Ken Scott's Blog
August 20, 2013
Ghost-writing
At times I am a little uncomfortable with the term ghost-writer. It conjures up the image of an anonymous writer locked away somewhere writing on behalf of a well-known person who isn’t particularly interested in the content which will ultimately go into what will be known as their book.
Perhaps I have been a little fortunate as I’ve never been placed in this situation and I can honestly say that everyone who I have worked with have taken an extremely active part in their own personal story. Of all the people I have worked with only Horace Greasley has been physically unable to pen his own words because of his arthritic hands. However, the experience with Horace was no less rewarding as not only did the subject matter fascinate me but I sat in wonder once or twice a week at the incredible tales coming from this man’s mouth.
Do The Birds Still Sing In Hell? Was my first effort at real ghost-writing, that is to say working purely from subject interviews, tape recordings, research and notes. It was a experience which I enjoyed immensely and I think it’s fair to say that old Horace became one of my best friends. (Sadly he passed away nearly 3 years ago.) We shared the same interests and enjoyed a drink or two and I was almost lost when the project came to an end and all of a sudden I didn’t have an excuse to go and share a few beers with him on a Friday evening. I count myself very lucky that I stumbled across Horace’s story and deep down I always knew it was more than a little special. For those of you who don’t regularly read my blog, the book is being turned into a movie next year. The option agreements are all signed and in-place and it’s just a matter of keeping our fingers crossed.
Crissy Rock and her book, This Heart Within Me Burns was an altogether more different type of assignment. When I first met Crissy she had written 27,000 words by way of therapy she said. Crissy is dyslexic and needless to say her words were all over the place. She told me at the time that I wouldn’t make any sense of them but I did and I could see reading between the lines that again (Lucky me) I had stumbled on something a little special. Crissy needed to be pushed and convinced that her writing was up to standard and her story was worthy of publication. Crissy’s book became a bestseller spending 10 weeks in the Sunday Times top 10 hardback sales in 2010 and out of the 111 reviews on Amazon 106 are five stars. That sort of praise speaks for itself and I think it’s fair to say that her story portrayed her in a different light and opened a few more new doors. During her interviews for ‘I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here’ most of the producers of the show had read the book. I’m convinced it secured her place in the Jungle and she wouldn’t disagree.
Crissy was not exactly the perfect pupil and her mood swings were hard to take at first and several times I nearly walked away. However, I quickly realised that her mood swings were to be associated with the subject matter we were working on. I cannot imagine what it must be like to discuss and write about for example, the sexual abuse suffered at eight years of age at the hands of her grandfather who she loved and trusted as far back as she could remember. What's more, I think Crissy realised from an early stage that she wasn't just baring her soul to Ken Scott but inevitably to the whole book reading world. Those difficult weeks when I encouraged and cajoled her to tell it how it was were undoubtedly the most difficult.
She was unable to take me back to what she described as the 'dark side' unable even to write it down in the privacy of her own home. In the end she agreed to talk (or rather sob) into an old fashioned desk top tape recorder.
I arrived some weeks later and she announced the dastardly deed was done. She pointed to the tape recorder and said I could listen to it. As I prepared to push the play button she told me she couldn't be in the same room and wandered off into the kitchen. What followed next had the same impact on me as I imagined the policemen who listened to the infamous Brady/ Hindley tapes all those years ago. (Brady and Hindley recorded the screams of one of their victims as they tortured abused and murdered him)
Crissy, incredibly, had transported herself back to childhood. On the tape recorder I listened to the voice of a confused, hurt and frightened eight year girl. When Crissy returned some twenty minutes later I was in tears. She put her arms around me and we cried together.
What Crissy has suffered in life no one should have to undergo and less a mortal would no doubt be pushing up the daisies by now having taken their own life. And while Crissy openly admits she has an 'odd bad day' her positive outlook on life is both remarkable and inspirational. I am currently working with her again on her debut novel, Revenge Is Sweeter Than Flowing Honey.
