Matthew Sturdy: A Novel

By Anthony North

Life can be a bitch. Mathew realises this early in life as it takes him into a world of African adventure, business and love. Little does he realise that life can be even more cruel, as he is destined to find out.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anthony North
• Release date: Nov 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005875954

Anthony North

Thinker & Storyteller****7,453 Words to Save the UK and I,Writer are now FREE. Scroll down to find them.*****1955 (Yorkshire, England) – I am born (Damn! Already been done). ‘Twas the best of times ... (Oh well).I was actually born in the year of Einstein's death, close to Scrooge's Counting House. It doesn't mean anything but it sounds good. As for my education, I left school at 15 and have had no formal education since. Hence, I'm self-taught.****From a family of newsagents, at 18 I did a Dick Whittington and went off to London, only to return to pretend to be Charlie and work in a chocolate factory.When I was ten I was asked what I wanted to be. I said soldier, writer and Dad. I never thought of it for years – having too much fun, such as a time as lead guitarist in a local rock band – but I served nine years in the RAF, got married and had seven kids. I realized my words had been precognitive when, at age 27, I came down with M.E. – a condition I’ve suffered ever since – and turned my attention to writing.Indeed, as I realized that no expert could tell me what was wrong with me, I began my quest to find out why. Little did I realize it would last decades and take me through the entire history of knowledge, leaving me with the certainty that our knowledge systems are inadequate.****My non-fiction is based on P-ology, a thought process I devised to work with patterns of knowledge, and designed to be a bedfellow to specialization. A form of Rational Holism, it seeks out areas the specialist may have missed. I work from encyclopaedias and introductory volumes in order to gain a grasp of many subjects and am not an expert in anything, but those patterns keep forming. Hence, I do not deal in truth, but ideas, and cover everything from politics to the paranormal.When reading my work I ask only: do I make sense? Of course, an expert would say: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I agree. And an expert has so little knowledge of everything.I also write novels and Flash Fiction in all genres.

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Matthew Sturdy:

A Novel

By Anthony North

Copyright: Anthony North 2020

Cover image copyright: Yvonne North, 2020

Smashwords Edition

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission

Other books by Anthony North

In 2019 I began a 3 year publishing program that will result in 14 volumes of my fiction, inc 7 novels in most genres, & 21 works of non-fiction covering cults, politics, conspiracies, religion, disasters, science, philosophy, warfare, crime, psychology, new age, green issues & all areas of the unexplained, inc ufology, lost worlds and the paranormal. Hopefully appearing at the rate of one a month, check out the latest launch at my bookstore at http://anthonynorth.com or buy direct from Smashwords for all devices at: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/anthonynorth

In addition to the above, you may like my ‘I’ Series – 8 volumes of flash fiction (horror, sci fi, romance, adventure, crime), 4 volumes of poetry & 5 volumes of short essays from politics to the unexplained. Available from same links as above. Also check out my bookstore for news of my books out in paperback.

CONTENTS

Foreword

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty One

Chapter Thirty Two

Chapter Thirty Three

Chapter Thirty Four

About the Author

Connect With Anthony

Foreword

I wrote this novel in the 1990s. I can’t be any more specific as I wrote the latter half in the early 90s and the first half as the millennium approached. As such it’s a topsy-turvy kind of story, covering a life from boyhood to the man from the 1950s to the mid-90s. So in a way I suppose it’s a period saga, even though I was alive throughout the period I’m writing about.

The reader may get the impression that there is a great deal of autobiography in the early part of this work. However, whilst some elements are loosely based on real life events, most of it is not. It is a work of fiction.

Chapter One

Destiny - such a strange word; counter to logic. Man is too proud to accept outside interference. He feels safe in the knowledge that he is the product of his own affairs; that life is up to him and him alone. But is this the case?

Destiny.

Perhaps life IS destined before we arrive; before we take that vital first breath; before our minds become reality. Maybe there is a plan.

We take the trials and tribulations of life in our stride, congratulating our brilliance or cursing our stupidity. We say we are the product of our success or our failure. But what was really behind that chance meeting that changed our life?

Is our being the product of higher forces? - a line of life from which we deviate at our peril?

I suspected not. In my own self-importance I understood that my future was mine to grasp; mine to do as I pleased. But that was in my less-informed youth.

And now? Oh yes, now I understand. I have ridden the roller coaster of life and gleaned the truth.

My name is Sturdy, Matthew Sturdy, and I was born on a wave of euphoric delight. My parents had married early enough, but for many years the seed refused to plant itself. As such they were well into their thirties before I plunged down that tunnel, opened my eyes to greet the world and screamed.

In the mid-1950s this was ancient indeed for childbirth. This, and so many years waiting, resulted in my being dubbed the little miracle.

'Coochie-coochie-coo' was, I understand, the first words spoken to me by my parents, but by the time the terrible twos had arrived, this was supplemented by 'shut up', 'don't do that' and 'the boogeyman will get you tonight if you don't behave yourself.'

