A new title by Brian W Taylor

A man digging up the flowerbeds in search of the golden cockerel he believed had been buried in them by a writer trying to promote his latest book; a boy passing himself off as a girl, knowing that the obligatory staff medical he would have to go through soon if he wanted to keep his job, would lay bare his secret to a sniggering world; a woman who had found love late in life and now wondered if she should be doing the things her new lover was asking her to do in the park during her lunchtimes; police officers in the park pursuing a flasher the local press had made into a rapist in order to sell more copies of their newspaper; a reorganised parks department in which newly appointed office staff, many of them promoted beyond their comfort zone, were jockeying for position; a local councillor forced to endure a commemoration of his twenty-five years of service he didn’t want.

A tree planting ceremony held in the park one summer’s day in 1983, to mark that twenty five years of service, wasn’t supposed to end with one of the people involved losing their job, and another losing their life, but as events turned out, they did. Doing It In The Park - a new title by Brian W Taylor

During the 1960s 70s and 80s I worked for several different local authorities in London, and in a lot of different parks as apprentice, gardener, and then supervisor. Not all of my fellow workers had set out to follow a career in horticulture, some were failed actors, some were would-be artists, working in the parks during the summer months to earn enough money to be able to spend the winter months painting, some were rehabilitating criminals who had served their time, some were society's misfits, people who just couldn't find a more suitable niche for themselves anywhere else, some were just doing the job until something better came along - except that sometimes it never did. Some were just there to take advantage of the security of a job for life on the council, which was one of the perks in those days.
Job security, indeed the job itself, disappeared during the years when Mrs Thatcher ran the country, and you won't find parks or their staff like those depicted in my book anymore. Some might say that's as good thing, but I think it's a pity that that way of life has gone.
The people and events depicted in the book, those which really happened, are taken from several of the parks in which I worked and added to those which are purely fiction to make a story, the ones which are pure fiction are simply that. I hope they all gel together to make a story people will enjoy. It always makes me nostalgic for those times when I read the story again, and I do from time to time, because I enjoy it.