Consorting with the Enemy (Recollections) - in process of submitting to Agents/Publishers
Written in two parts this is the true story of Eddy (Wallace Briggs) who grew up in poverty, nurtured in a loving family, who, eventually, exceeds all expectations. He led an impoverished but happy childhood in a world without mobiles, laptops, X-box, Twitter, FB, #, I
padsor pods.
Eddy was the eldest of four children, whose father, Albert, was married to Mary, a tall, attractive lady with jet black tresses and deep brown eyes.
Eddy grew up in a playground paradise with unsupervised freedom to explore, to create a fantasy world far removed from the rigours of his disadvantaged upbringing.
A father belittled by ill health, was rarely able to maintain an income for any length of time, which was why at the age of ten they moved into crowded accommodation in a dilapidated mining village. Albert’s mother was already caring for a recently divorced daughter and her three boys but for almost a year they squeezed up to make room for the Albert and Mary’s family of four.
The only child in the village to have passed the eleven plus examinations, for Grammar School entry, Eddy had to work hard at fitting in. He submerged his intellect and joined his new friends in a much earthier education, in the playground afforded by the abandoned mine workings on the edge of the village.
At the age of seventeen, then employed as a University Chemistry technician, Eddy revived the keeping of a detailed diary. The next part of Eddy’s story is based on those actual notes.
He had become a fervent Christian and had started on a course of study which would take him into the Ministry of a non-conformist, Independent Methodist, church. Doreen was his girlfriend of a year and a half and her father was a highly respected Minister in the same faith, which was how he first met her.
Then, out of the blue, another lady entered Eddy’s life, in nineteen sixty. There was an immediate attraction which he fought hard to resist but , in the end, it was no contest. His heart was smitten by the young Catholic lady and his continued relationship with Doreen was fated . It took a little while to discover that he had first met Pat at the tender age of eleven, walking home from her school. The two children from very different backgrounds found easy conversation flowing between them as they walked down the hill towards Browney Village.
Nineteen sixty was also the year in which the health of Eddy’s much-loved father rapidly declined and there were more frequent hospital admissions. Albert died near the end of the year.
Eddy consolidated his new friendship with Pat making a declaration of love but constant criticism from the church elders and his closest friends blighted his aspirations in the church.
Parental consent was denied but eventually, they were to married at the age of twenty-one and have, to date, enjoyed fifty-eight years of marriage.