I wrote Sherlock’s Squadron with Steve Holmes in 2010. This was yet another different approach because even though Steve knew the story of his father’s wartime exploits inside out he openly admitted that he was more of a researcher than a writer. Nevertheless I insisted that he gave it his best shot and badgered him to at least have an attempt at starting each chapter, after all he knew the story better than anybody.
And it worked. Steve would send me a few hundred words and we’d meet up after I’d read through them. Again I took copious amounts of notes and recorded our meetings and Steve supplied me with anything of a historical and technical nature. We worked well together and Sherlock’s Squadron will be published in June 2013 by John Blake Publishing. Stephen I are still great friends and I look upon him now as my researcher. We are currently working together on the book which we hope will be the new film project for Silver Line Productions. It’s a true story based on an observation by an American Marine in Afghanistan, a sort of conspiracy theory. Watch this space.
Lise Kristensen had already written her book in Norwegian when she approached me in 2009. However at just over 30,000 words she will probably openly admit that there were many things missed out. It was also written in Norwegian so I thought it best to start with a blank canvas.
I’m glad we did. Lise was a small child in Indonesia during WWII when one by one her friends started to disappear. It wasn't long after Pearl Harbor when the Japanese invaded Java and were slowly but surely rounding up the Dutch, Norwegian, French and English residents who had settled to enjoy an idyllic lifestyle on the other side of the world in a pleasant tropical climate. Young Lise's family were marched up the garden path at the point of a bayonet to be taken away on a truck and interned into the brutal regime of Japanese POW camps. Nearly seventy years on Lise painstakingly retold her horrific tale from the viewpoint of that small confused, terrified, hungry child. Lise’s book was written by referencing the initial manuscript but I managed to get so much more out of her gently persuading her to relive the real horrors she had kept out of the first book. It was difficult for her but with the help of her husband Kris we managed to get through it. The Blue Door was published by Macmillan in March of 2011.
Perhaps I have been a little fortunate as I’ve never been placed in this situation and I can honestly say that everyone who I have worked with have taken an extremely active part in their own personal story. Of all the people I have worked with only Horace Greasley has been physically unable to pen his own words because of his arthritic hands. However, the experience with Horace was no less rewarding as not only did the subject matter fascinate me but I sat in wonder once or twice a week at the incredible tales coming from this man’s mouth.
Do The Birds Still Sing In Hell? Was my first effort at real ghost-writing, that is to say working purely from subject interviews, tape recordings, research and notes. It was a experience which I enjoyed immensely and I think it’s fair to say that old Horace became one of my best friends. (Sadly he passed away nearly 3 years ago.) We shared the same interests and enjoyed a drink or two and I was almost lost when the project came to an end and all of a sudden I didn’t have an excuse to go and share a few beers with him on a Friday evening. I count myself very lucky that I stumbled across Horace’s story and deep down I always knew it was more than a little special. For those of you who don’t regularly read my blog, the book is being turned into a movie next year. The option agreements are all signed and in-place and it’s just a matter of keeping our fingers crossed.
Crissy Rock and her book, This Heart Within Me Burns was an altogether more different type of assignment. When I first met Crissy she had written 27,000 words by way of therapy she said. Crissy is dyslexic and needless to say her words were all over the place. She told me at the time that I wouldn’t make any sense of them but I did and I could see reading between the lines that again (Lucky me) I had stumbled on something a little special. Crissy needed to be pushed and convinced that her writing was up to standard and her story was worthy of publication. Crissy’s book became a bestseller spending 10 weeks in the Sunday Times top 10 hardback sales in 2010 and out of the 111 reviews on Amazon 106 are five stars. That sort of praise speaks for itself and I think it’s fair to say that her story portrayed her in a different light and opened a few more new doors. During her interviews for ‘I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here’ most of the producers of the show had read the book. I’m convinced it secured her place in the Jungle and she wouldn’t disagree.
Crissy was not exactly the perfect pupil and her mood swings were hard to take at first and several times I nearly walked away. However, I quickly realised that her mood swings were to be associated with the subject matter we were working on. I cannot imagine what it must be like to discuss and write about for example, the sexual abuse suffered at eight years of age at the hands of her grandfather who she loved and trusted as far back as she could remember. What's more, I think Crissy realised from an early stage that she wasn't just baring her soul to Ken Scott but inevitably to the whole book reading world. Those difficult weeks when I encouraged and cajoled her to tell it how it was were undoubtedly the most difficult.
She was unable to take me back to what she described as the 'dark side' unable even to write it down in the privacy of her own home. In the end she agreed to talk (or rather sob) into an old fashioned desk top tape recorder.
I arrived some weeks later and she announced the dastardly deed was done. She pointed to the tape recorder and said I could listen to it. As I prepared to push the play button she told me she couldn't be in the same room and wandered off into the kitchen. What followed next had the same impact on me as I imagined the policemen who listened to the infamous Brady/ Hindley tapes all those years ago. (Brady and Hindley recorded the screams of one of their victims as they tortured abused and murdered him)
Crissy, incredibly, had transported herself back to childhood. On the tape recorder I listened to the voice of a confused, hurt and frightened eight year girl. When Crissy returned some twenty minutes later I was in tears. She put her arms around me and we cried together.
What Crissy has suffered in life no one should have to undergo and less a mortal would no doubt be pushing up the daisies by now having taken their own life. And while Crissy openly admits she has an 'odd bad day' her positive outlook on life is both remarkable and inspirational. I am currently working with her again on her debut novel, Revenge Is Sweeter Than Flowing Honey.
I wrote Sherlock’s Squadron with Steve Holmes in 2010. This was yet another different approach because even though Steve knew the story of his father’s wartime exploits inside out he openly admitted that he was more of a researcher than a writer. Nevertheless I insisted that he gave it his best shot and badgered him to at least have an attempt at starting each chapter, after all he knew the story better than anybody.
And it worked. Steve would send me a few hundred words and we’d meet up after I’d read through them. Again I took copious amounts of notes and recorded our meetings and Steve supplied me with anything of a historical and technical nature. We worked well together and Sherlock’s Squadron will be published in June 2013 by John Blake Publishing. Stephen I are still great friends and I look upon him now as my researcher. We are currently working together on the book which we hope will be the new film project for Silver Line Productions. It’s a true story based on an observation by an American Marine in Afghanistan, a sort of conspiracy theory. Watch this space.
Lise Kristensen had already written her book in Norwegian when she approached me in 2009. However at just over 30,000 words she will probably openly admit that there were many things missed out. It was also written in Norwegian so I thought it best to start with a blank canvas.
I’m glad we did. Lise was a small child in Indonesia during WWII when one by one her friends started to disappear. It wasn't long after Pearl Harbor when the Japanese invaded Java and were slowly but surely rounding up the Dutch, Norwegian, French and English residents who had settled to enjoy an idyllic lifestyle on the other side of the world in a pleasant tropical climate. Young Lise's family were marched up the garden path at the point of a bayonet to be taken away on a truck and interned into the brutal regime of Japanese POW camps. Nearly seventy years on Lise painstakingly retold her horrific tale from the viewpoint of that small confused, terrified, hungry child. Lise’s book was written by referencing the initial manuscript but I managed to get so much more out of her gently persuading her to relive the real horrors she had kept out of the first book. It was difficult for her but with the help of her husband Kris we managed to get through it. The Blue Door was published by Macmillan in March of 2011.
The UK's Mr Shawshank
On Saturday 16 February I visited HMP Wolds in Everthorpe near Hull to see a man called Kevin Lane who wanted me to help him with his book. He is a convicted murderer who has served 18 years and 28 days of a life sentence. I received his manuscript a week before the visit and was more than impressed at the concise, articulate and informative 136,000 word document.
