What do you think?
Rate this book
Tim: An Ordinary Boy
The story of a family struck by indiscriminate violence.
- GenresBiography
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1994
1 person is currently reading
10 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 14, 2017
And I'm back to my usual thoroughly depressing book reviews...yes, you can sigh with relief knowing the world has gone back to normal...however, you can also groan as I can tell you honestly that this is one of the most tragic and heartbreaking books that I have ever read...and that is really saying something. I read this originally about 6 years ago when I borrowed it from my school library...but from that point onwards I had not been able to find it anywhere. This is partly because I have an awful memory for book names...and partly because - has anyone tried putting the word 'Tim' into Google? Let me tell you something, it means you will not be able to find whatever you are looking for! But finally I managed to find it...and now you have to sit through the review! (And yes, I know I'm meant to be writing up my Greenbelt notes for my vicar, but this is called procrastination, and I've been working on them for the last several hours.)
===Boring Stuff===
Title: Tim: An Ordinary Boy
Author: Colin and Wendy Parry (although the book seems to be from Colin's perspective)
Genre: Biography
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd; New Ed edition (3 Aug 1995)
ISBN-13: 978-0340617908
Price: Amazon: from £.0.01 at time of writing,
===Background===
Colin and Wendy Parry are two remarkable figures who did a great deal of work towards the IRA ceasefire and eventual peace in 1994. However, this on its own would not be that remarkable, if these two people did not have every reason to be filled with hatred and bitterness towards the people they were trying to help...and being able to turn that bitterness into an instinct to bring together the very people who have hurt you really is remarkable. You see, their son, Tim Parry, was one of the people killed in the IRA bombing of Warrington in 1993, in fact one of only two people killed, and to make it worse - two children. Tim was only 12 on the day that the bomb went off and Johnathon Ball was much younger at 3...and I'm not sure I'd be able to work towards peace with the people who killed my boy.
They set up the 'Foundation of Peace' which is based on the memory of Tim Parry and Johnathon Ball. This group works on educating people about violence and its effects in an effort to reduce or eliminate violent situations. Colin Parry has dedicated his life to a quest for peace, and has on one occasion met the leader on Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams, at a speaking event, and as he said then - yes that was hard, but it was 'infinitely easier than holding my son dying. It was infinitely easier than carrying him for the final time in his coffin. It was infinitely easier than saying my final farewell to him with my wife. I can also tell you it is infinitely easier for Gerry and I to talk than to fight." And this in itself is a very brave sentiment.
In Tony Blair's words: '"In respect of Colin and Wendy Parry, they have shown a quite extraordinary spirit of forgiveness and determination to promote reconciliation. They can be very proud of the work that they have done over the years. It is interesting that the spirit they represent has ultimately triumphed over hatred, discord and conflict. Surely that should give us hope for the future."
One of the main reasons that Colin and Wendy Parry wrote this book is because, as Colin clearly states; 'If my son becomes a symbol for peace and gives everyone a sense of hope after so much tragedy, then that will be Tim's unique achievement.' And out of all reasons to write a book this seems like one of the best.
===Structure===
The biography starts with Tim's early life leading up to the bombing, the reason for this was to give the reader the sense of a life that was lost, not just a number or a statistic, but an individual life, a young man with so much left to give. The format that this takes is entries from Colin's diary which he had been writing for Tim to look at when he was older; he did this for all 3 of his children. This was a book that was meant to be read by his child, who should have been alive, not by a faceless audience of thousands. But this is the only way it can be read now because Tim can never read it. This diary ends on the day that the bomb went off, when Tim was in hospital with severe head wounds and a very low prognosis of survival. From that point onwards you see events from Colin's eyes and his memories, rather than from a diary which has been written for someone else to read.
From this it moves chronologically through Tim's death and into his funeral...what got me first time reading through the book is that at the end of the funeral you are still only half way through the book, which confused the living jeepers out of me. But the rest of the book goes through the work the parents have been doing to work towards peace and tolerance since then.
