WE are delighted to welcome author of ‘Lions, Liars, Donkeys and Penguins – The Killing of Alison’ , Tom Bell as a contributor to cumbria24. This real-life story attempts to give failings in the leadership and management of our Public Sector services a face; that of Tom’s sister, Alison. Tom tell’s his own story of writing this moving book.
My name is Tom Bell. In the Spring of 2019, I found myself between jobs. As it turned out, the time and space I was given were a welcome well-timed present, an extended punctuation mark in life’s journey that gave me the opportunity to write this book. The need to tell the story about the injustice of what happened to Alison had been burning a hole in my consciousness for some time. I wanted to bring to life the human side of what all too many texts written by so called experts do not, cannot. The world seems full of counsellors without knowledge who offer views and solutions without experience and pontificate about issues they have no understanding of. They say that stories are data with soul, and I wanted to tell a story about the impact of poor leadership without calling it, a book about leadership; I think the world has enough of these. Neatly written indexed, complex and overly length, and each with a new variant of a diagram a matrix and graphs, but none with the faces of those who have been failed.
They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, I’m unconvinced. 2017 was a strange year for me. I was embroiled in a highly emotive energy sapping battle for justice. I had been bullied out my job in the NHS and mental illness was tearing the stuffing out of me. I was ripped off by a rogue builder who left our home without a roof in a wild and windy November. I was admitted to hospital with chest pains. My father died, and then to top it off, I was knocked off my bike by a driver who was over the drink drive limit. If I had placed odds at the bookies on all these things happening, I would be lying on a bed made of fifty-pound notes under a Caribbean Sun right now. I didn’t. My only prizes were anxiety, depression and thoughts of suicide running riot in my head. My mind got so tired of going to hell and back it just hovered somewhere in between as serotonin dictated.
Events and emotions led me to a place where happiness became an imposter and Sertraline the solution. A passage in time in which I feel life has been so unjust there were moment’s I questioned if it was worth living. I used to love life, I believed it was a gift. I tried to rise each morning with enthusiasm. I thought the days were precious and the future held great promise. I was the former brewery salesman, outwardly confident with a good sense of humour and a large and when appropriate, crude repertoire of jokes. I was the mildly annoying guy arranging party games at the barbecue. Cajoling and encouraging anyone and everyone to take part and have fun. Take a big slug of your drink, run down the garden, place your hand on the ground, spin round ten times and run back in a straight line, if you can. I was the bloke who whisked out the guitar to get people singing round the campfire at festivals. My voice is so bad I think onlookers felt obliged to sing over me, but the good intent was there. I liked to have a good time and help others have one too.
Perhaps sometime during the last few years I had inadvertently, maybe after a heavy drinking session or smoking something stronger than cigars, agreed to join a secret club that offers its members all the downsides of life. A sort of opposite to the Freemasons. In this gang there are no benefits, in fact you are proactively excluded and denied favour or privilege. Justice is beyond reach, a career with progression is out the question and as your mind careers out of control, the universe waves its shitty stick of fate at your forehead with increasing intensity while asking itself, just how much can Tom Bell take before he cracks?
Writing a book was part of my answer. It was the cathartic if lengthy email of the sort we are encouraged to write and never send when we feel aggrieved. But I had been pushed beyond the point a person should be, so I pressed the send button and copied-in the world. It may seem an unkind uncouth at times irreverent email, but it is honest. I have prioritised other’s feelings to my own detriment for too long. Writing has become part of putting me back together. It is me exercising my right to tell a story that needs telling. A right denied by my upbringing, a right each of us has. This is a firm fuck you to the notion of karma, who in the absence of hell has become the lazy thinker’s modern solution to natural justice. If she has shown herself to be a bitch it is only because she cannot be relied upon.
I didn’t believe in fate, but as I wrote the book, I had the feeling I was doing exactly what I should be. It felt so empowering, right, logical, necessary even. Thinking about what happened to Alison also allowed me to examine my own life.
And writing gave me the therapy the NHS cannot give me, but that it owes me; more than you can imagine at this point. It cannot give me it in part because there is no therapy service entitled, support for people and their families we have messed up, and in part because it cannot cope with the general levels of everyday demand being placed on it. A fact Covid-19 has graphically reinforced.
I couldn’t easily find a publisher for the work. Some made encouraging noises but when faced with contentious content, shied away. The book contains much that was hidden that needed placing into the light. It will make uncomfortable reading for those who continued to enjoy their lives as ours fell apart in the wake of their choices. We have been without Alison nearly three decades, it is time for names and deeds to come out from the shadows.
I was battling depression while I was writing. My mental health became the fight of my life. It was also the fight of Alison’s life, a fight she ultimately lost. A fight she could not win. A fight I defy anyone to win when their hands are tied as tightly behind their back as Alison’s were. For anyone struggling with their mind who feels they are losing hope, whatever the trigger, if you recognize it is happening to you, then that is the first step to getting help and finding a way forward. Even if the next step is just to stand still and breathe for as long as it takes. Ask for help and don’t let anyone make you feel bad about your mental health. Mental illness and depression are not a slight to the people you have in your life, or the things you have around you. They just are, like a broken bone, a torn muscle, or a fever. Nobody has a bag of hope they can give you, believe me I have looked. But thankfully there are people who will listen, and as crass as it may sound, I have found the benefit of being listened to when I have felt on the edge, is immense.
What readers are saying about Tom’s book.
A wonderful book with more grit and dogged determination than a Hollywood thriller but far more engaging because it’s heroes are real. Tom’s blistering honesty, wit and fragility is so intimate, it’s a privilege to read, but he cleverly entwines his narrative around the bigger picture, which gives the piece perspective. It’s an astonishing book, meticulously researched and peppered with pin-sharp quotations.
This well written true account of the authors fight for justice highlights the sheer arrogance of the management of what should be our most trusted institutions, the NHS, Police and the CPS. This families pain has been ignored and exacerbated by the institutions closing ranks and lying to prevent details of historic abuse and its cover-up coming to light. Well done to Tom for sticking in and getting this far and good luck in pursuing this to the end.
This book delivers the stark truth about how the priority of taxpayer funded services is sadly not where it should be – with people and patients – but protecting and covering up numerous mistakes which cost lives.
Alison’s story is a heartbreaking read, and saddened even more by the way her family were treated after her avoidable death. It poses the question – what happens if I am a victim of public sector failings? The only answer I think I can provide is “just hope it doesn’t happen to you”. Sad to say that’s the best anyone can offer.
A compelling read, and although there is no happy ending, there is certainly a brave and Refreshing sense of honesty and candour that many are too frightened to articulate.
I’ve laughed and cried and sat in shock and horror at the injustice.
Absolutely brilliant. Couldnt put it down, despite the horror this family went through, still laugh out loud moments. Thoroughly reccomend it for anyone who has been failed by the system and those who care for those victims.
Couldn’t put it down. An articulate well written deeply moving, sad, heart wrenching, thought provoking, even funny in bits, story of a family’s journey for justice. Shocking to read the impact of bureaucratic public services and poor leadership on people and the ongoing angst to get to the truth.
The levels of incompetence, denial and collusion are breathtaking. No family should have to endure this torture.
- Lions, Liars, Donkeys and Penguines – The Killing of Alison is available on amazon click here.
