Retribution

Brian Walker Denton, Author, aka Thomas Brian Denton Brian was born in January 1935 at his grandfather’s colliery house in South Moor, Stanley, County Durham. The eldest of eight children, he and four of his brothers were secondary school educated and earmarked for the coal mines; the mother’s of many sons could look forward to a comfortable life until their boys became men and were married off or otherwise left home. Brian’s father, Joseph Walker Denton, served in WW2 until 1945 then stayed on as a commando in Palestine until 1947. Brian escaped service in the mines when he became a regular soldier in the Royal Army Medical Corps at the age of 17 after serving for 3 years in the Army Cadet Force. He served for 15 years during which he was army educated to ‘O’ level standard, then on to night school prior to qualifying as a Pharmacy Technician. Having attained the rank of WO2, he resigned in 1967 after a medical downgrade ruled out further promotion. In civvy street, he became a self-employed commission sales agent. However, in 1969 still army barmy, after his medical condition became treatable with newly discovered medication, he joined the Territorial Army and was awarded a commission, Army Number 500000, in May 1975, resigning on the advice of his GP in 1981, after suffering a mild cardiac infarction. He had spent time working for half a dozen companies until starting his own business in 1982 in the wrong place at the wrong time which led to bankruptcy in 1986 losing his business, the family home and just about everything he had worked for in the previous 20 years. Starting again from virtual scratch, he and his supportive wife Audrey applied for the post of joint residential caretakers of a National Trust historic house in Northumberland. It was the worst paid job with longest hours but the most spiritually rewarding job they’d ever had. As Caretaker cum House Steward cum House Manager and Audrey as assistant Housekeeper cum senior Conservation Housekeeper, Brian retired after 9 years on medical grounds, resulting in open heart surgery and a quadruple by-pass, while Audrey stayed on for 7 more years during which Brian began to write poetry, short stories, a novelette and a thriller. Hobbies: First tenor in male voice choir, guitarist, fiddler, harmonica, banjo player and with choir pal and keyboard player Arthur Walker, entertaining fellow senior citizens in care homes and sheltered accommodation complexes. Lessons learned from life: Life is a terminal condition; treasure and enjoy it for as long as possible. Every morsel we ingest is potentially poisonous depending on the dose; eat drink and be merry in moderation. Non-genetic illness is mostly self-inflicted and down to over indulgence in alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. Life is a serious business not to be taken seriously; a sense of humour is essential. Non-religious but tolerant of the piety of others. Causes of conflict: Greed for possession, lust for power, religious intolerance and xenophobia.