A MUST READ

You will see that the bedside reading has been updated! May I suggest that you spend around £8.99 for one of the most enlightening, disturbing and yet still relevant pieces of modern literature I have come across for many a day?
The Hounding of David Oluwle

"Leave David to me " or words to that effect struck me in the book.They are spoken by one of the two police officers convicted of assaults on David Oluwale. The use of this mans first name is incongruous given his inhumane treatment by these officers and give a glimpse of what might have been a more indepth relationship between these officers and Oluwale than one of bully and victim. This book is not an attack on the police or other Criminal Justice agencies and public bodies,nor is it pre occupied with institutional racism.It is an account of an immigrants life in Leeds in the context of a changing police force and a changing city.The police officer Kitchin and Ellerker have become dinosaurs in the force and they know it and one has a sense of their growing sense of inadequacy and powerlessness in a changing job and city.They exert their pathetic power and control over Oluwale. We are left with some sympathy for the officers as Aspden gives powerful accounts of their personalities and backgrounds and the lonely death of Kitchen. That Oluwale passes through the hands of other Institutions and Authorities and no help is seemingly given is not surprising given the historical context of the book but it leads the reader to ask if much has changed since.The vulnerable and dangerous still fall through loopholes and safety nets today as revealed by subsequent enquiries into preventable murders and deaths. Nationality Wog is so thoroughly reserached and touches on so many institutions and individuals in order to put the story into as wide a context as possible that one wonders how Aspden manages to bring all the threads together.He does achieve this and the book culminates thankfully not in a dull account of the trial of the police officers but in a skillful account of the best bits of the court scene and lovely portrayals of the QC's in the case. The detail in the book will delight anyone familiar with Leeds from descriptions of the shop door ways where Oluwale slept and received his beatings to the position of Leeds United at the time and an account of their black players. The book has been described as brave and it is right from its almost shocking title to the authors attempt to speak to Ellerker in his driveway.

Presently the stage play based on the book is in rep at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and time allowing - Leeds being about an hour away from Austwick - I hope we may be able to catch it!
Hope you all have a great Valentine's Day - this is not the present you are looking for to perk up you love life - bust still should be read is you are interested or involved in any of the issues. I would put it on the complusory list for any mental health student/worker!