| Malcolm, now a forty five year old man, would admit that in his youth, he had been a bit of a tearaway. Originally from the Midlands of England, he has for over two decades been living and working in the South coast of the UK. Because his father spent long periods in prison, his mother, a respectable woman and a good catholic, had the difficult task of bringing up their two small boys on her own. To cover the sense of shame she felt at her husband’s criminal career, Malcolm and his little brother were told that, their father was a serving soldier in the British army. Even his own friends and the rest of the respectable people who lived in his road, knew about his fathers criminal activities before Malcolm.
Malcolm found out the brutal truth from two Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Police Officers, who visiting his home, informed his mother that her husband had been arrested and was facing a long prison sentence. His mother broke down under this latest blow and though her tears told Malcolm that he was now ‘the man of the house’. The stress and shame of his father’s criminal career had a detrimental effect on his mother’s health over the years.
Her attention mainly focused on Malcolm’s little brother, who suffered badly from epilepsy and Malcolm was left to do much as he pleased. | | He admits that his character begun to change in his teens when he started to hang around with the wrong sort of people, like most young men, he craved to belong. In this group of misfits he found a camaraderie, which manifested itself in fighting other gangs and being a football hooligan. He was soon in trouble with the police; his anti-social behaviour taking an ever-downward spiralling direction towards bigger and worsening acts of criminal behaviour.
He finally made the big mistake of trying half heartily to hold up a Post Office while under the influence of alcohol. After a Police car chase he was arrested. It was at this low point in his life that he met a girl, that would become the love of his life; altering him forever, when she made him realise that she would not stay with him unless he changed. The rest of the story as they say, is history; the courts and the magistrate were told that he had had a change of heart while in prison awaiting trial, amazingly they gave him one last chance to turn his life around and set him free with a suspended sentence.
Malcolm and his girl got married and settled down to a normal lawful life together and he has been a good hard working citizen for the last twenty-five years in a very happy marriage. | | The links below are Flash audio & photographic slide shows.Only parts 1,2 and 3 are active at the moment. | |
