SIMON MORRELL

I've never kept my alcohol abuse a secret. It isn't something I am particularly ashamed of, not something to feel proud about, but my withdrawal was a desperate attempt to rid myself of hangovers, falls, arguments and ultimately the man who caused me to drink so much in the first place; my father.

Drains, a Life of Adversity. I was three years old, I had been lost in the woods and, in a separate incident, fallen down a drain where I remained for quite some time before being found and rescued by neighbouring housewives searching for me.

Writing Books and Facing Adversity. In this short film for a Wednesday, Simon talks about what it is like to write books, and then how he discovered, with the help of his friend Geoff Thompson, that adversity can be one of our greatest gifts.

When the IRA Came to Town, sometime ago, as I say in my office, having not long taken over my father's business, a mistake that almost cost me my life, I received a phone call that changed how I dealt and thought about conflict forever.

Your Past Is Your Past. We all have a past. Admittedly, some people’s pasts are shinier than others, but it is what it is. Our past is ours to own.

A Murder of Crows.Tommo, Thomas really, but Tommo is his preferred choice of name, leaves his place of work after a hard day of toil. It is a ghastly factory in an even more ghastly area, but it pays the way in the world. First, he is on the small machines and then, at the hands of a malicious foreman who thinks he should do better, the big machines. The ones that really test you, ones you are only supposed to work for a couple of hours, but no, his boss sees to it he is on t

Elephant, a short work of fiction, by Simon Morrell “When I was three years old, maybe almost four, I was fascinated by a carving my parents had on their living room wall. I knew I was this age because we had yet to leave the Merseyside area where I was born. The carving in question was a beautiful work of art of an elephant and a calf, a full 3d wooden affair, tusks and all. The piece didn’t make the journey to live with us in North Wales with us, some months later,