===Style===
The style of this book really appealed to me, or at least up to about half way through the book, Colin and Wendy Parry have managed to write about their son's life and death in a concise and sensible manner. It obviously has the emotion of parents who have lost their son in a random violent attack, but equally it isn't so bogged down by emotion that you can't read it. In fact the almost scientific way it has been written makes the moments of emotion all the more poignant, and heartbreaking. You get all the emotions of a grieving father, and in this you can often actually feel his pain as well as his annoyance:
'Here was an appealing, and if I may say so, a handsome young man whose life had been snuffed out in an instant. Was he just to be one more statistic in the long line of the Northern Ireland problem? Not if I had anything to do with it.'
Another thing that I loved about the book was that it didn't just focus on the parent's reactions and emotions; it looks at the people around them including those that they had not known before the tragedy. This includes both the journalists and the paramedics, they gave a very fair view of the reporters and the only issue that he had was that the photographer who had taken the pictures of Tim that were on front page the next day could have been helping, not standing there with a camera in his hand.
Throughout the book there are sections made up of photographs, these show Tim growing up, his funeral and pictures of people they had met afterwards. The funeral photograph in particular is rather heartbreaking.
===Funeral===
I probably shouldn't have a section entirely for Tim's funeral, but this was the part in the book that most affected me, and had tears streaming down my face. It was covered both by Colin himself, and included his entire speech at the funeral...but surprisingly this was not the bit that had me in tears. The part that had me in tears was written by a family friend and was just writing about the funeral itself, before, during and after. And I now apologise for the stupidly large quote I am about to use...but I can't resist.
[The honour guard] 'Sea Scouts and members of Tim's football team, all about his age and exercising rigid self control with difficulty. One little lad had been crying, and stood with his fists clenched, in a small but supreme effort of will.'
'Afterwards, we left the church where the silent crowd still stood vigil and then the funeral procession passed slowly through the streets of Warrington. This was the part that I found most profoundly moving; thousands of people standing along the route to the cemetery, none of them just coming to stare, but standing, like the people at the church, in silent respect. All along the route, at every intersection, were police standing and saluting the procession. At the police station itself, about thirty or forty officers standing in line, one policewoman standing with her colleagues, to attention, with tears running down her face. At the fire station, the engines had been brought out, with the entire brigade in line, each man with one hand across his breast. Also unbearable, an entire school of infant children, all in a line and standing completely still and silent with their teachers. There were elderly men standing rigidly to attention, many of them saluting, whole factory workforces lined in rows, building sites where the entire workforce stood still, helmets off and heads down.'
===Attitudes===
Colin and Wendy show an amazing amount of sympathy to the people of Ireland and an amazingly that 'the IRA did not commit such atrocities in the name of Ireland and had no support among decent, ordinary people'. Now to most of us this would seem a sensible attitude to take, but that's a logical approach...and logic doesn't have much to do with grief. It would have been much easier for the parents to hate Ireland for the devastation that the IRA had caused to their family. Only someone who has lost a child can understand what they truly went through and the amount of courage it took them to do what they have done and to write this book. Yes, they show anger - who wouldn't, but this is never at the people of Ireland as a whole, it is at the man who took their son's life away from them.
How different people deal with grief is also explored in the books, and different people do have completely different attitudes when dealing with grief. Colin dealt with his grief by talking, to politicians, to reporters - to just about everyone. He wanted to ensure that Tim was never forgotten, and this was his way of healing. Wendy on the other hand grieved far more quietly, and only put up with the reporters because of her husband. It also explores the other siblings grief and how they dealt with the loss of their brother. This to me added an awful lot of depth to the book, and made it far more real.
