TORN

Life teaches us all many lessons. Some are learned, some neglected or avoided, and some take us down entirely misleading paths until we discover the reason for the detour. I was educated in a time and place where I was told on a regular basis by people in authority that I would amount to nothing. 

One of them was a teacher who made what I now see as a life changing statement: ‘You’ll find yourself behind bars, Webster.’ Growing up in the rough and tumble of a Catholic secondary modern school in working class Wigan and from a loving family strengthened by faith, it came as something of a shock to me.

He turned out to be right. In a way. I spent 19 years of my life ‘behind bars,’ but not as he had suggested. I became a prison officer. I think one of the reasons was to help in a small way those who may have been similarly condemned but who unfortunately never got the chance, through better life circumstances, to prove their detractors wrong. There by the grace of God!

The inspiration for this story has come from the darkest of places, the most painful of experiences, and in the suffering of those I would have swapped places with - at the drop of a hat - to free from their pain. I have been inspired beyond anything I could ever have imagined by the sheer determination of those closest to me in the way they have faced and dealt with their own adversities and battles. Their determination and courage is humbling.”

Last of all but not least of all, I need to thank the dreamscape from which I woke early one morning during the first Covid lockdown in 2020. There was a big question in my head. To answer the question I embarked upon a mission - and that mission was to tell the story of David, Jennifer and Father Seth.”