I read this some time ago. But I didn't write it up because ... I think I found it very moving. I felt there was a message in it for me.
Eddie's mother died when he was very young, which was very hard on him, and he and his brother were sent to boarding school, which was possibly very difficult at the time but also perhaps quite a blessing. I think it was harder when his father started a relationship with Kate.
Initially, having a new stepmother who wanted things done her way was horrible and I did a lot of disagreeing. As a teenager, it certainly was not easy to follow new sets of rules, especially during holidays when my brother and I came home from school for our breaks. Dad would be at work and we would be at home, all trying to get along.
During my brother's eighteenth birthday, Kate said roughly this to us: "You've got to understand that you are a cog in the machine. As soon as you understand that, you can fit in and get on with life."
Now, that is an opinion, but there is no way that I agree with it. You could argue that some people in life end up being cogs in the machine, but I would wish them not to feel like that and not to have to live thinking that way. Lots of people work for companies, and I suppose if you are in a company, you are part of a machine. Maybe that's what she was talking about. But I was of the opinion that you should never feel like just a cog in a machine, you should always go for your dreams.
I would have said that even if I were a cog in the machine, I would like to see myself as a cog who is shooting for the stars and could go into any machine I want to and become a bigger cog or a cog shaped like a different cog. I would redefine the whole cog argument, that's what I'd do...
Kate wanted me to be an accountant. When I dropped out of university, she felt I should repay my father the money he'd spent on my education. You can see the logic behind this: so many parents tell their children, "Get a proper job, have a backup career, become an accountant, do something professional. It's too difficult being actor, or a performer, or a musician." But as I hadn't asked to go to a boarding school in the first place, I felt different.
I have a real fellow-feeling here because my father, at one time, seemed to ask that I repay him for the school fees that he paid for my junior school, which is really ridiculous. But he thought that anyone who loved him should give him money. He had always asked his mother for money and she had nearly always come good. But after he left us he couldn't manage to send us any money. He hadn't grown up properly. He was irresponsible and had a most convenient memory, that soon forgot how he had left us without a penny. Instead it told him that we had somehow inveigled school fees out of him.
Anyway I have told my son about the cog thing, because he may well become a cog, but I should like him to go for his dreams and I should like him to respect other people who go for their dreams, even if they don't seem to be having much success.
I am going for my dreams but I am also full of self-doubt at present - doubt about my Brunel script, whether the story is strong - like a detective I go in search of the truth, and I find the truth interesting because it is true, but does that mean it is a good story? I can only try to make it fun and interesting and dramatic and hope I have done it. And all writing is re-writing, so I must prepare for a re-write.