===The second half===
You will have noticed (well, if you were paying attention), that I have only covered up until the funeral...and I already said that the funeral ended half way through the book. Well, there is a reason for this. And that is because the second half of the book is awful (excluding the last chapter), as soon as you are past the funeral they seem to lose the plot as such, and it is suddenly very difficult to get through. It is fact, after fact, after fact...names are dropped everywhere and politics infiltrate it to a massive degree. Now possibly this would be ok for someone who had picked it up with a fair knowledge of the 1994 Northern Ireland politics...unfortunately I don't - I know a fair amount but most of this I was bored with...and the rest was way over my head. So I asked the boyfriend (he's a politics genius) and even he couldn't understand a fair proportion of it. I think when I originally read it all those years ago I must have just missed the later sections of the book...got bored and skipped it...in fact I was highly tempted to do that this time round. The book went from a touching and interesting memoir...to what seemed like one of my old history books.
===Conclusion===
This is a book I'd recommend anyone reading...providing you don't mind being in floods of tears throughout...and skipping the later half of the book...unless of course you like that sort of name dropping and completely boring facts and style of writing...personally I would advise quitting about a chapter after the funeral, and then reading the last chapter. I've given it stars because the first half was amazing...and is worth reading just for that...but you can't just ignore how bad the second half is.
'I'll lend you for a little while a child of mine God said
For you to love the while he lives and mourn for when he's dead
It may be six or seven years or forty two or three
But will you 'til I call him back take care of him for Me
He'll bring his ways to gladden you and should his stay be brief
You'll always have his memories as a solace for your grief
I cannot promise he will stay as all from earth return
But there are lessons taught below that I want you all to learn
I've looked this whole world over in My search for students true
And from the folks that crown life's lane I have chosen you
Now will you give him all your love nor think labour vain
Nor hate Me when I come to take this lent child back again?
I fancied that I heard them say, Dear Lord Thy Will be done
For all the joys Thy child will bring the risk of grief we'll run
But should thy Angel call for them much sooner then we've planned,
we'll brave the bitter grief that comes and try to understand.... '
Author unknown
===Boring Stuff===
Title: Tim: An Ordinary Boy
Author: Colin and Wendy Parry (although the book seems to be from Colin's perspective)
Genre: Biography
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd; New Ed edition (3 Aug 1995)
ISBN-13: 978-0340617908
Price: Amazon: from £.0.01 at time of writing,
===Background===
Colin and Wendy Parry are two remarkable figures who did a great deal of work towards the IRA ceasefire and eventual peace in 1994. However, this on its own would not be that remarkable, if these two people did not have every reason to be filled with hatred and bitterness towards the people they were trying to help...and being able to turn that bitterness into an instinct to bring together the very people who have hurt you really is remarkable. You see, their son, Tim Parry, was one of the people killed in the IRA bombing of Warrington in 1993, in fact one of only two people killed, and to make it worse - two children. Tim was only 12 on the day that the bomb went off and Johnathon Ball was much younger at 3...and I'm not sure I'd be able to work towards peace with the people who killed my boy.
They set up the 'Foundation of Peace' which is based on the memory of Tim Parry and Johnathon Ball. This group works on educating people about violence and its effects in an effort to reduce or eliminate violent situations. Colin Parry has dedicated his life to a quest for peace, and has on one occasion met the leader on Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams, at a speaking event, and as he said then - yes that was hard, but it was 'infinitely easier than holding my son dying. It was infinitely easier than carrying him for the final time in his coffin. It was infinitely easier than saying my final farewell to him with my wife. I can also tell you it is infinitely easier for Gerry and I to talk than to fight." And this in itself is a very brave sentiment.
In Tony Blair's words: '"In respect of Colin and Wendy Parry, they have shown a quite extraordinary spirit of forgiveness and determination to promote reconciliation. They can be very proud of the work that they have done over the years. It is interesting that the spirit they represent has ultimately triumphed over hatred, discord and conflict. Surely that should give us hope for the future."
One of the main reasons that Colin and Wendy Parry wrote this book is because, as Colin clearly states; 'If my son becomes a symbol for peace and gives everyone a sense of hope after so much tragedy, then that will be Tim's unique achievement.' And out of all reasons to write a book this seems like one of the best.
