BOOK REVIEW - URBAN GRIMSHAW AND THE SHED CREW (2005)

You're twelve years old. Your mother's a junkie and your father might as well be dead. You can't read or write, and you don't go to school. An average day means sitting round a bonfire with your mates smoking drugs, or stealing cars.

Welcome to Urban's world

Picture from the set of Urban and the Shed Crew

Let’s start being direct and honest: this book is one I would never have read if it wasn’t for Richard Armitage. This admission is not a  first, for me.  I have already thanked his acting projects for introducing me to readings and worlds I’d never have approached otherwise. After this totally truthful introductive statement,  I’m ready to tell you something about this story without,  I hope,  spoiling your pleasure to discover more reading the book yourself or watching the film adaptation, when it comes out.

Bernard Hare wrote  “Urban Grishaw and the Shed Crew” several years ago now (it was published in 2005)  mixing compelling reportage with deeply personal memoir. His alter ego in the book is Chop, aka Richard Armitage in the upcoming movie adaptation I mentioned before.  

Leeds in the 1990s is the setting for this story. Chop is an ex social worker who dropped his job and retreated in a world of drinking and drugs, living at the margins of society. It is in that unfortunate situation that he meets Urban Grimshaw and the Shed Crew, a gang of feral kids who live stealing or as young prostitutes.

WORKING HARD, READING, WATCHING, LIVING - MISCELLANEOUS POST

Hello and happy beginning of May, everyone. What have you been up to? Great things, I hope. I've been working hard, reading, watching, living.  If you have some spare time to read, I'm here to share with you. 

Working hard

Just have a look at the picture on the right, focus on the image in the middle, consider it is May and draw your own conclusions. How would I answer the question "How are you?" these days?
I usually describe myself in these moments as "drowning in a sea of paper".
What kind of paper, you ask? Hundreds of sheets, all scribbled on with blue or black ink. They are supposed to be in English but I have some difficulty to decipher them at times. My students are quite creative, you know, and their speciality is Anglian (English with the addition of some Italian) or Italish (Italian with the addition of some English).
They will improve, they will improve, they will improve ... I must believe all my efforts and theirs (?) will end up with some good results. For now, I simply have to hold on and contribute a great deal of red ink to their uncertain attempts. It is almost over, let's hold on!  Summer is coming, the last day of school is near.