Predictably, the essential adventures of one so young were also accompanied by much pain, resulting from multiple falls and tipple-tails, and the ritual tanning of the hide.

Of course, life wasn't always a never ending sequence of punishment. Being a 'little miracle', I was often treated special, mother giving me oodles of cuddles and smothering me in kisses.

These were the days when 'yuck' was only applied to the more traditional food placed on the table, and the ego had not yet developed to condemn your mother to a miserable existence of a non-kissing and non-cuddling boy child.

Arguably that time came late to me, welcoming my mother's physical love and finding great comfort in it. Even as late as six I would cuddle up next to her in her bed, lay my head on her breast and snuggle down to peaceful slumber.

And as always it was eventual peer-pressure which ended these bonded days. The odd slip of the tongue, the unguarded remark about mother and love and the ridicule came:

Matty Sturdy, he's a shit;

He still sucks on mommy's tit

No, we are not the result of our own lives.

Whereas mother WAS my life, father was a different entity.

The remembrances of empire days were not yet gone and the emotionless stiff-upper-lip the order of correct manhood. Fathers were the breadwinners and often had a ghostly existence in a home.

I suppose this is where I first understood fleetingness. But at the time I had no mind to fathom its philosophical implications; the reality that the happiness the world can give is such a temporary, transient and false commodity.

All I knew for sure was that father had normally gone out to work before I got up and I was usually back in bed before he returned. During this sojourn, he worked, and only late at night would I hear his ghostly knockings and doings about the house.

Perhaps this is why I always envisaged the boogeyman as my father.

The happiest days with my father were brief. They usually followed a period of absence when father went off to a mythical place called 'The Oak.'

I had often heard other mothers and older children talk of 'The Oak.' They spoke of it with awe, a place that caught fathers and compelled them to return again and again.

I would watch father go off to this place in his best cap, his usual stiff and melancholy demeanour present. But knowing he was going for his salvation, I'd happily wait the many hours for his return, when, refreshed, his stiff demeanour was replaced by a jolly gait.

He would come singing up the street, laughingly pick me up, place me on his shoulders and play endlessly until he was taken over by sleep.

This ending to my happy time was accompanied by throaty grunts as his chest rose and fell, and throughout I couldn't help being peeved by my mother, who never smiled during such father-son encounters, as if jealous that, for a moment, my father had usurped her place in my heart.

For mother and I salvation was of a more sombre, less mythical nature. Each Sunday morning we would dress up and, hand in hand, make the ten minute walk to the church.

For what seemed like hours we would sit, cold and stiff, on wooden pews, sing melancholy hymns and kneel in silent prayer. Between this never ending ritual, the vicar would stand to our front and above us and shout at us, telling us what awful sinners we are.

I sometimes wonder why he didn't just shoot us if we were so sinful.

I used to dream of the time when I grew up, as I realized I would, and become a father. Then, I knew, my religion would be sweeter, going immediately to 'The Oak', rather than waiting to go to a supposed dull and boring heaven.

Of course, in adulthood, I grew to realize the fallacy of my then belief. But with this knowledge I cannot say my opinion changed.

Chapter Two

We lived in a small council house on a terraced road at the edge of the estate built just after the war. During the winter each day and every day mother would labour with poker and coal scuttle, building up a roaring fire to keep us warm.

In those days winter was a white affair with constant snow falls, nature not yet usurped by the man-made processes of global warming. Life, the seasons, were predictable and reassuring.

With the first snowfall kids would stream out of their houses, pulling rickety sledges along the road and up the hill. No one thought about theirs being any better than the others, and I remember well the thrill of speed as I sped down that hill, accompanied by cheers and merriment from all.

Bored with the sledge, we would descend back to the street, pick a suitable footpath and labour as one to produce a glass like slide. Usually beginning at the turn of the corner, we delighted in the trap which would catch many an unsuspecting adult, laughing hysterically as they slid at full speed down the street on their behind.

'You little buggers,' they would yell, shaking their fists and tugging at their behind, attempting to separate damp knickers from bruised and cold buttocks.

Later the play would metamorphose from communal activity to gang warfare as the two sides would materialize and a good old snowball fight would ensue.

After that, at home, mother would chastise child, pulling off sodden woollen gloves, placing the mite to steam dry in front of the fire, warning of chill blains as the delightful pain coursed through the hands.

Winter was opposed by summer. Heralded by the chattering birds of spring, summer would bring out an unfolding of the world. Refreshed by a burning sun, nature would show itself, resplendent. Below a bright blue sky, life would thrive in its diversity.

In such a state even our drab council house would radiate a pleasing aura; an aura caught and transformed by my mother, always happy come summer, always busying herself to make the garden beautiful, cherishing it, caring for it, talking to it, as if it were a friend.

Lilacs, pinks, yellows and blues competed with each other to show themselves in summer against a backdrop of rich green in that garden - invading the house via plant pots, nature's scents enriched and made us feel good, the busy chatter of the birds by mother's bird table completing this vision of heavenly tranquillity.

Tea on the lawn would delightfully break an otherwise