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Graham Parks
I grew up in Aldershot, which in those days was a tough and impoverished garrison town. I attended a regular all boys comprehensive where I can hardly claim to have excelled. In fact, I was in the ...view moreI grew up in Aldershot, which in those days was a tough and impoverished garrison town. I attended a regular all boys comprehensive where I can hardly claim to have excelled. In fact, I was in the bottom stream for the entire 5yrs I was there.
When I finally walked out of the school gates ready to square-up to this thing called life, I could barely read or write and numeracy was a swear word.
The only work I could find was unskilled labouring jobs on building sites.
Strangely though, I always had a deep desire to be and do more, which continues to fuel my ambitions today.
I harboured a desire to live in London and over the course of a couple of days my life suddenly went from bleak to pretty grim; my girlfriend finished with me on the premise that perhaps her aspirations would be best met elsewhere, and I was sacked from my lowly paid job by some hairy-arsed foreman, which wasn’t great considering the building industry was going through a bit of a slump.
I decided my predicament called for bold action ... so I upped sticks and decided to walk in the footsteps of a character by the name of Dick Whittington, who had allegedly felt a similar compulsion many years previously.
Having somehow hoodwinked my way into a sales job in the fashion industry, I was forced to face up to the weaknesses in my armoury.
A brief moment of clarity was the catalyst for not only changing my life, but enriching it beyond anything I could have ever imagined back then.
Without wanting to sound like a walking cliché, which I’m in danger of doing here, I realised that if I wanted to have any chance of making it, then I had to educate myself.
I proceeded to purchase piles of exercise books that I would then plough through in the evenings, whilst holed up in my damp rotten bedsit, and slowly, after too many frustrating hours, I began to master the basics, and with that ... my confidence grew.
This led me on the most amazing journey which has seen me broker deals for some of today’s major celebrities and I even invented a product that was sold in all major stores. Over the years I’ve travelled the world along with a whole host of other stuff that I won’t bore you with now.
My first book, The Crossing is dark and I’ve tried to humorously address the issues that face us today that in one way or another, that seem to bleed us of our humanity and undermine how important it is to get the basics right in order to create harmony in our world.
My second book, The Cure again is a dark subject, but there’s also a lot of light in Willy’s life given how difficult it must be to try and re-integrate into society after living on the streets for so long.
My third, Beneath Dwelt I, is the tale of a young boy who is bullied remorselessly but, against the odds, finds a way back. I suppose that’s what I’ve learnt: there’s always a way back.
Stories, I have so many of them ...view less