My Sister's Friend (1)

John was escorted out of his cell. It was the last time he would be. Some other inmates, as he passed, said goodbye. Some even called him by his actual name as opposed to one they've guessed. John, for the past seven years made no real impact on any others. And in a few minutes time, he wouldn't be able to change that.


Jenny was in London on a long weekend. Shopping and seeing a show was all she had planned until Monday afternoon. Then she had to pick up her little brother.

Jenny was aimlessly walking up Oxford Street near closing time for the shops. She had done more than her fair* share to help the economy today. As she started to look for a place to check up on all the day's prizes

The Biography of the boy who would become O W Dawson (8)

    "There's that spark, that unquantifiable thing we all want to say we have, that he has got. I could see he didn't know it too. He's a man who knows where he's going and how to get there but he doesn't, not to my knowledge, know it's easier for him because of that spark."

        "There have been many times I wished he'd be more serious, more like the sincere characters he has played, but to wish that is like wishing away some of the best moments we've had together. He struggled to start with because of this lack of, say, maturity, but that's because this business has lost some of it's child-like innocence, which he still has. He's not by any means a child, but the world around him still brings an enjoyment which many of us lost."

The Biography of the boy who would become O W Dawson (7)

      "He's great to be around. Easy to get on with. Just easy. He's more interested in making things easier for everyone else than the goal at hand. A real social person. Spending time with him is like a black hole, you could be with him and not realise you've just wasted  two or three hours. It's not right to say wasted, no time is wasted with him, it all just a good time. He's not burdened by deadlines or appointments, he can charm his way out of any lateness, it's like people just understand why. I can imagine they would think it was the other's not letting him go rather than him."

   "One thing I would add, secretly, on his own, he works really hard but he does it away from other people. Whenever he's needed to have worked, he has. He just does it privately, shyly away from others. I don't know why, but it does add to that image he has."

     "I don't think he's arrogant, I know a lot of other people, people, I might add, who don't actually know him, say he's arrogant. Maybe, you could level self-assured at him, but in this line of work, we all are self-assured."

The Biography of the boy who would become O W Dawson (6)

       "When I knew him whilst we did the architecture degree, up in Glasgow, it was awkward.
I didn't know how to act around him. I wasn't the only one too. I guess some of us didn't get him. I was all awkward and difficult. He either planned it that way or just wasn't aware of it. The strange thing was he did nothing to help the situation, it was almost like he liked it."
                                        
       "Then, a couple of years later, due to a mutual friend, he came to visit us in London. It was amazing how different it was. To be honest, I didn't think that much of him before then, now, I think he's one of those people who could do anything they wanted in life, I just don't know why it took him so long."

lifted from my electronic note pad, use later and not all at once

The lines have been drawn, the frontiers made. Borders and barriers creating division.

The lines start to construct a definition, a relationship of what is belonging and what is foreign.

Without these frontiers a state cannot begin to exist. It is these borders which not only create barriers newly defined objects, they also open an opportunity for dialogue.

This example is when dialogue is replaced by physical and emotional division. The future did need not be a fortress.

A castle wall higher than imaginable separated a people. Divided and with time, the emotional bonds were replaced.

No longer are lines drawn.
Gone are the frontiers, borders and barriers.

Lost are the ties. Division and space fill the voids where the marks once laid.

Once separated, parts, no matter how close can only stay as individual components. The opportunity for one has passed.


Sent from a mobile device

He was in the same vein as Fleming wrote about his character

He was cold. Completely without any hint of a human trait. Almost Teutonic with his efficiency to do his job. But he was only his job. A series of events in his past took all the rest of a life away. He was not so much scared, as striped bare. There was nothing left to lose. He only had his loyalty to his employer to motivate him. It was his eyes that always gave this dire condition away. Yes he could be charming, but only as charming as a well built Swiss time piece. It was hard to get passed his dead look in the eyes, even when his soft lips were smiling and his body language was positive. It was all an act. And people in the same game knew it. That's what made it so devastating to watch. He would make the moves, talk the lines, smile and touch, but he could chill anything but the hottest of suns. But for him, it was a job; a task, a series of tasks. Whether they be interacting with others or tying up his employer's loose ends, they were all just tasks. Tasks for the only one who he could trust, the only one left; his employer; the country; the crown.

The Biography of the boy who would become O W Dawson (5)

The boy, still a boy, was starting slowly in the business.

