Lethal Ties
Page 46
For further information about my writing, please visit my website where you will also find my social media links and blog: www.samefacedifferentplace.com.
Helen Christmas
Tribute to Graham Levell
As mentioned, I have many people to thank for inspiring me, but none more so than Graham Levell, who I interviewed in the Waverley Pub, on Bognor Seafront. Our meeting happened by chance when author friend, Dan Jones, related his experiences of working in children’s care homes in the 1990s. Graham was his best friend.
Before I begin my tribute, I should mention the characters, specifically the male lead, Joe. I had no difficulty writing Joe’s back story; from living in a children’s home, running away, serving a prison sentence, battling with depression, drug addiction and paranoia to ultimately ending up on the streets, homeless. The difficulty arose in creating Joe’s complex character.
So when Dan mentioned his friend, I was intrigued:
“He would have stories to tell you, he did drugs, drank, spent time homeless, missed education, mixed with all sorts of people, yet turned things around. So he knows what the scene was like here in Bognor during the 1990s for teenagers in a difficult home environment and in the care system...”
Introducing me to Graham felt like fate, and in the course of an hour, I gained some fascinating insights into his life.
Graham’s story began when he worked at Butlins but at the age of fourteen, decided to leave home and spend the next fortnight sleeping under Bognor Pier. At no time did I get the impression this was traumatic, more an adventure, as he colourfully alluded to the homeless culture in Bognor.
“That was before they put down anti-homeless alarms. Sit on a bench for too long, it makes a horrible noise so you can’t sleep.”
Graham had dreams of going to college, to avoid the predetermination he would follow the path of many local youngsters and work at LEC. The more he talked, the more I got the impression he was unhappy with his life. Working at Butlins however, the next turning point was Dan’s girlfriend discovering he was sleeping rough; as a result, they invited him to come and stay with them. This was 1997, at a time when he had been gravitating towards other troubled youths, getting into drugs and alcohol. He described himself as quite a suspicious, cynical person.
“I mean I don’t have any lasting relationships and Dan was just about the only person I had a long friendship with.”
Shortly after this, the police got involved. His mum had reported him missing and Social Services intervened; said he couldn’t stay with Dan (19) and his girlfriend, and that as a fourteen-year-old runaway, they felt uncomfortable about it.
In the next part of Graham’s life, being in care, some really enlightening stories began to emerge. I asked him about the process of being fostered, which he described as being “really scary... where they used to force us into these gatherings. It was all well-intended, but all a bit weird and false. Social workers present, theatre groups... others were just ‘happy clappy’ Christians.”
During these gatherings, he would meet all sorts of people - girls who had been sexually abused - but with the lads, he remembers a sense of brotherhood, the usual teenage dominance (chest beating), and then laughing and joking about the different foster carers they’d had.
“There were some right bastards out there caring for people... One couple used to have the kids living in a caravan at the end of their garden and then drag them indoors for bridge games every Wednesday night, and the kids would be made to work this huge great big garden and were generally slaves and dogsbodies around the house. These days, they wouldn’t pass the fostering board.”
An interesting transition from being in care arose when Graham ended up working in care himself. But before this could happen, he needed an education. He missed a lot of schooling, messed up his GSCEs (was even threatened with suspension) but turned things around in the sixth form and finally achieved his dream of going to college. It was amazing how fast he adapted, joyfully describing how this was the making of him; first studying a National Diploma in performing arts and a Diploma in vocational education in business.
“They worked me ragged for four years but I had some wicked tutors and started mixing with people who were fairly decent.”
Best of all, Graham achieved a National Diploma, went on to do a Professional Development Certificate, then a Professional Development Diploma (which is a level 5 certificate) and was hailed as 1 in 10,000 kids to come out of care with a degree level qualification (in Health and Social Care).
I feel blessed to have had this one-to-one with Graham, who gave up his time entertaining me with his stories and accomplishments. To an author this was gold dust, and as the conversation gathered momentum, he became more animated, describing his work in care homes with troubled youngsters, one of which was for young offenders and substance misusers.
“They would get wrecked and come back late after staff had locked the doors... and I was a bit of a soft touch, because one of the rules was ‘three warnings and you’re out’ - and I wanted to keep the kids with me until my dying breath. There was no way I was going to let anyone else look after my kids, because I knew what it was like to have no one you could depend on around the corner. I mean, they used to throw me through doors and everything… I got the shit kicked out of me loads of times BUT no one else was going to look after them. Not as good as me and my team.”
So when did Graham turn his life around? He was quite frank.
“When I got my ex-wife pregnant. With a little baby on the way – the first of my three daughters – I got a job selling mobile phones to retail. Business supplied the learning and I found myself taking on a lot of what they taught me in terms of sales and communication. Knowing Dan, too, was a massive help.”
Graham won various awards in quality of business (still has the glass statue), and even Dan said he felt like a proud father to see him achieve success. This was the start of his professional development.
A darker side of Graham’s musings emerged in some of the stories he came across about kids in care; from a high functioning autistic boy left to fend for himself in a studio flat who became almost feral - to a three-year-old child raped by his adoptive father. He ended up in a foster placement and it completely went undetected, but he used to sleep in the same bed as his foster father and nothing was ever said.
“He was schizophrenic when he came to me, because this had been a repeat pattern with every placement, but looking after him around 2007, he became the abuser. If it happens from an extremely young age it becomes a sense of normality...”
This was one of the last things Graham spoke of, the referral files he used to read, which would make him cry; cases of abuse that emotionally floored him:
‘Awful. Absolutely awful. This is why I would never let my kids go, because I’d seen what they’d been through... I could never be a social worker because I would KILL people.’
I will never regret meeting Graham, not only to hear his amazing story, he became the biggest inspiration behind Joe’s character. I’ve even included some of his quotes, one being that kids in care have a huge chip on their shoulder.
“You’re either a victim or a fighter.”
Anyone who knew Graham might recognise a little piece of him in Joe, from his flickers of insight to his sunny personality, his compassion and sense of humour. For all the while we were talking, I sensed neither bitterness nor regret. Graham was a genuinely lovely guy – had the gift of the gab, portrayed life in a colourful, humorous way and had a wicked laugh.
What I did not know at the time, though, was that he had mental health problems and battled with bi-polar disorder. Sadly in 2020, with his existing problems exacerbated by the impact UK lockdown had on single people during the coronavirus pandemic, Graham died from an overdose of his medication. It broke my heart to discover the loss of this inspirational man, but he often spoke of suicide among males and took his life before I had a chance to properly acknowledge his help. My ti
me with Graham is a memory I will forever hold dear. So I hope I have, in some way, kept his spirit alive in sharing this emotional tribute.
For more information about Helen J. Christmas and her books visit her website
www.samefacedifferentplace.com
BOOKS BY HELEN CHRISTMAS
Same Face Different Place
Decade-spanning mystery thriller series
Beginnings
Visions
Pleasures
Retribution Phase One
Retribution End Game
Available for Kindle and in Paperback
Rosebrook Chronicles
Interlocking character stories linked to Same Face Different Place
Rosebrook Chronicles The Hidden Stories
Rosebrook Chronicles is also available in AUDIO