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| Category: |
Biography |
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Type: |
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| Pages: |
300 |
Copyright: |
Jan 1 1997 |
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Non-Fiction |
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Autobiography of a smiling depressive
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Douglas Stuart Laird, the author of " LIVE ANOTHER LIFE". (Memoir's of a smiling depressive) was born in Liverpool during the depression. The son of a corporation labourer who had spent most of his early life in the ninety-third Argyle and Sutherland regiment in India and treated his children worse than the dhobi wallahs he employed over there. He was a very hard man and his family lived in poverty while he shouted one and all drinks in the local boozer. The author, whose fragile mother was doing her utmost to feed the family eventually succumbed to malnutrition (then a new word for starvation) at the age of forty-three leaving the four children to fend for themselves.
The author not only suffered a miserable and unhappy childhood but also had to contend with frequent bouts of black depression, eventually being diagnosed as a smiling depressive, always laughing and joking on the outside but crying on the inside. As he matured the only nurturing he could get from these terrible bouts of depression was to dream of sexual fantasies. How did he survive? Suffering from malnutrition and contemplating suicide at the age of thirteen he reckons the start of the war saved his life as he was evacuated away from Liverpool to North Wales
full story at
http://angelfire.com/hi3/bio
Excerpt
Imagine a dimly lit street in the centre of the large city of Liverpool in England. The gas lamplighter was just at the end of his round. With his long hooked pole he was reaching up to pull down the ringed chain to light the last gas light on the corner of Molyneux Road.
It was a freezing cold night and being the middle of winter, as usual the fog was as thick as pea soup. You could just about hear the ships eerie foghorns intermittently blowing on the River Mersey. The lamplighter tucked his pole under his arm, dug his hands deeply into his overcoat pockets for warmth and headed off home into the swirling fog. The gaslights of only a few of the terraced houses in Molyneux Road could be seen dimly through the fanlights above the front doors as most of the occupants were out celebrating in one of Bent's alehouses over on the corner. Yes, it was New Year's eve.
It was well past ten o'clock and at number six Mrs. Laird was struggling to give birth to a baby boy as the revelers across the road were being reluctantly turfed out the boozer singing their bleedin' heads off. Yes, at number six that was yours truly being born in Liverpool on the 31st day of December 1925. Poor Mam! Fancy having to give birth at ten thirty on New Year's eve when everyone else was living it up. I don't remember a great deal about my mother as she died when I was about six, but I seem to remember her as being a slightly built delicate lady and my father always trying to persuade her to go upstairs.
Read the full story at
htp://angelfire.com/hi3/bio
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Reader Reviews for "Live another life."
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| Reviewed by douglas laird |
8/12/2001 |
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crmathison (7/19/01 6:48:00 PM)
Hey Kiwi,
Sorry it took me so long to get here, but I’ve been swamped. Now I, my friend, really have lived another life with LSD (as described in "My Trip"), so I was glad you made the clarification on the boards a few weeks back. I consider memoirs based psychotropic drugs my sole province here! (nod, nod wink, wink)
As for your excerpt, it is in a word: lovely. What fabulous characters, scenes and dialogue. At first I was rather put off by all the he said/she said tags, but when I began to spot a kind of rhythm coupled with the fact that you embed your dialogue in narrative paragraphs (as opposed to setting it off), it somehow all made sense. Elmore Leonard should love your work; he says dialogue should only be tagged by "said"; otherwise, the narrator is intruding. You certainly seem an authentic voice of Liverpool in the war years. I wasn’t there of course, but it all seems right to me. I just love all those colorful expressions.
I believe you are especially adept at scene setting: the cold harsh elements one right up against sleeping outdoors in winter; the grimy flat the prostitutes inhabit. And the warm ones, too: the insides pubs and the hot plates. I could almost taste the food. You really engage all of our senses.
The finals scene with the prostitutes was riveting. I think you handled sexual encounter very well. The ending was perfect. This is indisputably one of the most unique pieces on this site, as is your voice. It was a great pleasure to read this.
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