Description

My Autobiography
By Tony Penn, B.A., M.M.C

ISBN: 978-1-78382-032-0
Published: 2014
Pages: 200
Key Themes: Humour, sexual fantasy, resilience, suffering, fear and hope

Description

After a hilarious account of the authors formative years, life as a psychology student was abruptly halted by a traumatic road accident in 1972, incurring brain damage, vision disturbance, short term memory dysfunction, pain from lacerated legs as well as obsessive-compulsive hand washing. Regaining the ability to read and write, after two more hospitals and a home in 1974 for what used to be termed the mentally handicapped, at which he was shown patience by an understanding Staff, he was discharged for rehabilitation in 1980. He met inspirational Joan Collins, O.B.E., whose daughters life she saved, forceful Raine Countess Spencer and husband Lord Johnny Spencer whom she nursed to partial recovery in time for him to escort Princess Diana down the aisle to wed Prince Charles, as well as supportive Ken Clarke, Q.C., M.P. Not forgetting Dame Anna Neagle, who after a long stage and film career rescued her husband from bankruptcy and battled Parkinsons disease.

Through such fictitious characters as Uri Bugarov, hit man of the K.G.B., and Olga Smirnova, all loosely based on friends in the book, therapeutic humour fantasy stories mock the pressures from unforgiving reality. Complementary to Joan Collins moving book Katy, A Fight For Life, Surviving Prejudice is written showing the self-help that can be achieved through creative writing. Congratulated by Joan Collins, he became a B.A. in Psychology and History with the Open University; as well as a M.M.C. or Member of the Magic Circle. Both his mother and stepmother had died while he was in hospital. Although he and his parents had met only twice a year, he was reunited with his father, who with Tonys adoptive father and a woman friend, one of his tutors, were guests at his graduation in 1992. After various jobs including freelance journalism, he took early retirement to further his interests in writing and magic. He shows what can be achieved despite having a disability.