‘What would my mother say?’
At 52 years of age George Stratford was sleeping rough on a park bench, jobless,
penniless and feeling too old to make a new life. Then one morning he woke with a
start, haunted by the thought, ‘What would my mother say if she could see this
bum I’ve turned into?’
It made him think. He stopped feeling sorry for himself and became determined to
sort himself out. He thought of the novel he had started several years earlier and
never completed, and affirmed his intentionto finish it and get it published.
His imaginationwandered to his dream of becoming a novelist. How wonderful it
would be to be a famous author!
Then he took action. He enrolled at a local college to study English, and the follow-
ing year won a place on an advertising course after submitting the first two chapters
of his novel. Then he spent the last of his savings on the train fare to London to take
up a work experience placement at a top advertising agency, and despite sleeping
rough at this time, was taken on by them on a permanent basis. Simultaneously he
wrote a minimum of 1,000 words a day until his novel was finished.
The culmination of George’s efforts was the launch of his novel, In The Long Run,
at a star-studded reception in London. Set against the backdrop of the Comrades’
Marathon in South Africa, one of the world’s most arduous races, it explores the
themes of confidence, courage and determination – qualities which the author
demonstrates in abundance!
3 SOW THE SEEDS OF CONFIDENCE AND WATCH THEM GROW