Friend and fellow scribe e mails, tells me he saw Sherlock Holmes film, not the moron fest' the trailer suggested he says. But still unsatisfactory. I spend time thinking about Guy Ritchie. Have only seen one of his films, Lock Stock and it wasn't for me. What puts me off is this silly macho element that seems to accompany all his work. Sherlock being turned into a cagefighter being a case in point. In fact, as I was saying to a friend today, someone should produce a game in which you have to imagine Guy Ritchie's take on various historical figures. Therefore, Jesus. 'He smashed up the money lenders and then took two ham sandwiches and five pints of lager and turned them into Wetherspoons!'' Einstein 'You think your smart with numbers, son - you aint met Albert 'ave you?'. I jest. In his defence, I met a girl once who had worked with him and said he was the most positive man she had ever come across. Plus, I have to say he had some ballsl marrying Madonna. I mean, from day one you know full well that is not going to be a stroll in the park on lazy Sunday afternoon, is it? So let's just say let a Guy be a Guy, for as my man Ray once sang, we are all God's children. God's children? You thought you were hard.........Stop it! Had the meet with the book company
today, all went well. Got taken to Nando's after by the company head, fascinating guy who amongst many other things, played Paddington Bear, acted in Joe Orton's play The Erphingham Camp at University and supports Bolton Wanderers. Snow everywhere but both Mr Baxter and I discovered that the most stylish and yet most practical shoe for the modern snowfall is none other than my San Paolo range of corduroy shoes. They protect and yet still manage to catch the eye of the passer by. Invest now, children. Have been rung up by 606 and invited to play in a six a side charity game, set provisionally for late Feb. I was on their show the day we beat Wigan 9-1 and co-incidentally have just started on their presenter Gabriele Marcotti's Capello biography. Three pages in and I am hooked. God bless Italia, Capello, and God bless you. Paolo
Friday, January 8, 2010
Diary - 6th Jan 2010
Had meet with Baxter yesterday in Bar Italia, in course of it he tells me that electronic books - Kindles - are taking off in America,, on course to replace the book. My stomach sinks at this news. I am not against technology. Love computers, internet etc. However, don't buy the if-it-is-new-it-is-better line. CD's, for example. Biggest con of the 20th century. Not better than a vinyl album, in any way whatsoever. Feel the same way about Kindle. No jacket cover, no intimacy, the book reduced to page after page of impersonal type. Bax tells me, forget books get into documentaries. Today get e mail from TV company we gave our Fashion of Football book to for possible documentary. E mail a tale of woe about the TV industry, no money, no this, no that. The fight continues. Watched Somers Town, last night, Shane Meadows film. Liked it a lot. Two kids very good - even though story slightly implausible. Today writing sleeve notes for 1988 Madness album called The Madness. Four of the band - no Woody or Bedders - made the album after Madness split. They sound like everyone -except Madness. Quite intriguing.Also finished off wring a film treatment for my Marriott biography which I sent to an actor / writer called Malcolm Ridley. I met Malcolm four years ago on a Soho street. He stopped me and then dragged me into a pub and said he had to make a film of my Marriott book. I smiled a lot and got out of there quick as I could. A year ago, through a mutual friend, we re-connected. He still wanted to make a film of my Marriott book. Over Xmas we have been bouncing back versions of treatments. (film proposals that go to film companies and tell them to give you loads and loads of money) The one I sent him today I think is the strongest. I read it this morning and thought, I would pay a lot of money to see that film. Which is a testament to Steve Marriott not my writing. During all this time the pop biog film - Control, Telstar, Nowhere Boy, Sex and Drugs - seems to have taken off. Not just saying it, but I can not think of a better life to film than Marriott's. Just to add the spookiness, last night Baxter sent over an MP3 of the man doing a version of Think which has just surfaced. I listened to it and thought, Steve you should have just stuck to r'n'b mate, it is where you shone like no other. Also - Des e mailed me. Attached loads of photos from our time in the Children's Home. Really brought a smile to my face looking at them. Loads of us smiling and playing around. And quiet a few which could make a striking book cover.Bless all those children I grew up with, they were great. And bless you as well. x
Diary - 4th Jan 2010
