Why me? Why now? I learned to read people at a very young age. A blessing and a curse that began as a toddler running with a horde of other kids, stepping over meditating hippies, stealing joints from ashtrays, hiding in overrun attics and basements, fighting Dad to go see Mum after she left without a word, decoding rooms of adults while still a child, interacting with dealers and addicts, teachers and students, landlords and debt collectors, lenders and bank managers, cleaners and old ladies, London’s elite and those living on the street, models and actors, businessmen and gangsters, therapists and conmen, shamans and yogis. Each one was equal in my eyes, each with a story to tell.

 

I left home at sixteen, and by the time most of my peers were finishing university, I’d lived all of this. I built businesses from sheer independence while spending a decade DJing. Becoming a single father reshaped my life and shifted my creativity from music into writing scripts and working on independent feature films. Now, at fifty, with the perspective to finally face the past, I’ve committed myself fully to the craft. For the last year I’ve dedicated everything to this book, working seven days a week to bring it to life, and will spend the next on book two.