Narvel’s Books Part Six Scruffy Chicken A Mystery set in Derbyshire 1965 I have a tag line for all my titles, for example – Sea Change is the novel in which I am most proud. My best book. 16 in 61 focusses on the year of 1961 when, as a 16-year-old, I came to grips with secrecy and anonymity which still blights gay lives today. Secret Summer, published in the USA, reveals my one big love affair in 1966. Heanor Schooldays, a social history summed up in a Shakespearian quote – ‘A Feared and Frosty February Face’ – encapsulating woe and wretchedness suffered in a sadistic Dickensian boy’s school. Lost Lad is my ‘coming out’ novel about six schoolfriends cycling from Heanor to a remote Peak District village in 1960. Scruffy Chicken – a mystery set in Derbyshire 1965 is my most popular gay novel. Many readers have missed the significance of the cover painting. Look at it carefully. Note the cyclist who is almost obliterated by heavy foliage of shrubs, damp ferns and thick lush moss in cool deep shade. I am that boy immersed in an atmosphere of magical enchantment – yet menaced by massive rocks appearing to be ugly faces forming a gorge with steep sides. On the left is the semblance of a giant toad ogling a hideous old crone surmounted by tree roots. Mr Toad and the Belper Crone are curious characters (based on real people) who dominated my adventures coming to terms with homosexuality in 1965. People ask, why call yourself a scruffy chicken? Scruffy in the title of Scruffy Chicken is not so much a comment on me; it is more a criticism of the Derby and Nottingham snobs who made me feel scruffy – scruffy accent, scruffy clothes, scruffy manners, scruffy education etc. I have often reflected on that sad 'elite' of oppressed people who (to make their own position safer) felt the need to denigrate other human beings regarded as inferior in the British class structure. They enjoyed seeing the ‘lower orders’ quail and flinch. Scruffy Chicken is available to purchase on Narvel's Dobba's Delights store on Amazon, via the following link: https://amzn.to/4aiDk64 Comments are closed.
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