The book was well written and researched, put together I assumed by a team of legal and forensic experts, seasoned police detectives and yes, needless to say by the convicted prisoner himself. The book was a page turner even in the slightly fragmented format that it was and as I read on I became more than a little concerned with the picture forming in my head. Kevin Lane was asking the reader to make an informed judgement. Was he innocent of the crime he was jailed for? The document he’d prepared over the last four years outlined the reasons why he thinks he should be believed?
I threw myself into his book in the limited time I had before my planned visit. I researched and viewed everything I could find on the internet including the many links to the newspapers and the BBC and I went through his support webpage with a fine toothed comb. During my research I became increasingly concerned about the legitimacy of this man’s conviction. But I was not there to be a detective, a judge or a juror and I won’t outline in this blog the exact circumstances of his conviction but suffice to say I began to wonder how on earth this man has not been able to at least get his case to the Court of Appeal in nearly two decades.
Even at the exact point he walked towards my table in the visiting section of the prison I sincerely wanted to doubt him and I was fully prepared to question him and his claims. I have never been in trouble with the police, never even visited a prison before and deep down I wanted to believe in the great British system and especially in the rank and file policemen who handled this particular case. I know injustices happen and they happen in every country in the world but I honestly believed that when they do occur (especially in our green and pleasant land) they were more as a result of error and accident as opposed to downright lies and deliberate falsification of evidence.
There has been a lot written about Kevin Lane but I don’t need to listen to the rumours about him; I can judge a man for myself and that’s why I flew back to the UK and made the three hour drive from the north east to a prison near Hull and listened to what it was he had to say.
He’s a hard man of that there’s no doubt, an accomplished middleweight boxer in his youth but he’s also a polite man with morals and whilst he might not realise it yet, his words have meaning and depth and there’s many a message in there for people who are prepared to read and made their own mind up, find out what it’s like to spend 18 years in the UK prison system sincerely believing every day of that sentence that he shouldn’t be in there. Now, before anyone starts preaching that life should mean life, let me tell you that Kevin Lane HAS had his life taken away… the bit that counts anyway.
Kevin Lane is no angel and I’ve no doubt he’s inflicted grievous harm on many a body in his testosterone fuelled youth but a cold blooded killer, a professional hit-man?
Many things surrounding his case puzzled me but now isn’t the time to go into details. I’ll leave that to Kevin. We spent two hours together and I warmed to him but took care to remember why I was there. He will tell you that he has been dubbed ‘The Executioner’ despite never having been accused, charged or convicted of any other murder and he asks the reader to make a call based on the evidence contained within.
You decide. That’s was the last line of the working title of his book. Hit-man or Hoover Salesman, You Decide.
Read his book then make your mind up.
It was quite humbling experience visiting a prison for the first time in my life, to sit in front of a man who has had his liberty taken from him for a crime he claims he didn’t commit. There’s bitterness, of course there is and yet Kevin is philosophical that his conviction is a result of one or two bad apples and not the judiciary system in general. There are good and bad cons and good and bad screws too, he said, good and bad in every walk of life including the police. At that point I reminded Kevin I’d been to Everthorpe before. At seven years of age I came to stay with my uncle Bob. Ironically he was a prison officer there. I shared a story with Kevin. Uncle Bob’s daughter Pauline was killed in a climbing accident when he was based at Northallerton Nick. I was very close to Pauline; she was more like a sister to me. My beautiful cousin was 21 and I was devastated. The one story I remember about Uncle Bob and Pauline and the family and the aftermath of that terrible time was that the cons at Northallerton Prison chipped in out of their meagre wages and sent a huge wreath to the funeral. I remember Uncle Bob telling me several days after the funeral as we shared a tear or two. In due course many of the cons wrote personal letters of condolences. Uncle Bob couldn’t quite believe it. Kevin smiled, ‘good and bad in everyone’ he repeated. (By the way hats off to all of the cons at Northallerton Nick around 1980)
I admit to being quite touched during the visit at the weekend. I was in awe of a man who despite being locked up for so long still seemed to have a good word or two about most individuals. I began thinking. Are some of the men inside our prisons any worse than the fat cat bankers across Europe who rip the heart out of a country’s economy, hold their hands out for massive tax payer bail outs then evict those same taxpayers who cannot afford to meet the mortgage payments and then hold their fat hands out for billions of pounds in bonuses soon after? You make the call.
I have not taken this job to judge Kevin Lane or other inmates nor have I taken this job to give my viewpoint on who killed Robert Magill. I have taken this job because it interests me and I want to help one man get his words over as he would want to speak them. He speaks honestly, emotionally and passionately and hopefully with the passage of time we can accomplish this on the pages and in the chapters of his book. Not that he needs too much help. I was open mouthed as Kevin explained that in fact he had written the book… every word and every sentence! There were no legal or forensic experts. Each paragraph and page has been meticulously researched and when I questioned the sometimes overlong paragraphs of legal speak he simply explained he has been studying law for eighteen years now. He has been studying it from a cell 40+ hours every week. That’s an awful lot of study, nearly thirty seven thousand hours to be precise so I guess he knows what he is talking about and quite entitled to push in a few long words that I have never heard of!
This story has the makings of a case John Grisham would be more than happy to turn into his next best seller but unfortunately for the world’s greatest fiction writer this story is based purely on fact. Kevin Lane has lived in hope for 18 years; hope that the truth will eventually become transparently clear. He wants to be set free, of course he does but he wants to be set free with the knowledge that the authorities and the world recognises his non participation in a brutal cold blooded murder.
Thereafter he wants for nothing more than to live the quiet life and try to catch up on the things he has missed out on, namely his family.
His book will be published with or without my help, it really is that good. When it is released it will make for a fascinating page turner of a read. And whether you are an ex con or a copper, or a prison officer or a judge or Mrs Smith from Basildon you do not have the option to sit on the fence. Lane simply asks you to decide if he’s innocent or guilty. Make the judgement in your own time.
The book was well written and researched, put together I assumed by a team of legal and forensic experts, seasoned police detectives and yes, needless to say by the convicted prisoner himself. The book was a page turner even in the slightly fragmented format that it was and as I read on I became more than a little concerned with the picture forming in my head. Kevin Lane was asking the reader to make an informed judgement. Was he innocent of the crime he was jailed for? The document he’d prepared over the last four years outlined the reasons why he thinks he should be believed?
I threw myself into his book in the limited time I had before my planned visit. I researched and viewed everything I could find on the internet including the many links to the newspapers and the BBC and I went through his support webpage with a fine toothed comb. During my research I became increasingly concerned about the legitimacy of this man’s conviction. But I was not there to be a detective, a judge or a juror and I won’t outline in this blog the exact circumstances of his conviction but suffice to say I began to wonder how on earth this man has not been able to at least get his case to the Court of Appeal in nearly two decades.
Even at the exact point he walked towards my table in the visiting section of the prison I sincerely wanted to doubt him and I was fully prepared to question him and his claims. I have never been in trouble with the police, never even visited a prison before and deep down I wanted to believe in the great British system and especially in the rank and file policemen who handled this particular case. I know injustices happen and they happen in every country in the world but I honestly believed that when they do occur (especially in our green and pleasant land) they were more as a result of error and accident as opposed to downright lies and deliberate falsification of evidence.
There has been a lot written about Kevin Lane but I don’t need to listen to the rumours about him; I can judge a man for myself and that’s why I flew back to the UK and made the three hour drive from the north east to a prison near Hull and listened to what it was he had to say.
He’s a hard man of that there’s no doubt, an accomplished middleweight boxer in his youth but he’s also a polite man with morals and whilst he might not realise it yet, his words have meaning and depth and there’s many a message in there for people who are prepared to read and made their own mind up, find out what it’s like to spend 18 years in the UK prison system sincerely believing every day of that sentence that he shouldn’t be in there. Now, before anyone starts preaching that life should mean life, let me tell you that Kevin Lane HAS had his life taken away… the bit that counts anyway.
