bullying, which I have been through in my school life and so have many others. There’s no excuse for bullying and no real answers to why bullies bully. Most people say that it’s often they are unhappy in their own lives for whatever reason but why take it out on others? We need support to help victims, and those who could take their emotions on others and also to prevent as many suicides for people who feel that way because they have been bullied.  
Just to say that Lee was a mischievous character, he was always looking for someone to have it in for or even always wanted something out of life he couldn’t have like Dan’s girlfriend Joanne. I based Miss Cole on Miss Cane but not all Miss Cole was Miss Cane, where Miss Cane gave into Lee near enough the end of the Bird Watcher Who Spies. There are a lot of unanswered questions to why Lee was how he was, he had no reason to be how he was. Not that was any worse off he came from a middle class family and both parents loved one another, only the fact he was the youngest eight children and Mum was about forty – six when she had him and most of his brothers and sisters had grown up and left home, in fact it’s possible the oldest child had his first flat by the time Lee was born so I can only guess that Lee was rather spoiled. He loved the Rolling Stones and Mick Jagger was his hero and did everything to try and look like Mick Jagger. Most people didn’t like the way Lee tried to make himself out to be someone he wasn’t, but he was very mischievous but very Checkley. For example, the Saturday afternoon when he came with a pair of his father’s binoculars and a pair of ladders to the park with him.
When Lee came back to school after been ex spelled for a year. He was in Miss Cane’s class, which was the 6th form. Lee was expelled for bullying kids and items etc.  By then he lost a great friendship with Dan and Joanne, neither of them spoken to Lee if ever years after they all left school, even though they were always in the same class. Just before after the 6th form Lee never bothered Joanne and Dan since he had been in Detention for causing problems for them that Saturday afternoon in Saint James’s park when he was making out he was doing a Bird project when he wasn’t and really was spying on Dan and Joanne.

I was never a bully, but I was victims of bullies, but I wouldn’t say I was perfect either because no one is. However,’ based on my experience with Miss Cole, Lee was faced with something similar with Miss Cane, this was long before they connected together. Miss Cane asked Lee to write in his rough book what he had done over the weekend.  Miss Cane wasn’t impressed with what he wrote. Lee made him self out to be living in a 200-year-old farmhouse with Joanne, Miss Cane and Sammy. Lee saw Sammy in a red mini skirt driving a red mini. Outside was a random duck pond in the garden with drake ducks. The house had a water heater with non- stop hot water, very pricey Lee Deans, a boiler has non – stop water plus a coal fire roaring costing even more money and the house must have been roasting like an oven. There was about goodness knows how many blankets on the bed.  A grey three pence penny sweet, pale blue carpet, walls and ceiling in the living room and a portable tv, no DVDs, video players or computers in those days.   

What can I say about Dan? Despite of a negative family background he was a very together lad, like us all he had his bad points about his as well as good like us all. On the whole he never wanted for much. He loved the Beatles in the 60s and his hero was John Lennon, loved his solo music right through the 70s. Pretty much like his girlfriend Joanne he loved his art and English very much into his poetry.  Compared to Lee Dan never tried to be like his hero, he was just an orderly lad with swept black shiny curly hair, dark brown eyes, casual dressed, black leather jacket, with turned up jeans, he never tried to be someone he wasn’t.

Dan’s Mother was treated unfairly by his Father. His father was a heavy drinker, he used to bet, etc a lot and he used to beat her a lot. She ended up working all the hour's god sent to keep the family as a nurse. Dan was always out a lot to try and avoid the stress between his Mother and Father. Bill Richards Dan’s Father was very well known around the pubs etc. As a kid, Dan, his brothers, and sisters used to put their heads under the blankets at night to avoid hearing their Mother screaming. At the end of the ’60s Jen couldn’t take anymore Bill’s behavior to a point it was ground to divorce but she still had one or kids still not old enough to leave home to point money wise she was struggling to raise them then she had to battle with her employer to increase her hours more. Dan had been of the older children found himself raising his younger brothers and sisters till he left home, then they lived and at home for a few yrs until Jen retired.



I’ve been working on this story on and off since 1996, last time I looked at it was seven years ago, when I created Miss Cane. It’s now 2020 and the world is facing a Coronavirus crisis so face to face contact is limited because of the virus spreads, therefore, I’m spending a lot of time at home alone. Not that I would have come back to this story sooner or later but other things I have had going on which aren’t taking place now because of the virus, which gives me a good reason to do more work to this story so who knows what will happen?
I based the story in 1960 but who knows I may change the time period not sure, depends how things pan out as time goes on, if and when the virus passes, will do my best to carry on until I finish this story one way or the other whatever happens.
If any reason drew me to write this story, one reason may well be was when my ex-Partner left me for someone else, they met on the workplace over twenty years ago, he always blamed the staff he worked with for encouraging him but the boss had said if they don’t pay attention to their work, he would be talking their engagement rings off them.




No comments: