Ask the Author: Andrew Holmes
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Andrew Holmes
The germ of the idea for ‘Bloody Kids’ came to me when I was out running. I’d taken to deviating from my normal route and striking out in new directions, often on overgrown footpaths. Most times they’d be dead-ends or nothingy shortcuts, but I’d see a lot of stuff I’d never seen before. Derelict outbuildings, mostly. Crumbling brick overgrown with ivy, rusted corrugated iron and rotted woodwork. And every now and then I’d find myself on a strange track I never knew existed, passing a rundown homestead previously hidden from sight.
They almost always had the same air of lived-in neglect, these buildings. Dark and careworn and kind of secretive, so that you couldn’t help but wonder what went on behind the paint-peeling doors and tattered curtains – because they always had paint-peeling doors and tattered curtains – and you couldn’t help but wonder what kind of person lived there.
There was one in particular. I only passed it once, and we moved house shortly afterwards so I never saw it again – not that I would have cared to, because this particular place was a farmhouse, unkempt like the others, but surrounded by a low fence. Nailed to the fence was a line of baby car seats. Six or seven of them, like old and mouldy ornaments, each with its own story to tell.
‘Bloody Kids’ is not me thinking, What were those car seats doing there? Although in a way it is, because it’s about that sensation of being brought up short by a jarring and macabre image, like that bit in Wizard Of Oz when Dorothy says, ‘Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more.’ Civilisation and normality aren’t far away – as the crow flies – but if we’re in a place where someone nails baby car seats to a fence, then civilisation and normality might as well be on the other side of the world. It's a scary feeling.
A feeling like: anything could happen here.
Like maybe it already has.
They almost always had the same air of lived-in neglect, these buildings. Dark and careworn and kind of secretive, so that you couldn’t help but wonder what went on behind the paint-peeling doors and tattered curtains – because they always had paint-peeling doors and tattered curtains – and you couldn’t help but wonder what kind of person lived there.
There was one in particular. I only passed it once, and we moved house shortly afterwards so I never saw it again – not that I would have cared to, because this particular place was a farmhouse, unkempt like the others, but surrounded by a low fence. Nailed to the fence was a line of baby car seats. Six or seven of them, like old and mouldy ornaments, each with its own story to tell.
‘Bloody Kids’ is not me thinking, What were those car seats doing there? Although in a way it is, because it’s about that sensation of being brought up short by a jarring and macabre image, like that bit in Wizard Of Oz when Dorothy says, ‘Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more.’ Civilisation and normality aren’t far away – as the crow flies – but if we’re in a place where someone nails baby car seats to a fence, then civilisation and normality might as well be on the other side of the world. It's a scary feeling.
A feeling like: anything could happen here.
Like maybe it already has.
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