Came down, made espresso, turned on TV, Celebrity Brother on the airwaves. I watch it for two minutes and realise I don't recognise one person on there, apart from Ronnnie Wood's girlfriend. Ah dear Ronnie, one of my first hero's, back in my schooldays when I fell in Love with the Faces. I loved that guitar sound he got, I loved his clothes. In fact when i met him about a million years ago I told him how much I loved the red suit he wore on the inside sleeve of Rod's solo album, Smiler. He said to me, 'did you get yourself one?' I replied, 'your joking aren't you? I lived in Woking at the time. Wear a red suit into town on a Friday night there and they would rip you to pieces.' I wasn't joking, either. tried to get a book about The Faces off the ground last year. Despite my Marriott and SF books selling ten thousand copies each, couldn't get a deal. Then I discovered Andy Neil got one for Ominbus, should be out this year and I am sure will be great. Dr Robert e mailed back from Spain. he and his family have finally moved into their dream house which they have been building forever and the Blow Monkeys are recording a new album in February. I am so pleased for him. If anyone deserves great success it is that man. Since moving to Spain, he has been building up a catalogue of really good solo albums for years now, quietly knocking on that door. Now it is opening up for him and I couldn't be happier. Back to Big brother. It does amuse me how Ronnie Wood - and others - get so much stick over the age of their girlfriends. Generally speaking, (and not at all speaking about Ronnie) I agree with my man Pete B in Australia. If it is not hurting anyone what's the problem? Once you reach a certain age are you not allowed to have fun? You get too many people in newspapers and magazines lecturing you about what you should be doing, what you shouldn't be doing. I remember in the mid 90s all the people who I used to see in clubs, suddenly writing page after page about how middle age people should behave and should not not be seen in clubs etc. I always felt it was because they were now married etc and if they couldn't have a good time no one else could. Today, I have two meetings, one with Mark Baxter to discuss a fashion book idea for a company we are seeing on Thursday and one with a TV guy to discuss an idea of mine. Hope you have a great day as well. And bless you. Paolo
Monday, January 4, 2010
DIARY - January 3rd 2010
JAN 3RD 20.27. PM
Get up, text my close amico, Nipper. Last night, he was going off to see the John Lennon film, Nowhere Boy wanted to know what he thought. He didn't go. Saw the Guy Ritchie film Sherlock Holmes instead. I tell him I would rather watch Grimsby youth team in the pouring rain on a Tuesday night. He said after
watching the film he agreed that would be a better experience. Spent morning reading papers, then down the pool. I try and go every day now. Either it kicks me up in the morning or after a hard day at this computer it brings me back to life. Plus you get to talk with some of the chaps and admire some womdeful human forms....Back home watched Leeds beat Man U. What a game, heart in mouth stuff. I really wanted Leeds to win as my agent supports them and a happy agent for any writer is a very good thing....Afterwards, I texted my man Bax and said bet spurs get Leeds in the next round which means by end of Jan I won't have an agent any more. And sure enough that is precisely who we were drawn against. Spoke to Mr Munn later on, the esteemed author of Mr Cool's Dream, that fine TSC biog. Mr Munn handles my web site for me, shows me how to place notes like this etc. When I called he was at the Dundee - Airdrie game which his team Dundee lost. I called him back just now and he said he would show me how to publish this diary in exchange for a plug for his book. Which I have just done. So bless him and bless you.
Get up, text my close amico, Nipper. Last night, he was going off to see the John Lennon film, Nowhere Boy wanted to know what he thought. He didn't go. Saw the Guy Ritchie film Sherlock Holmes instead. I tell him I would rather watch Grimsby youth team in the pouring rain on a Tuesday night. He said after
watching the film he agreed that would be a better experience. Spent morning reading papers, then down the pool. I try and go every day now. Either it kicks me up in the morning or after a hard day at this computer it brings me back to life. Plus you get to talk with some of the chaps and admire some womdeful human forms....Back home watched Leeds beat Man U. What a game, heart in mouth stuff. I really wanted Leeds to win as my agent supports them and a happy agent for any writer is a very good thing....Afterwards, I texted my man Bax and said bet spurs get Leeds in the next round which means by end of Jan I won't have an agent any more. And sure enough that is precisely who we were drawn against. Spoke to Mr Munn later on, the esteemed author of Mr Cool's Dream, that fine TSC biog. Mr Munn handles my web site for me, shows me how to place notes like this etc. When I called he was at the Dundee - Airdrie game which his team Dundee lost. I called him back just now and he said he would show me how to publish this diary in exchange for a plug for his book. Which I have just done. So bless him and bless you.
