Playing Out: Swings and Roundabouts

If Paul was a pigeon his dad would probably wring his neck.

The runt of the litter, the youngest of five, he grasps at life.

Children struggle with different and Paul is unique. He’s being raised by his dad on social welfare… It’s the 1970s, toys are crap and money is short.

Struggling with the constraints of poverty and desperate to fit in, obeying the rules is not easy. In a bid to gain the right sort of attention laws are broken or replaced by his own set of values.

Scrumping, scampering through sewage tunnels and scrounging are just a few of the things that occupy his existence. 

Paul’s life is PLAYING OUT.

Playing Out - Swings and Roundabouts outlines the first ten years of Paul’s life. Abandoned by his mother at six weeks old, he lives alongside three brothers and a sister being raised by their lorry driver father. Struggling to cope, their father does his best to provide but living on state handouts means the children often go without. Being motherless has a huge impact on every aspect of his existence. In way of compensation, swings and roundabouts, Paul is afforded the freedom to roam. Hardships aplenty, lacking the nurture that often comes from a motherly embrace, Paul is being sculpted, his life is playing out. Set in the 1970s, the older reader can enjoy a nostalgic trip down memory lane and the youngsters can view the offline existence of kids who wore flares and had bad hair. Products and television programmes, toys and confectionery, the sweetest of memories entwined with the roughness of a working-class environment. Street games, scrumping and sewage tunnels. A patchwork quilt of Paul’s memories stitched together using a rather coarse yarn makes this story a true account of British social history that is both poignant and humorous. All the main elements of the story are genuine incidents, although many of the people and places have been distorted to protect the guilty and to assist with the flow of the narrative.