Bøger udgivet af Lawrence Davidson

Joseph Scott became enrolled in the school of life in February1990, the younger brother of two. The school of life; the one big pool of knowledge where one starts to learn from the first breath taken. There Joe learned how to live, how to laugh, how to accept, how to forgive, how to understand and eventually how to grieve, but how to love? No. He had no need to learn to love for he was born with love in his heart as we all were and his pathway into adult years was enhanced by that love and the directions in which he chose to direct it. His love for his parents knew no bounds and his learning experiences grew more challenging as he moved into adulthood and was forced to contend with the demanding reality of their senior years. This story takes us inside Joe's head as he learns to accept the mother he adores, though mature and beautiful on the outside, is changing and moving away from him in her mind. You are invited to share the pictures in Joe's head as he takes control of the family unit and struggles to understand family secrets inadvertently exposed as senior years affect those loved by him.

His dream was Eden Park - Number 10 jersey. His nightmare Mt Eden Prison - cell block 10 with a promising All Black rugby career shattered. A sentence of a life behind bars can do much to change a man's thinking. 'A grave miscarriage of justice,' were the words on the paper the Minister of Justice had handed to Terry Stamp when it was decided after fourteen years of incarceration he had not killed his wife. 'Go home, my man. Start your life again. You have plenty of good years remaining.' Yes, plenty of good years to control the bitterness filling his heart and driving him on in his personal quest for his wife's killer. He and Cavanagh had been married ten years when she was taken from him in a brutal attack by a spurned group of rugby supporters at a time Terry Stamp was a name on everyone's lips whenever All Black football was mentioned. It was a misinformed and foolish man who dared to say Terry wouldn't pull on the number 10 jersey the next time the All Blacks ran onto the field. It was inferred he might even lead them. Cavanagh's death changed everything and with the nation against him he was sent to prison. He was found unconscious and intoxicated in his smashed car close to where his wife had died. Her blood was on his clothes. Witness stated they had heard his words that day when he threatened to kill her. Five years of fruitless search has Terry accepting those responsible may never be brought to justice, but the double death of his closest friends in their home opens up an incredible line of inquiry. Ken and Jean Fraser died because it was thought they knew too much, but they died for what they didn't know. They knew nothing. Terry's quest carries him to the gates of Maidstone Prison in England to meet an unsavoury character who has first hand information on the killing of twenty years earlier. Paedophilic Elliott Page has personal knowledge of the men who raped and strangled Cavanagh Stamp, an act of lust, but also retribution for being punched out by Terry at an after match function on the night of the murder. Elliott Page has been blackmailing the killer with the intention of revealing all to a glossy weekly for a substantial sum. The killer is ready to pay and ready to kill again.

Life was good when we were young and we were never given reason to think otherwise, nor to consider the remote evolution of man such as late adult hood, retirement and futuristic conditions when the leaves would begin to fall from the tree of life. No way, that would be then and we were now and such things were too far away for the young and vital and not worthy of any thought. Old age was for old people, them not us; but how quickly the pages of the book of life turn before suddenly we find we are easing from the autumn of our lives and conceding to the comforting strains of winter's song to find ourselves looking down and back. Then we are the ones confronted by the truth and the truth is, it does happen and has happened and is happening to us right now; it was happening to Adam Mulberry. Adam bore the label of old really well and had done so since being admitted to Winter's Song Retirement Village four years earlier. Each of his aged companions had a story, an anthology of life experiences which piece by piece he had slowly extracted from them as respect and confidence grew. It had been hard at first, but gradually for many of them Adam had compiled a file in his laptop. Each was a walking history book which in some cases went back almost a full century and it excited him to know he had been accepted by them. With their permission he had converted that knowledge and documented in biographical detail, a series of short stories, cameos that depicted the change that had occurred in a dozen lifetimes on the converging trails that led people not known to each other to a common destination; Winter's Song. These are their stories.

From London to New Zealand Laurie Davidson spent twenty five years travelling the world with his guitar pumping out his music as a busker on the cobbles and in the markets, wearing the personal injustice heaped upon him like a badge of honour. There was no other way. He was a proud man and took the social rejections on the chin, picked himself up and was straight back into it. When down and out there was but one way for him to go and that was up and he wouldn't be stopped. Four years of prison was a hard school for a young man who lost most of what he loved when punished for a crime he did not commit, but he came to realise the friends who remained at his side were true friends who loved him in spite of what he did, or didn't do. Caught in the act in front of an empty safe with a hold-all containing £48,000 at his feet, a security officer unconscious and bleeding in an alleyway; there could be little argument. It's a fair cop, guv'ner. None the less the presiding justice failed to be impressed by his plea of 'Not Guilty, m'lud' and was further disturbed by his lack of remorse when handing down a sentence of 5 years. Forty years of Laurie's life are exposed in these pages as he battles with honour and trust in a stirring family saga that puts loyalty and forgiveness to a demanding test. Rejected by society he chooses to leave England in search of the man who took the lives of those most dear to him; that he might find the strength and understanding to forgive him. Journey's end is in New Zealand and it takes twenty years of experience and learning for him to return to England and fulfil what he knows to be his purpose in life. His best friend once saved his life and used that act to betray him and condemn him to prison. Laurie Davidson rises above that and uses the hardest experiences of life to fine tune himself into a forgiving character whose love for people and music transports him 10,000 miles around the world in search of the man who killed those most dear to him; that he might forgive him and cleanse his soul.