On only his second job as an extra, he was craving attention. He, although not the focus of the filming, he was starting to hone his reaction to the camera. Now not intimated of them or their gaze. He was noticing, in the three camera set up, which camera was filming, moving his gaze from camera to camera via the sometime obscured multiview monitor showing all the feeds, without looking at all obvious. The multiview was what the director could see, choosing and switching from the different feeds. The boy was also listening to everything that was going on around him between takes. He knew all about where the cameras were going, his spatial relationship to them, he was aware of the microphone set ups and almost everything needed for the takes. He did this without making a sound, without asking questions, without any member of the crew noticing. He felt like an intruder hiding in the shadows, but he was right in the middle of things, the stillness at the centre of a small storm. He loved it. He loved it that way.

When not in the studio, between longer breaks, the people not needed retired to a small room next door. He didn't speak to anyone unless they spoke to him first. it wasn't out of arrogance or shyness, not this time. It was because he felt comfortable. For the first time for a long time, he was completely comfortable in himself. He was happy to sit there on his own, not engaging with people close around. The other people however, were not so. A first-time extra, about 17 or so had arrived first to the table they shared. The boy didn't introduce himself as he joined him, nor did the 17 year old. The boy did this out of choice, the 17, maybe out of rudeness, maybe out of intimidation. All day the icy silence between them grew.
Only one of them was enjoying this awkwardness.
Was this the start of O W's persona; a silent, cold exterior without a hint of any engagement or welcome? The boy was like this to some people anyway, but out of shyness, a teenage-like social awkwardness he sometimes could do little about. In the past, these moments chose him, but this time, with the other extra, he chose the moment.
He wondered what the 17 year old was thinking. By the end of the near 12 hour day, he felt slightly guilty for not taking the step. But he was more than polite to the 17 year old. He made eye contact when holding the doors open for him and smiled as he passed, but never truly broke the ice.
Maybe this was another social misfit.

Milly Moo Goes

No-body knows where the Milly Moo goes
No-body knows

No-body sees
when she climbs up trees
And when it gets dark
She'll walk in the park
But only at night
Hunting birds out of flight

No-body knows where the Milly Moo goes
No-body knows

Everyone sighs
When Milly Moo crys
To say that she's back
From talking to cats
Some cats that are fat
From the garden out back

No-body knows where the Milly Moo goes
No-body knows

No-body gets
When it's time for the vets
She will go outside
And run away to hide
From everyone and us
'til we stop making a fuss

No-body knows where the Milly Moo goes
No-body knows

Everyone jumps
When the Milly Moo bumps
Into the table
Which isn't stable
Vases crash to the ground
Pieces shattered 'round

No-body knows where the Milly Moo goes
No-body knows

Everyone laughs
When it's time for a bath
And the Milly does dash
In with a splash
Drinking the water
like milk from her saucer

No-body knows where the Milly Moo goes
No-body knows

No-body knows where the Milly Moo goes
No-body knows

The Biography of the boy who would become O W Dawson (4)

He, even now, was thinking that he would not need to re-draft this biography. Re-reading and re-drafting, like practise, was not the norm for the boy. The only thing that he ever practised was snowboarding. When, with this time practising, he crack through a physical and mental barrier to accomplish the ability to snowboard with some novice level of skill, it became a moment, rare but full of excitement. He would later comment on this moment, as if another part of my mind had been touched and then opened. But like all things he tried, snowboarding was not actively pursued on his own. It wasn't until much later, when he and S L moved to their more permanent, third home in LA, did he positively made time for the sport.
He would re-draft this work, but only after he had become who he was destined to be.

She Dreamt Lastnight, She Was Jesus

       "I think that I might be Jesus"
She said as she lay asleep. "I think we all might be Jesus, you know."
            "We all could be Jesus if we just all became quiet, and just listen."
   "I think it would be for the best if we could become quieter."

The Biography of the boy who would become O W Dawson (3)

Writing was a key to the door. He was interested in ideas and writing just happened to be the format he chose to get his across to others.
Writing for the boy was becoming a joy. The joy that O W Dawson would become well thought of and much admired for.

