Find a soft spot to land on

[Mike Coatesworth]

At the moment my autobiography is with a publisher who I presume is considering its worth in this highly competitive commercial literary market.

As yet I have not had a review on this manuscript and to be honest I'm not sure if there is a space in the market for it, but one can only try.

For anyone interested, here is the synopsis.

Synopsis

Find a soft spot to land on
By
Michael Coatesworth

As a child I hated learning and spent most of my time playing truant from school. Being stabbed by my father for taking a slice of bread and locked in the coal cellar, suffering years of abuse, torture and hospitalised at the hands of my step-mother, I quickly learned to find a soft spot to land on.

We were five children being brought up by a deaf blind aunt, which led to jealousy and a physical assault on my aunt by my stepmother, and my aunt had to fight back ferociously to survive the onslaught. My birth mother deserted the family when I was two. I was thrown on to the streets by my father when I was 14-years-old because he wanted to live with his lady friend. Next to the youngest of five children, I missed being part of a family, and I lived rough on the streets, and I was on the verge of suicide. It was at the age of 17 that my older brother Alan managed to save me at the last minute and helped me to take stock of my life. He took care of me and encouraged me to join the army, and I took his advice.

Having my brother murdered by a burglar was a great shock to me. One thing that I had promised Alan was that if anything happened to him, I would continue with the search for our birth mother - who we had not seen or heard of since the day she left us in 1951.

One night in 1985, as I was working as a security guard, tragedy struck, and I was knocked down by a car and I suffered serious head injuries. The accident left me wheelchair bound and unable to tell a tin of beans from a tin of rice, so that I had to learn everything again. Day centres and carers were constantly trying to stimulate my brain in an attempt to make me learn how to live my life again. The funny thing was that I still retained my memories of my childhood and teenage years.

I attended a college for students with learning disabilities, and I was taught all about computers and how to design my own web page albeit simple. As my life improved and I learnt more about the wonders of technology, I began searching for my birth mother on the Internet, and finally found her.

While on holiday in Majorca, I met Lawrence, he told me that he would make me walk again.

Just as I was preparing myself for a possible enhancement in my lifestyle, I was diagnosed with a tumour on my spine, now I had another battle on my hands.

Here is my story

Mike Coatesworth