Chapter 1-4

It's funny thing time, Seneca the roman philosopher said "Time heals what reason cannot." my 9 year old mind could not make any reason of what had just happened, but 40 years on, time has healed it, however, not in the way you might think.

Standing in the headmasters office shaking and crying my eyes out I was convinced he would break, he had to, my life had been ripped apart. He walked around me, full circle, stopping in front of me he stooped down and rested his hand on my shoulder, his face changed to a smirk. "Jones" he said quietly, "I'm not surprised, your scum". He stood up "your dad got what he deserved" he said, walking back to his chair and resting back in it, he continued. "You see Jones, people like you and your family will always end up in prison, it's what they are there for, to keep the streets clear of your type." I was devastated, how could he say something like that? My dad a good man, how dare he. Every bone in my body wanted to climb over that desk and rip his head off, but I was 9, so I cried. "pull yourself together Jones" he snapped, "now apart from this fiasco with your jailbird father, why are you here?".

I took a deep breath, "Well sir, we were asked to write an essay about our week, and I started the essay by describing how I felt. My teacher said this was wrong, so I asked why we have to start a story at the beginning?" this is what was in my mind, this is what was supposed to come out of my mouth, this was the speech I was geared up to give, but once again what actually came out was. "er, um, story... Dad... start...." promptly followed by yet another stream of tears. My headmaster, grinned then laughed, "Jones, your useless, get out of my sight, you can wait outside, facing the wall for the rest of the day. " He opened the door and gestured to the wall. "Face the wall" was his last comment as he slammed the door shut.

It was 11am, that day like so many others I did learn something, I learnt to wait, wait quietly, wait peacefully, the one thing I could do from the age of 9 was wait...I can't for the life of me remember the details, I can't tell you if dad came home or was on remand, or how long it all took I do, however, remember the day he went down, we were at my nan's and mum came home alone. Again it was time to wait, could I wait a year? The writer John Ruskin said "Endurance is nobler than strength and patience than beauty." ..... Patient endurance, would become a big part of my life...