I Threw a Stone

A collection of poems from the front-line of urban life, the cabs of lorries, and the bluebell woods of mortality.

Oscar Sparrow was born in 1949 as the sonic boom of jets and babies began to draw a new world map of umbilical vapour trails. He was brought up on cod liver oil and National Health orange juice. As the colour red leached its way out of the map of the British Empire, Oscar attended a die-hard Church school designed to create noble savages to serve what was left of the savage Nobles.

The Eleven Plus exam revealed that he could not even count to 11 and he became a mechanic, labourer, truck driver, boxer, and poet. He read Wordsworth and Ford Cortina manuals in a lorry cab near both Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Eventually, he found himself in London where he joined the Metropolitan Police. Car chases and riots followed but he did not take it personally. He spent his spare time touring the Art galleries, singing Piaf, and learning French and Italian. Eventually, The Authorities fell for the con and gave him a desk job in the Art department of Interpol London at Scotland Yard. Throughout all this time he was a would-be poet, short story writer and novelist.

To Oscar, poetry is the spoken word, so it was natural to produce an audiobook of these poems, read by the author.