Synopsis
Title: Twisted Chimneys Category: Autobiography Words:
130,000
Chapter 1: My story begins in 1987. I am aged 24 years and sitting alone in my brothers
flat coming to terms with the death of my mother. I make myself a promise and begin to write a story about my childhood in
Basildon, Essex, and my family for my baby daughter after splitting up with her mother. Chapter 2 finds me in 1997, alone
drunk and depressed at the situation I have found myself in with three daughters with three different mothers, and trying
to understand why I cannot keep a relationship together. The same night I stumble across a red sleeved book that I began to
write in back in 1987 at my brothers flat. Tears now dripping onto the pages as I realise my failures, I make a vow to turn
my life around (twist) and write down for my family why this all happened to me! I buy a PC and begin to type the past, with
a degree of criticism, and in doing so over the next 11 years I find out the reasons for being me.
Chapter 3:
I decided to start the next chapter with the birth of my father in Kilbeggan, Westmeath Ireland in 1928. The following chapters
then continue with Tom Guilfoyle and his childhood, happy living in a town with no cars and no money. He grows up and meets
by chance at the age of 20 a distant cousin on his mother’s side from England and in 1948 he leaves home and travels
to the busy, bustling streets of Manchester to lodge with his cousin and work as a ground worker (labourer) on building sites.
Dad is accused by a girl of getting her pregnant he feels its entrapment, as the current boyfriend had ran off, they argued
and Dad returned to Ireland upset by the fact that there may have been a slim chance it was his child; he carried that emotion
around for the next 55 years.
Dad returned
to England to live in Luton, Bedfordshire, where he met Violet (my mother). She
had a son named Frank aged 4 years by a previous marriage that had gone wrong; Dad was 26 years old and Mum 23. They moved
to Camden Town in London and then out to a new town called Basildon, Essex. They had 3 children together: Mick, Patrick (me)
and Bernadette. In 1972 I nearly died after an accident when I fell from a tree. In 1974 my parents split up and our home
was repossessed. Mick and I were sent to live in Ireland with family we didn’t really know, having only met them once
as children; Dad and Bernadette stayed in Basildon. We returned a year later and my father being homeless with three children
was awarded a council house. We spent the next 3 years living with no electric and gas, sometimes no money at all; we were
the poorest family around the town until I walked out at the age of 15 years. I went to live with my mother; I met a girl
at 15 and left school with no qualifications, before my exams, and went to work as a ground worker (Labourer) on a building
site. I split up with my girlfriend of 3 years at the age of 18; I became a Punk Rocker and followed bands around London.
I met a Greek family in Corfu during a holiday; friends for life they became.
In 1986 I had my first child, and in 1987, I split up with her mother and my Mum died.
I had the notion to write a book as I realised I hadn’t taken the time to get to know Mum; I searched for her past in
the belongings I collected from her bungalow and was terrified when I found nothing
to tell me who she was. In 1990 I had my second child then lost my home due to the invasion of Kuwait and interest
rate rises and eventually I split up with her mother in 1992. In 1997 I split up with yet another girl leaving another child!
One evening that year I decided that I would now type my life story, spend my time rebuilding my life and looking after my
3 kids when I had them at weekends. I worked so hard at my career and at my personal life. I had a busy working life in London;
I climbed the ladder to many tier levels of management and director level. I worked on projects in the city for the rich and
famous and attended nights out on in The Grosvenor Hotel on Park Lane in London. I was the host at many other venues along
with hospitality boxes at Premier football matches.
I met my soul mate and together we helped bring up my 3 kids, remaining friends with
all the mothers. We moved to Southminster in Essex, we got married and my friends flew in from Greece for the occasion. We
had 2 children of our own (5 girls in total) and we moved my father into the village; he was now a widower having found and
married his soul mate in 1980 after fleeing Basildon and the destructive life he had endured there. Dad went back to the streets
of Manchester alone at the age of 77 to search for the child he left behind in 1950! He found that the woman, his old girlfriend,
was dead then I found the child on a visit to the National Archives in Kew in London 3 years later. The records showed a boy
adopted at birth, father unknown; all we have is a birth certificate.
In 2009 I completed my book after noticing the difference in all people walking the streets,
when I stood on a street corner in London and watched on one side of the street the queue of talented individuals dressed
to thrill on a sunny day, auditioning for Britain’s Got Talent, and the other side of the street a cluster of tramps
sharing a cigarette drinking cans of cider; it was 10 o clock in the morning. Both crowds were happy and smiling and on their
way to somewhere else. I looked up at the chimneys witnessing the change in all of us, twisting out our lives and knew the
title of my book would be Twisted Chimneys! With this new enlightenment I decided that the book I have written for my children
should be read by everybody I could reach, as it explained my journey and my motivation. It also explained how I came to start
writing in the first place. It helped me find my mother’s birth place and allowed me to piece together memories of the
past including our ancestors on my mother’s side - my great grandmother being an Apache Indian, who fled America after
shooting a man in 1880. It inspired me to design a website called www.twistedchimneys.com so I could communicate with people telling, them what I had done; many wished to do the same. I then pieced
together my mother’s past and my father’s and mine; I learned emotionally the reasons for being me…
