Uttoxeter Online Magazine

My name is Phillip Whittington and I am an x resident of Uttoxeter.

I resided on Sunnyside road from 1974 – 1979 and was a student at Windsor park middle school.

I have recently written and published a children’s book titled ‘What a Hullabaloo!’ based around my adventures of growing up in the Uttoxeter area in the 1970’s.

It would be great if you could give my website a mention as I have lost touch with everybody who I knew there over the years.

The ‘about me’ section of my website at http://www.whatahullabaloo.com has some details about what I am up to at the moment and a full synopsis of the book as well as free previews etc.

I would be happy to donate a copy for the town library if you have any contacts in that area.

What a Hullabaloo! - It’s the Synopsis

‘What a Hullabaloo!’ is based around my own experiences of being 10 years of age in the mid 70’s, and focuses greatly on the closeness of childhood friends.

The main characters of the stories have very individual skills which are determined by their physical make up, and this offers great opportunities for ‘the gang’ to solve bizarre problems in ridiculous ways.

The gang comprises of ‘me’ who is of average build and posture, the ‘strong lad’, the ‘long lad’ and the ‘small lad’. Each of the characters is particularly useful in certain situations because of his size or shape, and this I feel allows the reader to place himself easily in the part of the character that best suits his own build.

Near enough every group of children and adults alike will have members from each category so I feel the concept will be easy for the young reader to relate to.

The characters are also known as strong lad, small lad and tall lad throughout the collection of stories.

I feel that the absence of human names also allows readers from any culture or nationality room to project him self onto the character that most suits him.

Also, each lad is respectful and aware of the usefulness of his friend’s character and I hope this will make the reader respectful of the natural aspects of their own friends.

The stories are based around quite simplistic events such as sneaking into the kitchen for a midnight feast or conker collecting. Adults however have a habit of turning up at inopportune moments to throw the gangs plans into chaos.

The lads are very inventive and cunning throughout, and come up with marvellous solutions that are meticulously planned. The plans however are fuelled by the type of magical thinking that children of this age are renowned for, which usually means that they have not quite planned for all out comings!

Many of the emotions and some of the events within the stories are real as I remember them and I did not want the lad’s to be seen as doing impossible things, I wanted to keep them as real as possible.

I wanted to make the world of my characters a world where their imagination is king. The gang is always skirting around the edges of the rules of adults but are very aware that rules exist.

I did not want to create a gang with no boundaries that would come across as being untouchable.

To highlight this further I have allowed the parent, in places, to have a position of power with rules that have consequences if broken.

I also wanted to show the young of today that life existed before computers and video games and that games can be equal, or if not more interesting, when created and not bought.

I have added many colourful characters such as scout leaders, teachers, dinner ladies and farmers in to the stories, and looked at them through the eyes of the ten year old. This I think highlights the natural scariness of grown ups to children and also allows for some great comical characters to pop in and out of ‘the gangs’ world.

The stories themselves have a slight Yorkshire accent, which is like my own, and I feel that this adds uniqueness to the flow of the stories, and a young feel. I wanted more than anything for the stories to read like they had been written by someone of similar age to the reader.