Jim Neat - The Case of a Young Man Down on his Luck — The Case of a Young Man Down on his Luck

Disgrifiad Cymraeg / Welsh Description

Aiff Mary J. Oliver ar drywydd ei thad drwy gyfrwng yr ychydig atgofion sydd ganddi, gan ddarganfod bywyd rhwystredig o obeithion nas gwireddwyd, trasiedi marwolaeth cymar yng Nghanada ynghyd â merch amddifad yng Nghanada. Mae Oliver yn defnyddio'r ychydig ddogfennau teuluol oedd ganddi, ynghyd â phlethiad o farddoniaeth a rhyddiaith i greu cofiant swynol ac atyniadol.

Disgrifiad Saesneg / English Description

Mary J. Oliver goes in search of her father through the few memories she has of him and discovers an unfulfilled life tinged with the tragedy of his partner's death and an orphaned daughter in Canada. Using the few documents of Jim Neat's life and a mix of poetry and prose, Oliver creates a fascinating and engaging book, unlike any other memoir.

Dosbarthu

Byddwn yn dosbarthu eitemau sydd mewn stoc o fewn 3 diwrnod gwaith, fel arfer drwy Royal Mail Tracked 48. Ar gyfer archebion o flaen llaw, byddwn yn dosbarthu’r eitem o fewn 3 diwrnod gwaith ar ôl ei derbyn gan ein cyflenwr.

Dispatch

In-stock items will be dispatched within 3 business days, usually by Royal Mail Tracked 48. For pre-orders, we’ll dispatch within 3 business days of receiving the item from our supplier.

Bywgraffiad yr Awdur / Author Biography

Mary J. Oliver is an artist and writer. In 2017, the original manuscript of Jim Neat was awarded 2nd prize by New Welsh Writing – Memoir. Five of the poems from it have been set to music for piano by the composer Judith Bailey. Oliver’s poems have appeared in many periodicals and anthologies in UK and US. Competitions won include those judged by Paul Muldoon and Ruth Padel. Oliver edits Piccolina, a poetry newsletter promoting live-poetry events in Cornwall, UK, and is chair of the Poetry Society’s Penzance Stanza Group. She is currently working on a collection of poems set during the Great Depression in Canada.

Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review

On Saturday, 23rd November 1935, Jim Neat was admitted to Whitby Hospital, Ontario, ‘in a state of physical and spiritual breakdown’. A few days earlier, he had written a letter to his sister, Queenie, from Toronto Gaol: ‘Dearest Baby Queen, I’m sorry, but this is where I am. I’ve committed no felony but have gone to the dogs.’ At Whitby Hospital, Jim was fortunate enough to come under the care of Medical Superintendent Donald Fletcher, who recognised that Jim had suffered some unidentified trauma and, instead of subjecting him to ‘insulin shock treatment’, prescribed ‘warm baths, good food, a peaceful environment and the opportunity to talk’, plus attendance of Mrs MacTaggart’s writing class, where he was encouraged ‘to write in the present tense, to use a free creative form, including imaginary postcards he might have sent home, revealing difficulties he faced on arrival in Canada’. This was truly progressive thinking for the time, and it led to a fund of Jim’s writing that still remains. In this partially fictionalised memoir of her father, poet Mary J. Oliver draws on Jim’s own writing and Donald Fletcher’s case notes, plus a wealth of other surviving documentation and photographs to tell the extraordinary story of an ordinary man – a personal story that also says so much about the difficulty of surviving the Depression in 1930s North America, and about the advances being made in therapeutic treatments for mental health problems. The book is riveting from the outset, with each page, through a mosaic of sources, providing a deeper understanding of Jim Neat and a fuller picture of his life. It all began in Penge, in south-east London, where Jim was the youngest of two surviving sons and six daughters. Born with a club foot that required several operations and a surgical boot, he was horribly bullied. It was Queenie, the youngest of his sisters, who vowed to protect him and who was always there for him, even at the darkest times and from thousands of miles away. At the age of 17, Jim ran away to sea. One of his teachers at the School for Crippled Poor Boys had introduced him to Treasure Island , Moby Dick and Lord Jim , and so his travelling began: ‘Four years a merchant sailor, at sea with Joseph Conrad, rusty water dripping on my bunk.’ He didn’t return to England until 1936, just a couple of months before his 32nd birthday. In the interim he had suffered a great tragedy, from which he never fully recovered. Oliver has divided the book into three sections: one covering Jim’s life up until his return to England; the second, much shorter, telling the story of his second great love, with Oliver’s mother, which was tragically soured by his three-year absence as a member of the Pioneer Corps during the war; and the last recounting Oliver’s search, long after his death, for a better understanding of the father she felt she had never really known, including a trip to Canada to seek out any traces of her long-lost half-sister. Jim Neat: The Case of a Young Man Down on His Luck is the deeply moving story of a man full of hope and promise, whose life was shattered by circumstances beyond his control. It is a great tribute to an extraordinary ordinary man.