DIARY - January 2nd 2010
JANUARY 2ND
22.01 pm
Up by eight, in swimming pool and steam room by nine thirty. Again, bella day. Sky richly blue, air colder now but still clean and powerful. Home by ten thirty, played Richard Hawley album – again. Am mesmerised by this album. Last track now my favourite. Nine fantastic minutes long. On some of his other songs he sounds like an engineer in 1957 hallucinating in the studio, adding layers of sounds to his rich songs. Read Independent, watched Football Focus but got bored with it. Phoned my family in Italy, wished them Happy New Year, also Robert in Spain but the good Doctor not in his surgery. One message stood out. An old friend from Woking writes in. She is in the Honours list of 2010 for her work for the pensions department. The Queen will honour her. Amazing. Norman Jay was the only one I knew who the Queen has honoured. I write back and tell her I will kneel before her when next we meet. She writes back, says do you know about my son? She sends me a link. Click. It is an article from the local paper. Her son collects…….Hoovers. He has 100 in his house. All started when he was a kid. He was scared of Hoovers then one day his gran showed him how they worked and fear turned to obsession. Now he owns 100 Hoovers. I want to write back with a joke about cleaning up but can’t think of one. Go to Spurs in the afternoon. Peterborough the opponents. The Mighty Cockerels stroll around the park and eventually start banging in the goals. Defoe actually missed from one yard out. Peterborough never really look like scoring until right at the end. Four nil the Spurs. Next week Liverpool. I go home, and here I am. Bless me and bless you
22.01 pm
Up by eight, in swimming pool and steam room by nine thirty. Again, bella day. Sky richly blue, air colder now but still clean and powerful. Home by ten thirty, played Richard Hawley album – again. Am mesmerised by this album. Last track now my favourite. Nine fantastic minutes long. On some of his other songs he sounds like an engineer in 1957 hallucinating in the studio, adding layers of sounds to his rich songs. Read Independent, watched Football Focus but got bored with it. Phoned my family in Italy, wished them Happy New Year, also Robert in Spain but the good Doctor not in his surgery. One message stood out. An old friend from Woking writes in. She is in the Honours list of 2010 for her work for the pensions department. The Queen will honour her. Amazing. Norman Jay was the only one I knew who the Queen has honoured. I write back and tell her I will kneel before her when next we meet. She writes back, says do you know about my son? She sends me a link. Click. It is an article from the local paper. Her son collects…….Hoovers. He has 100 in his house. All started when he was a kid. He was scared of Hoovers then one day his gran showed him how they worked and fear turned to obsession. Now he owns 100 Hoovers. I want to write back with a joke about cleaning up but can’t think of one. Go to Spurs in the afternoon. Peterborough the opponents. The Mighty Cockerels stroll around the park and eventually start banging in the goals. Defoe actually missed from one yard out. Peterborough never really look like scoring until right at the end. Four nil the Spurs. Next week Liverpool. I go home, and here I am. Bless me and bless you
DAILY DIARY NOW ON FACEBOOK
January 2010
I aim to add a daily Diary to FACEBOOK - Please add me on Facebook to read my diary.
AN 1ST 2010
14.00
Big admirer of Joe Orton’s diaries so decided wouldn’t mind creating one myself. Feel good about coming year. I have several projects in varying degrees of progress. One is a book called But We All Shine On - The Remarkable Orphans Of Burbank Children’s Home. Burbank, the children’s home I used to live in. For the book I found four of the guys I once shared the house with, see how they got on with their lives. All good. Very positive. Book company, Aurum, have manuscript. Waiting to hear on their reaction to it. Sent them first manuscript in November but it was too unwieldy, the structure sprawling. When the editor called me in, told me, it was a good shot across my bows. See, went to it straight after Chivers book was finished, did not step back. Did not contemplate. Much better now. Cut out loads of waste. Built a new structure. Have also sent it to two close links – JC and GG. Respect their views. Waiting to hear on their reaction. Apart from walk played Richard Hawley’s new album Truelove’s Gutter many times. Love it to death. My favourite at the moment is Remorse Code but then I just watched the vid for For Your Lover, Give Some Time on You Tube and now that is edged in my mind. Sometimes it as if is Elvis (who I don’t dig) was produced by Phil Spector. On mogadon. Hawley like all the greats makes everything sound so simple. Yet his music is grand, unique. This one will run and run. Spurs – Peterborough tomorrow. Should be fine. Harry Redknapp the manager has put our faith back into the team. He really is an exceptional manager, a man who has been successful at every club he has managed – apart from that silly year at Southampton. Like many, he never gets the credit his skill deserves. Got to go with Big Sam on this. If Harry’s surname was Redknappio he would be lauded to the skies. As it is he has respect but not in the volume his work deserves. He is a Special One, no doubt about it. Bless him. And bless you.
I aim to add a daily Diary to FACEBOOK - Please add me on Facebook to read my diary.
AN 1ST 2010
14.00
Big admirer of Joe Orton’s diaries so decided wouldn’t mind creating one myself. Feel good about coming year. I have several projects in varying degrees of progress. One is a book called But We All Shine On - The Remarkable Orphans Of Burbank Children’s Home. Burbank, the children’s home I used to live in. For the book I found four of the guys I once shared the house with, see how they got on with their lives. All good. Very positive. Book company, Aurum, have manuscript. Waiting to hear on their reaction to it. Sent them first manuscript in November but it was too unwieldy, the structure sprawling. When the editor called me in, told me, it was a good shot across my bows. See, went to it straight after Chivers book was finished, did not step back. Did not contemplate. Much better now. Cut out loads of waste. Built a new structure. Have also sent it to two close links – JC and GG. Respect their views. Waiting to hear on their reaction. Apart from walk played Richard Hawley’s new album Truelove’s Gutter many times. Love it to death. My favourite at the moment is Remorse Code but then I just watched the vid for For Your Lover, Give Some Time on You Tube and now that is edged in my mind. Sometimes it as if is Elvis (who I don’t dig) was produced by Phil Spector. On mogadon. Hawley like all the greats makes everything sound so simple. Yet his music is grand, unique. This one will run and run. Spurs – Peterborough tomorrow. Should be fine. Harry Redknapp the manager has put our faith back into the team. He really is an exceptional manager, a man who has been successful at every club he has managed – apart from that silly year at Southampton. Like many, he never gets the credit his skill deserves. Got to go with Big Sam on this. If Harry’s surname was Redknappio he would be lauded to the skies. As it is he has respect but not in the volume his work deserves. He is a Special One, no doubt about it. Bless him. And bless you.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
EXTRACT FROM THE FOLLOW UP TO “THE LOOKED AFTER KID”
EXTRACT FROM THE FOLLOW UP TO “THE LOOKED AFTER KID”
By Paolo Hewitt.
In this as yet untitled book, due to be published in Spring of 2010, I tracked down four of the guys I was in a children’s home with. The home was called Burbank. This is an extract from my meeting with a guy called David Westbrook. Basically, at the home David felt neglected, felt that no one listened to him. In an effort to gain much needed attention, he started owning up to petty crimes he did not commit. The result was that the authorities felt he was uncontrollable and placed him in a borstal where he learnt more about crime in a year than you and I would do in a lifetime. After absconding from the borstal, David ended up in Liverpool where he became a full time criminal. The story starts here.
I WRITE THE SONGS
Fuck you. As a child, you deny me love, you deny me attention, you deny me security. Therefore, you must think me the lowest of the low. Fine. I’ll show you how low I can go. I’ll go to places you haven’t even dreamt about to prove how unhappy I am.
No one had listened to the child, so the man took over and he said, fuck you. David Westbrook became a full time criminal. He and his friend went into credit fraud.
How did that work? I asked him.
‘Easy, you open up accounts in 32 different banks under 32 different names. You put in a hundred pounds in the first account and keep moving the money around,’ he explains. ‘Keep that up for a couple of months and then you say to the bank I need a cheque guarantee card. They then send you one. So now you’ve got thirty two cheque books and thirty two cards. Every day we would go to bank and draw out money. That was our job. Going to the bank every day, opening up accounts, and drawing out money.
Nice work if you can get it, I remark.
‘It is until you get caught,’ he shoots back, laughing.
‘I went into the bank one day and I was collared. At the police station, I had never seen so many cheques in all my life. But I only owed up to two. I just went that one is mine, that one is mine, the rest I don’t know about. The police were so primitive in those days, they didn’t have a clue. These days if you wrote something out, they would send it to an expert and have you. In those days, it was quick arrest, quick conviction. I got a three month suspended sentence. I never gave them the guy I was doing it with. I told them I didn’t know his name.’
David and his partner in crime celebrated with champagne and women. Yet there was something else going on at this time, something very specific to orphans. David didn’t trust a living soul. He didn’t trust his partner, any of his lovers, any of his friends. As far as he was concerned, everyone was under suspicion.
‘If I met someone and had known him for years, I still wouldn’t trust the clothes on his back,’ he says. ‘That’s the way I was. Even the guy I was doing cheques with I didn’t trust him one bit. I used to sit down with him and we would have a laugh saying, this time next year we will be millionaires. But I never trusted him, never trusted anyone.’
In other words, fuck you. I knew that shout well. It took me years to trust anyone, be it friend or lover or caring adult. When I went into care aged ten, a block of ice rose up inside of me, there to keep everyone at bay. No way were you getting inside of me. No one was. I had trusted people all my life and everyone – everyone - had let me down.
I had held out my arms but was kicked in the chest.
David had experienced the same rejection except he now had a much bigger problem. The police had his name and number; they were on his trail
He had bought a motorbike with some of the proceeds of his cheque scam and one day had a bad crash. When he got out of hospital, he hi-tailed it back to Woking but the Liverpool police charged him with reckless driving anyway. To get to his Liverpool court appearance, David stole a car. Bad move. Worse, he parked it directly outside of the court.
At the trial, a miracle. Instead of imprisonment, the judge found David not guilty. He said the police had been harassing him and the case against him was unsound. David came out of court a free man and in a state of absolute bliss. Only to find two policemen standing by his stolen car.
’Is this your vehicle?’ one of them asked.
He was handcuffed and led away.
David pauses. 'I suppose there’s a moral in there somewhere,’ he says.
Yes, there is a moral, I told David, and it’s this - don’t go to court in a stolen motor car.
Both of us laugh and it feels good to be here with this man. Truth be told, I had worried about meeting David, worried the interview would go flat or horribly wrong. Just the opposite had occurred. I was really enjoying my time with David Westbrook.
For the stolen car, David was remanded to Walton Prison, Liverpool. I couldn’t imagine what that would be like. Prison scares me to my soul. In fact, my nightmares of late have all been about the threat of prison hanging over me. Yet I admire those who survive incarceration. It speaks of a strength I envy.
David despised prison, hated it in fact. But it would prove to be the turning point.
‘It was degrading,’ he says. ‘You’re nothing. It made me feel that if I ever got out of there, I would never get caught again.
‘I also felt that because of my past and because no one had ever given a shit about me, what I was doing was my way of getting back at society.’
David was released. With no job prospects in view and no one to guide him, David returned to crime and cheque frauds. Yet the criminal’s ability to know exactly when time is running out on you, now kicked into play. David faked a passport, went to St Tropez. There he sold doughnuts on the beach and at night found himself in casual amorous adventures. He loved the day-to-day nature of this life, the freedom of waking up with just the day to think about.
I too loved those kinds of days, I told him, that feeling of being free from worry, free from the past. I loved sunny days in the park or on a beach, with money in the bank, work on the table, love in my heart.
But there was a shadow hanging over David and that shadow was the police. The constant worry of capture, he explained, was in itself a prison sentence. There was only one way to set himself free.
