Satchmo Turner, erstwhile Private Detective, is looking for love. He's also looking for a missing photographer and some direction for his drifting life. Unfortunately, what he excels at finding is trouble, and when a canal boat-load of it hoves into...
Hello, and thanks for making is as far as this Author's note.
It is both daunting and humbling to place one's creations out into the world and have people engage with them, both positively and negatively. I really appreciate your thoughts and comments so please do leave me a note on this chapter or against a chapter that you liked or loathed!
Bumping Uglies is the second novel-length piece of writing that I have completed and marks a sequel of sorts to the first; Quid Pro Quo.
There have been fifteen year's of water under my bridge between the completion of the first draft of Quid Pro Quo and this follow-up effort. With a few exceptions I have spent that time building an increasingly busy career, and family life, rather than writing.
It was the inspiration that I received from uploading QPQ to Wattpad, having my work read - and enjoyed - by strangers, that has propelled me back into writing for fun. I am particularly appreciative of the individuals here who have shown love for my writing as that has given me the confidence to do more and to try more.
Bumping Uglies is, of course, a work of fiction. It is grounded in a region of the UK that gets very little attention, not positive anyway, but like the rest of the country it is a region that is heavy with history.
The development of the canal network is a crucial element of the birth of the Industrial Revolution across the North and Midlands of the UK at the turn of the 18th century. They played a key role in shaping Great Britain's place in the world for the following hundred and fifty years.
In addition to assisting in the forging of Empire, the canals reshaped the physical and human geography of the country and kick-started the rise of the modern city and the slow decline of an agrarian population.
For those that don't know (which is probably all of you!) The Black Country region of the West Midlands was so nicknamed as a result of the enormous burst of industrial activity that came to be placed in the area - fed by canals and then railways. Fires that fed foundries, furnaces, kilns and homes burned coal 24/7 and the soot from chimneys covered almost every wall and surface, turning the whole area "Black by day and red by night".
The borders and boundaries of the Black Country are often disputed by locals, but it remains today a small area with a distinct sense of cultural identity and shared history. Though it is dying out, there is a strong local dialect and accent that is very often confused by outsiders with that of neighbouring Birmingham.
I have used several pieces of artistic license regarding the current geography, people and places of the Black Country. By way of setting the record straight, I offer the following notes:
Pebble Deeping
Is fictional, though Shropshire and South Staffordshire are both littered with small villages that fit the description very well.
Lapal Tunnel
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