Me and the inspiration behind my debut novel

 I am 57 years old and have had a desire to write novels from an early age. I grew up on a council estate on the outskirts of the city of Coventry. Though growing up wasn't exactly easy. being in a single parent family with  a brother and two sisters, it was still enjoyable and enriching. This environment also helped to shape both the stories and the characters I wanted to write about. I want to write about believable characters in believable settings that the reader can connect to and relate to. Perhaps this is why my debut novel is based very much on the streets and within the world I grew up in.  I would not like to describe the novel as autobiographical, more a sense of being influenced by. The main stumbling blocks to my ambition of becoming a writer were perpetuated within these said streets, as a lack of both confidence and belief go hand in hand with the environment I grew up in.

The image below is not my own but never-the-less is a very important image for me. It show a park on the edge of Bell Green that I used to play in as a child. In the foreground is a small bridge that spans an equally small river. In the distance, located at the top of the image, in between the two blocks of flats, one can just make out 'The Live and Let Live public house. This particular public house along with Bell Green and other areas of close proximity feature heavily within the novel. The pub and the flats are no longer there, in fact a lot of the area has changed considerably since my childhood. 

The novel itself is set to the backdrop of the 1973-74 football season and centers around the main character, a fourteen year old boy called Philip Knott. I wanted to have the main character face similar stumbling blocks in his life as I have faced in my own based upon his class and social environment. His family life is difficult but both his abilities as a swimmer and as a shoplifter could offer him a better, brighter future. The main character also strikes up a correspondence friendship with his favourite footballer after entering a competition through a comic and it is this friendship that inspired the main narrative and the title of the novel 'The Boy Who Saved Billy Bremner'.