Joe's Journey In Midst of an Inner Circle

By Marilyn Reilly

Joe had a very stable life from day one, his family was middle class, hard-working they had a business to run the business thrived over the years from past generations, Joe was to inherit the business in the future but something went wrong, "imagine", it was like a house around you secure and safe but all of a sudden a brick is pulled out f

• Language: English
• Publisher: Grovehouse Press Llc
• Release date: May 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781957776187

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Joe’s Journey

In Midst of an Inner Circle

by:

Marilyn Reilly

Joe’s Journey

This is Joe

Marilyn Reily

This is Patch

Joe’s Journey

Copyright © 2022 by Marilyn Reilly

ISBN 978-1-957776-16-3 Paper Back)

ISBN 978-1-957776-17-0 (Hard Back)

GroveHouse Press LLC

340 S Lemon Ave #3529

Walnut, CA 91789

United States

www.grovehousepress.com

Printed in the United States of America

Marilyn Reily

About the Author

Marilyn Reilly was born in Plymouth Devon, settled now in Portsmouth Hampshire, started writing in my fifties but the story of Joe developed five years ago, with the artwork that I have done in the book, the inspiration of Joe was sparked off by a man I use to see in my teens when I went shopping in town he was seen by a lot of people and he was well known, I never forgot that man, I remember thinking to myself why do people live like that, apparently he did not have to live in that way, he chooses to live on the streets that were the way he liked to live roaming from town to town, and I began to imagine why someone would want to live like that, there are all sorts of reasons, my story is only a fiction, I have enjoyed every minute writing this book.

Joe’s Journey

Thank you to Lee Ann

I would like to thank Lee Ann for advising me on the editing and her support through this book she has been an immense help to me.

Preface

My first thoughts of writing Joe was when I was taking a two-week course on creative writing, we had to pick a storyline and that is when it all started my inspirations were from a man who used to roam the streets he was then in the days called an old tramp a word that is not use today, there was not many on the streets than in those days, people use to say that he was a very rich man and did not want to live in a house that he liked to roam.

This man I never forgot, and I wondered why he chose to live like that when he did not have to, so I began to figure out why people would end up in that situation, it could be to do with many reasons it is not always to do with money or many other reasons.

Joe’s story is an incredibly sad one at first and the reason he began his life on the streets

and roaming from place to place is not the life he would have chosen to live.

It just took Joe one second of a minute to change his life from being a happy man with a wife and a child on the way to a man who was a confused and lost in the midst of fog and could not see any further than his foot he just walked and walked with nowhere

to go, he was not interested in where he was going or his next step in life until he meets up with a stray pup who he called Patch a shabby little puppy with nowhere to go.

So! Joe and Patch carried on the journey together until Joe decided where he was going to head to the there was a plan he had, he had to make a decision as he had a little pup with nowhere to go or no one to look after him, so he decided to head for London in the end and that was Joe’s next stage in life with Patch.

The early sketch of Joe

Chapter one

Joe’s Younger Day’s

Joe is a quiet man with not much to grumble about, he has a lovely wife who cares about him very much, they had a little shop that sold mostly everything you could think of, they had very good customer record, they were busy most of the time except Sundays that was their day off, it was time they could enjoy together, they had a little car to run around in and go different places together, not many people in the days had a car, so when the weather was good they packed up a picnic, when the weather was not so good they had Sunday lunch at his friend’s caff. The couple Joe and Sophie were childhood friends, they grew up together at the age of five, they started school together, became friends, went everywhere together, their parents lived on the same road, and they became friends too, so the two children were together most of the time.

Joe lived in a shop with his parents, the shop was excessively big and had plenty of room inside and at the back of the house, there was a lot of lands too, the shop use to belong to his grandfather Alfred he use to keep chickens and a few pigs and geese as well, they use to grow their own veg as well as it was during the war days, so they had to try and feed themselves and everyone in the village as there was not much food during the war. The shop has been in the family for years so it was quite established, and it helped the village folks with food, they all worked together to grow what they could, Joe was a young boy then and did not understand the war except it was very noisy and scary, but when he went down to the bunker, he use to take his toy’s down there and make it his den, Joyce, Alfred’s wife, use to have to get help with the animals and the gardening when Alfred was called up in war, so she hired an odd job man, he was glad of the extra money as he did not get much money and he could not fight in the war due to ill health but he could do the gardening and look after the animals.

He lived local just down the road with his wife he had grown up two boys that signed up for war, so it kept him busy and not worrying about his boys. Joyce was thankful for the help she got and paid him what she could afford, and she also gave him free eggs and veg too, life was hard for everyone during the war, so they all had to pull together, and the shop kept all the people in the village going the shop went back years in the family and was a little gold mine. Joe loved living in the shop. He had all his friends over to play in the back garden they use to play in his bunker cowboys and Indians.

War was coming to an end, and Alfred was due to come home soon, Joe was starting a new school, and everything seemed to be getting brighter, so Joyce decided to through a big party when Alfred come home, he was due to be home at the end of the week, so everyone got together, and baked cakes made party decorations so by the end of the week they had loads of everything It was the day when Alfred was due home everyone was up early to get everything ready, the weather was sunny they all got the decorations up, the men got all the drinks ready, the women done lots of sandwiches so everyone done something, it looked wonderful, then there was a knock on the door, everyone hid away and kept quiet, Joyce ran to the door and opened the door.

Alfred dropped his bag and said come here my lovely and give me a big smacker, she give him the biggest kiss she could, then everyone come out and started singing for he’s a jolly good fella ‘and so’s they all of us, they were so happy, and party seemed to go on forever.

A few weeks passed and Joe was starting his new school, he had all new uniforms, a new satchel, new notebooks and pens and pencils sets, so he was looking forward to going to his new school of course, Joe new most of the children in his school, but there was a newcomer in the area and the school who seemed to take a liking to Joe, her name was Molly, she asked Joe if he would like one of her sweets, so Joe being polite said yes please, and asked her if she was new to the area, and Molly said yes, she was, then he happened to see Sophie and ran over to say Hi, said Joe, Sophie Said who is that you are talking to, Joe looked around, and said that is Molly a new girl in the area she has just started school as well, so Sophie said let us go and talk to her, Joe thought he got away from Molly, but now Sophie wanted to make friends with her, hi, says Sophie to Molly and then they started to talk about where Molly come from.

The girls seemed to get along very well and left Joe just standing there, Molly was tall and thin with glasses, Sophie was a little thing with long dark hair she use to wear her hair in pigtails most of the time as it was