===Structure===
The biography starts with Tim's early life leading up to the bombing, the reason for this was to give the reader the sense of a life that was lost, not just a number or a statistic, but an individual life, a young man with so much left to give. The format that this takes is entries from Colin's diary which he had been writing for Tim to look at when he was older; he did this for all 3 of his children. This was a book that was meant to be read by his child, who should have been alive, not by a faceless audience of thousands. But this is the only way it can be read now because Tim can never read it. This diary ends on the day that the bomb went off, when Tim was in hospital with severe head wounds and a very low prognosis of survival. From that point onwards you see events from Colin's eyes and his memories, rather than from a diary which has been written for someone else to read.
From this it moves chronologically through Tim's death and into his funeral...what got me first time reading through the book is that at the end of the funeral you are still only half way through the book, which confused the living jeepers out of me. But the rest of the book goes through the work the parents have been doing to work towards peace and tolerance since then.
===Style===
The style of this book really appealed to me, or at least up to about half way through the book, Colin and Wendy Parry have managed to write about their son's life and death in a concise and sensible manner. It obviously has the emotion of parents who have lost their son in a random violent attack, but equally it isn't so bogged down by emotion that you can't read it. In fact the almost scientific way it has been written makes the moments of emotion all the more poignant, and heartbreaking. You get all the emotions of a grieving father, and in this you can often actually feel his pain as well as his annoyance:
'Here was an appealing, and if I may say so, a handsome young man whose life had been snuffed out in an instant. Was he just to be one more statistic in the long line of the Northern Ireland problem? Not if I had anything to do with it.'
Another thing that I loved about the book was that it didn't just focus on the parent's reactions and emotions; it looks at the people around them including those that they had not known before the tragedy. This includes both the journalists and the paramedics, they gave a very fair view of the reporters and the only issue that he had was that the photographer who had taken the pictures of Tim that were on front page the next day could have been helping, not standing there with a camera in his hand.
Throughout the book there are sections made up of photographs, these show Tim growing up, his funeral and pictures of people they had met afterwards. The funeral photograph in particular is rather heartbreaking.
===Funeral===
I probably shouldn't have a section entirely for Tim's funeral, but this was the part in the book that most affected me, and had tears streaming down my face. It was covered both by Colin himself, and included his entire speech at the funeral...but surprisingly this was not the bit that had me in tears. The part that had me in tears was written by a family friend and was just writing about the funeral itself, before, during and after. And I now apologise for the stupidly large quote I am about to use...but I can't resist.
[The honour guard] 'Sea Scouts and members of Tim's football team, all about his age and exercising rigid self control with difficulty. One little lad had been crying, and stood with his fists clenched, in a small but supreme effort of will.'
'Afterwards, we left the church where the silent crowd still stood vigil and then the funeral procession passed slowly through the streets of Warrington. This was the part that I found most profoundly moving; thousands of people standing along the route to the cemetery, none of them just coming to stare, but standing, like the people at the church, in silent respect. All along the route, at every intersection, were police standing and saluting the procession. At the police station itself, about thirty or forty officers standing in line, one policewoman standing with her colleagues, to attention, with tears running down her face. At the fire station, the engines had been brought out, with the entire brigade in line, each man with one hand across his breast. Also unbearable, an entire school of infant children, all in a line and standing completely still and silent with their teachers. There were elderly men standing rigidly to attention, many of them saluting, whole factory workforces lined in rows, building sites where the entire workforce stood still, helmets off and heads down.'
===Attitudes===
Colin and Wendy show an amazing amount of sympathy to the people of Ireland and an amazingly that 'the IRA did not commit such atrocities in the name of Ireland and had no support among decent, ordinary people'. Now to most of us this would seem a sensible attitude to take, but that's a logical approach...and logic doesn't have much to do with grief. It would have been much easier for the parents to hate Ireland for the devastation that the IRA had caused to their family. Only someone who has lost a child can understand what they truly went through and the amount of courage it took them to do what they have done and to write this book. Yes, they show anger - who wouldn't, but this is never at the people of Ireland as a whole, it is at the man who took their son's life away from them.