The Biography of the boy who would become O W Dawson (2)

The boy was always considered bright but always so far from his full potential.
Even as a child in primary school, teachers would comment on how he was not close to where he had the ability to be. This would stick in his mind.
He was not the most clever in all his classes, but would have the potential, with a deal of focus, to be.
He was not the best at anything, but he was very close. In fact a flaw he had was his ability to pick things up quickly and show true promise. This however, as the boy, was never fulfilled. He had a curse of ability. It is more factual to say he has a curse of the second level of achievement. The second level, when the initial novelty wears thin and focus and the want to improve kicks in. The boy just didn't have this built into him. He would struggle with matching the initial, unrehearsed results with results born of trying. Doubt and self loathing then would grip him in the mind. Pain of trying became pain of the thing he was trying. The initial joy from the novelty of the new pursuit could never be refound.
The boy was full of these catch 22's. He wasn't aware that these catches were self created and thus he would be able to destruct them by himself until the lull period.
There was more than enough talent in the hands, face and mind of the boy, but it would not be until the creation that was O W Dawson, would all of it be tapped into and utilised.
Whilst 'The Great Western City' was still floating in his mind, the boy was warming up with projects that would be later collated by others. These short, simple stories and self address notes were by being created, a new phenomenon for the boy. To practise, to create just to throw away, was a non-existant notion for him. For example, even sketches of his buildings and pages in his sketchbooks themselves would be used in the final presentation. Other students would have numbers of rough workings and thrown away ideas as well as the presentation. He had only what you saw on the wall. There was never anymore. There was never the volume of work his presentation gave the impression he had done. In many ways, it was the path of least resistance. But in many ways, it was a testament to the complete working of his full and powerful imagination: what would be committed to paper was the final, complete product.
So to practise, to create unfinished bits and pieces just to warm up was alien to the boy. Yet it was a hurdle that had to be jumped if writing and acting were what O W Dawson was to do. Although he could imagine complete designs in his fertile mind, whole stories and novels, he could not.

The Biography of the boy who would become O W Dawson (1)

Only O W Dawson knew he was going to be a big star. Even the closest people around him, the kind ones, had their doubts.
He had a comfortable upbringing. Comfortable. And liberal. It was difficult for this boy, from a comfortable suburban background to bounce off the sides when there wasn't any sides to bounce off. In many ways, this was typical of the the kids he knew as a young boy. Sunny East Sussex, with it's seaside, holiday air, was hard to rebel against. But in the transition from boy to man, rebelling is a right of passage.
Luckily for this child, the sides started to close in. Sadly however, it crushed his spirit for a decade or more. Yet in his recovery: the death of the boy, O W Dawson was born.
Like many, He is a complex bundle of contradictions and untruths. He, like many friends would say, was arrogant to a fault about his abilities. Yet this is contrary to the massive weight of doubt that he carries. He can come across as his biggest fan because of the deadpan delivery of moments of supposed egotism, he is like this about his beauty as well. But it is a threefold notion. He, on one level, says with dead sarcasm that he is talented and pretty for a boy, yet on a second level, he doesn't believe this. Thirdly, however, this is then becomes a source of self-criticism if someone else in the room, the field, is considered better looking or more talented. It comes a stick to beat himself with. He, it would turn out, has many of these sticks of which to torrcher himself.
Only O W Dawson, would start to write, with a ghost writer, it has to be noted, his biography before he became the success he saw for himself. And, like no-one else, did he only write it for himself only to read.
At a time when he was still in the final stages of his decade long recovery from the rocks of adolescence, years before the publication of his seminal 'The Great Western City', he began the book that would the one you are now reading.
This period of his life was a crossroads. He left the retirement coast of his upbringing six years before now to Glasgow, the muse of his most complete and seminal work. The force behind this 500 mile travel north was his soul-mate and spine, S L Bartlett. She, for many years, gave him comfort and motivation when his was waning. She acted as a catalyst to become a creative fountainhead. Initiallly, the move was to study at the prestigious Glasgow School of Art's Mac Architecture School. After completing his first two years there, making some good, long friendships, he became shipwrecked again. The ghosts of his teenage years had followed him.
New and fresh thinking and big city living created a vale for a couple of good years. This was just a vale. Glasgow's winters made a prefect backdrop to what was to be the closest he came to dying young and unknown. A fear of needles and the intervention of a NHS doctor saved him. This chance run in with the doctor was partly created by the boy himself. He was running low, both in mood and creative energy. He, at this point was starting the third year of his architecture degree, and sinking. He went to his GP to see whether a rise in the dose of his anti-depressants would help. The GP was unsure if this would really be solving the problem or just putting a sticky-plaster over it. The GP wanted to check his blood first to see if all was all-right. The fear of needles had hindered any chance of this happening before, so the GP referred him to a hypotherapeutic psychologist. And it was at one of the resulting session, did the suicidal will become apparent to some other than the boy himself. Shocking was the lack of emotion with which he delivered his plans, the psychologist had no alternative but to call for help. So began the ball rolling, the recovery of this soul, this boy.
Treatment was fast coming but very slow acting, and it would take another three plus years to really fix the inner ills.
In this interim period, this transition, the creative thoughts slowly but reassuringly started to come back. It was by no means an easy time for anyone in his small family circle. Which became a burden he privately acknowledged. He fell back on the mask of complex contradictions and clichés. He told his mother and sister, still living in his hometown, that he was better than he was. He painted a picture of how he was on his better days, making out that every day was a better day. This however was not a complete image. He, for many years during this period, suffered from a lack of energy and consistency. One day he would be full of running yet without ideas or plans to execute. Other day, quieter day, he could hear the near-silent voices of his inner creativity. Yet this quiet was because of the lack of movement of the boy's physical self. The complete fool. A situation of self defeating unconscious folly of which he would become aware of but have no answer.
This subconscious control of the boy's mind would eventually resolve, with extraordinary results.
O W Dawson was as much a character as any scripted in a play or written about in a story. A persona, with a made up name. It would become the vehicle to launch the new, fixed man from which boy grew into.
O W Dawson was five years younger than the boy he replaced. The age of his only full sister.
O W Dawson, the author, the actor, the man was conceived in the lull time. The boy wrote about him in his mind, the still, quiet times. He imagined how he would be.
Based in part, on the better time from his past, and in part, on the inner talent and cool aura he knew he had hidden, the myth started to become reality.
In his weekly visits to his psychoanalysing consultant, he discussed, without separating the two: the boy and the character, his plans for his future, and the boy's past. Many dots would be connected. And like all others, the amazing confidence and assurance with which the boy knew the future was in part, written off by the doctor. This was due to the lack of belief in the boy's ability to control things out of this control. The man he was becoming was still only going to be human. Yet, the boy's non-grounded otherworldly view was undiminished.
The boy was, in many ways, a product of his time. Growing up in the 80's, he was materialistic but also lacking the everyday understanding of money. Money became a series of numbers on a computer screen when both S L and the boy started to live independently of their parents. Money in the bank was ideal but not a true motivation in life. Cars, a number of classics, a sting of flats in various locations in many countries was. The ability to learn things the money would grease the hinges, was also the driver. Fame and cash was always how O W Dawson described his goal, but this wasn't really a fair comment. To learn to fly small planes and helicopters. To race cars as a skilled amateur, to meet heroes of his great interest: formula one and Le Mans. To get a garage space for both S L and O W to fool about with vehicles he only had models of as the boy. These were the true goals in his life. That and the ability to to fund the dreams of his closes family and friends. To provide every want of S L.
His goals, it would aspire, would not be as far away as other would think.
He, in many ways was a boy of luck as much as one of talent. He missed so many opportunities when suffering, he would grab more when well.
He wasn't one, however, to make his own luck. Luck was luck in the truest sense. For some, when things were quiet, they would do, they would agitate. This was just not the boy's way. Not on a conscious level. He did realise though celebrities of the time, that having one sting to their bow was not enough in the age of self publishing, self creating, self broadcasting. He looked inward and was truly honest to himself when looking for a talent that could be usable without the need for tutelage. Writing. He was dyslexic. Growing up with it in a generation when disadvantages such as dyslexia were actively sort to be helped, it wasn't until university he was diagnosed with it. In fact, it wasn't until his early twenties did he even complete this English GCSE. He learnt to enjoy writing, which was a chore as a boy. Reading, another chore of hate, was still longer before it was considered a gift; a treat rather than punishment. The boy was always articulate and gave the impression of well read intelligence. This was not the case. He, in his late twenties, had only actually read onecomplete book from cover to cover. He, although not a reader, was a bright understander of ideas and theories. At the Mac, he could more than bluff his way though intellectual discussions about subjects that required in-depth reading, just by picking up what was being said by others at the time. A talent that never to his knowledge became apparent.
The boy was always considered bright but always so far from his full potential.