‘I decided to give myself up, ‘he recalls. ‘I got back from France and I phoned my probation officer. He said, come round and have a cup of tea. Ten minutes later two CID blokes who I knew arrived. One of them said to me, we wondered where you had got to. I told him I had been in France but that enough was enough. I got remanded in custody.
A change had taken place. Prison had initiated it, forced David to see, as that great poet Graham Parker once noted, nobody hurts you harder than yourself. All of us who survive have this same realisation. I certainly did. I awoke one day and knew it was time to stop running away and face up to the past so as to gain a future. It’s a long hard process but it is worth every step.
David’s solicitor did not mince words. He told David he would be imprisoned for a very long time. David shrugged his shoulders. ‘I said, I know that,’ he recalled, ‘but at least I will have learnt my lesson.’
The court case came. Before sentencing, the magistrate asked David if he had anything to say.
‘I stood up and I said, yes,’ David recalls. ‘I said, I have had a shit life. I have had people taking the piss out of me since I can remember, from the council to welfare to the police, but it is now time to go straight. I know you are going to send me away but I am telling you the truth, you won’t see me again. I’m throwing the towel in.’
The magistrate retired to his room. When he returned he told David to stand. David stood. And then another miracle. The magistrate gave David a chance, a last chance but a chance all the same. He sentenced David to just twenty-eight days in prison. To David it was the most precious lifeline ever given him.
‘As we were leaving court,’ David recalls, ‘this CID bloke said to me, you step in shit and you come out smelling of roses. Perhaps, I said the right things, I told him. He said, You’ll be back again. I said, I won’t. You will never ever see me again.’
And they didn’t.
PAOLO HEWITT, JULY 2009
By Paolo Hewitt.
In this as yet untitled book, due to be published in Spring of 2010, I tracked down four of the guys I was in a children’s home with. The home was called Burbank. This is an extract from my meeting with a guy called David Westbrook. Basically, at the home David felt neglected, felt that no one listened to him. In an effort to gain much needed attention, he started owning up to petty crimes he did not commit. The result was that the authorities felt he was uncontrollable and placed him in a borstal where he learnt more about crime in a year than you and I would do in a lifetime. After absconding from the borstal, David ended up in Liverpool where he became a full time criminal. The story starts here.
I WRITE THE SONGS
Fuck you. As a child, you deny me love, you deny me attention, you deny me security. Therefore, you must think me the lowest of the low. Fine. I’ll show you how low I can go. I’ll go to places you haven’t even dreamt about to prove how unhappy I am.
No one had listened to the child, so the man took over and he said, fuck you. David Westbrook became a full time criminal. He and his friend went into credit fraud.
How did that work? I asked him.
‘Easy, you open up accounts in 32 different banks under 32 different names. You put in a hundred pounds in the first account and keep moving the money around,’ he explains. ‘Keep that up for a couple of months and then you say to the bank I need a cheque guarantee card. They then send you one. So now you’ve got thirty two cheque books and thirty two cards. Every day we would go to bank and draw out money. That was our job. Going to the bank every day, opening up accounts, and drawing out money.
Nice work if you can get it, I remark.
‘It is until you get caught,’ he shoots back, laughing.
‘I went into the bank one day and I was collared. At the police station, I had never seen so many cheques in all my life. But I only owed up to two. I just went that one is mine, that one is mine, the rest I don’t know about. The police were so primitive in those days, they didn’t have a clue. These days if you wrote something out, they would send it to an expert and have you. In those days, it was quick arrest, quick conviction. I got a three month suspended sentence. I never gave them the guy I was doing it with. I told them I didn’t know his name.’
David and his partner in crime celebrated with champagne and women. Yet there was something else going on at this time, something very specific to orphans. David didn’t trust a living soul. He didn’t trust his partner, any of his lovers, any of his friends. As far as he was concerned, everyone was under suspicion.
‘If I met someone and had known him for years, I still wouldn’t trust the clothes on his back,’ he says. ‘That’s the way I was. Even the guy I was doing cheques with I didn’t trust him one bit. I used to sit down with him and we would have a laugh saying, this time next year we will be millionaires. But I never trusted him, never trusted anyone.’
In other words, fuck you. I knew that shout well. It took me years to trust anyone, be it friend or lover or caring adult. When I went into care aged ten, a block of ice rose up inside of me, there to keep everyone at bay. No way were you getting inside of me. No one was. I had trusted people all my life and everyone – everyone - had let me down.
I had held out my arms but was kicked in the chest.
David had experienced the same rejection except he now had a much bigger problem. The police had his name and number; they were on his trail
He had bought a motorbike with some of the proceeds of his cheque scam and one day had a bad crash. When he got out of hospital, he hi-tailed it back to Woking but the Liverpool police charged him with reckless driving anyway. To get to his Liverpool court appearance, David stole a car. Bad move. Worse, he parked it directly outside of the court.
At the trial, a miracle. Instead of imprisonment, the judge found David not guilty. He said the police had been harassing him and the case against him was unsound. David came out of court a free man and in a state of absolute bliss. Only to find two policemen standing by his stolen car.
’Is this your vehicle?’ one of them asked.
He was handcuffed and led away.
David pauses. 'I suppose there’s a moral in there somewhere,’ he says.
Yes, there is a moral, I told David, and it’s this - don’t go to court in a stolen motor car.
Both of us laugh and it feels good to be here with this man. Truth be told, I had worried about meeting David, worried the interview would go flat or horribly wrong. Just the opposite had occurred. I was really enjoying my time with David Westbrook.
For the stolen car, David was remanded to Walton Prison, Liverpool. I couldn’t imagine what that would be like. Prison scares me to my soul. In fact, my nightmares of late have all been about the threat of prison hanging over me. Yet I admire those who survive incarceration. It speaks of a strength I envy.
David despised prison, hated it in fact. But it would prove to be the turning point.
‘It was degrading,’ he says. ‘You’re nothing. It made me feel that if I ever got out of there, I would never get caught again.
‘I also felt that because of my past and because no one had ever given a shit about me, what I was doing was my way of getting back at society.’
David was released. With no job prospects in view and no one to guide him, David returned to crime and cheque frauds. Yet the criminal’s ability to know exactly when time is running out on you, now kicked into play. David faked a passport, went to St Tropez. There he sold doughnuts on the beach and at night found himself in casual amorous adventures. He loved the day-to-day nature of this life, the freedom of waking up with just the day to think about.
I too loved those kinds of days, I told him, that feeling of being free from worry, free from the past. I loved sunny days in the park or on a beach, with money in the bank, work on the table, love in my heart.
But there was a shadow hanging over David and that shadow was the police. The constant worry of capture, he explained, was in itself a prison sentence. There was only one way to set himself free.
‘I decided to give myself up, ‘he recalls. ‘I got back from France and I phoned my probation officer. He said, come round and have a cup of tea. Ten minutes later two CID blokes who I knew arrived. One of them said to me, we wondered where you had got to. I told him I had been in France but that enough was enough. I got remanded in custody.
A change had taken place. Prison had initiated it, forced David to see, as that great poet Graham Parker once noted, nobody hurts you harder than yourself. All of us who survive have this same realisation. I certainly did. I awoke one day and knew it was time to stop running away and face up to the past so as to gain a future. It’s a long hard process but it is worth every step.
David’s solicitor did not mince words. He told David he would be imprisoned for a very long time. David shrugged his shoulders. ‘I said, I know that,’ he recalled, ‘but at least I will have learnt my lesson.’
The court case came. Before sentencing, the magistrate asked David if he had anything to say.
‘I stood up and I said, yes,’ David recalls. ‘I said, I have had a shit life. I have had people taking the piss out of me since I can remember, from the council to welfare to the police, but it is now time to go straight. I know you are going to send me away but I am telling you the truth, you won’t see me again. I’m throwing the towel in.’
The magistrate retired to his room. When he returned he told David to stand. David stood. And then another miracle. The magistrate gave David a chance, a last chance but a chance all the same. He sentenced David to just twenty-eight days in prison. To David it was the most precious lifeline ever given him.
‘As we were leaving court,’ David recalls, ‘this CID bloke said to me, you step in shit and you come out smelling of roses. Perhaps, I said the right things, I told him. He said, You’ll be back again. I said, I won’t. You will never ever see me again.’
And they didn’t.
PAOLO HEWITT, JULY 2009
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