How different people deal with grief is also explored in the books, and different people do have completely different attitudes when dealing with grief. Colin dealt with his grief by talking, to politicians, to reporters - to just about everyone. He wanted to ensure that Tim was never forgotten, and this was his way of healing. Wendy on the other hand grieved far more quietly, and only put up with the reporters because of her husband. It also explores the other siblings grief and how they dealt with the loss of their brother. This to me added an awful lot of depth to the book, and made it far more real.
===The second half===
You will have noticed (well, if you were paying attention), that I have only covered up until the funeral...and I already said that the funeral ended half way through the book. Well, there is a reason for this. And that is because the second half of the book is awful (excluding the last chapter), as soon as you are past the funeral they seem to lose the plot as such, and it is suddenly very difficult to get through. It is fact, after fact, after fact...names are dropped everywhere and politics infiltrate it to a massive degree. Now possibly this would be ok for someone who had picked it up with a fair knowledge of the 1994 Northern Ireland politics...unfortunately I don't - I know a fair amount but most of this I was bored with...and the rest was way over my head. So I asked the boyfriend (he's a politics genius) and even he couldn't understand a fair proportion of it. I think when I originally read it all those years ago I must have just missed the later sections of the book...got bored and skipped it...in fact I was highly tempted to do that this time round. The book went from a touching and interesting memoir...to what seemed like one of my old history books.
===Conclusion===
This is a book I'd recommend anyone reading...providing you don't mind being in floods of tears throughout...and skipping the later half of the book...unless of course you like that sort of name dropping and completely boring facts and style of writing...personally I would advise quitting about a chapter after the funeral, and then reading the last chapter. I've given it stars because the first half was amazing...and is worth reading just for that...but you can't just ignore how bad the second half is.
'I'll lend you for a little while a child of mine God said
For you to love the while he lives and mourn for when he's dead
It may be six or seven years or forty two or three
But will you 'til I call him back take care of him for Me
He'll bring his ways to gladden you and should his stay be brief
You'll always have his memories as a solace for your grief
I cannot promise he will stay as all from earth return
But there are lessons taught below that I want you all to learn
I've looked this whole world over in My search for students true
And from the folks that crown life's lane I have chosen you
Now will you give him all your love nor think labour vain
Nor hate Me when I come to take this lent child back again?
I fancied that I heard them say, Dear Lord Thy Will be done
For all the joys Thy child will bring the risk of grief we'll run
But should thy Angel call for them much sooner then we've planned,
we'll brave the bitter grief that comes and try to understand.... '
Author unknown
April 11, 2021
During my time at University I had the pleasure of sitting a seminar with Colin Parry & found his story nothing other than inspirational.
At the end of the seminar I received a signed copy of the book & it has been sat on my shelf for years. I finally picked it up & have been on an emotional roller coaster, often bursting into tears whilst reading.
The work Colin & Wendy have done & their involvement in the peace process, following Tim's death is inspirational, as many would have sought justice over peace.
Not an easy read due to the nature of its content, however, well written & thought provoking.
At the end of the seminar I received a signed copy of the book & it has been sat on my shelf for years. I finally picked it up & have been on an emotional roller coaster, often bursting into tears whilst reading.
The work Colin & Wendy have done & their involvement in the peace process, following Tim's death is inspirational, as many would have sought justice over peace.
Not an easy read due to the nature of its content, however, well written & thought provoking.
January 10, 2015
Upsetting real life. This book is about the Warrington Bombing. A young boy killed and his father has written a book and diary of his twelve year old son. Political in parts but well worth the read.
May 3, 2015
I Read this because I heard the author give a talk
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews