The Q

About the Author

Harry was born in 1968. His first six years were spent living in Croydon, being brought up by his late grandparents. The next year was spent living in a four-birth caravan, being brought up by his late stepmother to be. Harry's memories of today started when his natural father married his late stepmother.

Harry's late step-mother and natural father took on a children's home, where Harry lived with the children within the home, being treated exactly the same. Harry made the choice at the age of six to be treated the same as the other children in care. Harry left home to live in a bedsit at the age of eighteen...returning home after a year of the 'real world'. Harry didn't know what he wanted out of life; the fact that he never felt alone, in fact felt there was always a guardian watching over him, gave him a confidence which completed his inner securities.

The first out of his mind experience was when he was shown how to inhale butane gas. The buzz was incredible. He then went on to booze, then pot... and booze, then LSD..and booze, then LSD, booze and pot, then LSD, booze, pot and amphetamines... then Ecstasy....then cocaine....and then...well, you know the rest. However, by the age of thirty, he had never tried Heroin (the chance just didn't come along).

In a life of parties, broken hearts, joining the circus, working for Butlins, Pontins, and doing as much travelling as he could, Harry's illness had never been obvious. He'd done well to cover it up, by passing himself off as a bit of a clown... which of course did him no good whatsoever. Because not many knew the real Harry, or his malfunctioning mind, or his demons.... or the intellectual person he was, he would never be accepted as the person inside, because of his past persona.

It was when he wanted people to see the real Harry... that he slowly, but surely, became unaccepted. That was when they stopped laughing, and started looking at him in a different way. The illness had turned from a positive...to a negative. This in turn induced years of struggle; prescribed drugs, and a future of self-analysis were upon him; Harry had become his own worst enemy.

Harry now embraces his mind in the same way a parent embraces their children, with love and tenderness. In fact Harry wouldn't be the person he is today without himself... Understanding, accepting, with the ability to love himself again...and enjoy his mild mannered madness without prescriptions... Harry feels he has come through.

Harry wrote this novel with memories of a troubled and over-active mind; these times have now passed, he has released himself by way of his words, almost as if the writing is part of the cure.