Kevin Lane is no angel and I’ve no doubt he’s inflicted grievous harm on many a body in his testosterone fuelled youth but a cold blooded killer, a professional hit-man?
Many things surrounding his case puzzled me but now isn’t the time to go into details. I’ll leave that to Kevin. We spent two hours together and I warmed to him but took care to remember why I was there. He will tell you that he has been dubbed ‘The Executioner’ despite never having been accused, charged or convicted of any other murder and he asks the reader to make a call based on the evidence contained within.
You decide. That’s was the last line of the working title of his book. Hit-man or Hoover Salesman, You Decide.
Read his book then make your mind up.
It was quite humbling experience visiting a prison for the first time in my life, to sit in front of a man who has had his liberty taken from him for a crime he claims he didn’t commit. There’s bitterness, of course there is and yet Kevin is philosophical that his conviction is a result of one or two bad apples and not the judiciary system in general. There are good and bad cons and good and bad screws too, he said, good and bad in every walk of life including the police. At that point I reminded Kevin I’d been to Everthorpe before. At seven years of age I came to stay with my uncle Bob. Ironically he was a prison officer there. I shared a story with Kevin. Uncle Bob’s daughter Pauline was killed in a climbing accident when he was based at Northallerton Nick. I was very close to Pauline; she was more like a sister to me. My beautiful cousin was 21 and I was devastated. The one story I remember about Uncle Bob and Pauline and the family and the aftermath of that terrible time was that the cons at Northallerton Prison chipped in out of their meagre wages and sent a huge wreath to the funeral. I remember Uncle Bob telling me several days after the funeral as we shared a tear or two. In due course many of the cons wrote personal letters of condolences. Uncle Bob couldn’t quite believe it. Kevin smiled, ‘good and bad in everyone’ he repeated. (By the way hats off to all of the cons at Northallerton Nick around 1980)
I admit to being quite touched during the visit at the weekend. I was in awe of a man who despite being locked up for so long still seemed to have a good word or two about most individuals. I began thinking. Are some of the men inside our prisons any worse than the fat cat bankers across Europe who rip the heart out of a country’s economy, hold their hands out for massive tax payer bail outs then evict those same taxpayers who cannot afford to meet the mortgage payments and then hold their fat hands out for billions of pounds in bonuses soon after? You make the call.
I have not taken this job to judge Kevin Lane or other inmates nor have I taken this job to give my viewpoint on who killed Robert Magill. I have taken this job because it interests me and I want to help one man get his words over as he would want to speak them. He speaks honestly, emotionally and passionately and hopefully with the passage of time we can accomplish this on the pages and in the chapters of his book. Not that he needs too much help. I was open mouthed as Kevin explained that in fact he had written the book… every word and every sentence! There were no legal or forensic experts. Each paragraph and page has been meticulously researched and when I questioned the sometimes overlong paragraphs of legal speak he simply explained he has been studying law for eighteen years now. He has been studying it from a cell 40+ hours every week. That’s an awful lot of study, nearly thirty seven thousand hours to be precise so I guess he knows what he is talking about and quite entitled to push in a few long words that I have never heard of!
This story has the makings of a case John Grisham would be more than happy to turn into his next best seller but unfortunately for the world’s greatest fiction writer this story is based purely on fact. Kevin Lane has lived in hope for 18 years; hope that the truth will eventually become transparently clear. He wants to be set free, of course he does but he wants to be set free with the knowledge that the authorities and the world recognises his non participation in a brutal cold blooded murder.
Thereafter he wants for nothing more than to live the quiet life and try to catch up on the things he has missed out on, namely his family.
His book will be published with or without my help, it really is that good. When it is released it will make for a fascinating page turner of a read. And whether you are an ex con or a copper, or a prison officer or a judge or Mrs Smith from Basildon you do not have the option to sit on the fence. Lane simply asks you to decide if he’s innocent or guilty. Make the judgement in your own time.
