Lie Back and Think of England

Fred Pike had never seen a black man in his life! Born into a solid white working-class family, his England remained a steady, ordered society of rich and poor, lower, middle and upper classes, and everyone knowing his or her place. For it was an England uncomplicated by the aftermath of another World War. Yet Fred is soon to be shaken out of his complacent acceptance of this order. Already it's September 1939, and Neville Chamberlain prepares to speak to the nation. On the eve of this historic broadcast, Fred and his wife Alice innocently settle down for the night in their semi-detached East London house. But Fred's hopes for a restful sleep are shattered by a disturbing dream, the like of which he has never before experienced. After the war, which to his mind could never equal his unnerving dream, he and Alice begin to pick up the pieces of their lives. But changes taking place in little old England are hardly to Fred's liking. His second dramatic nightmare, this time featuring Islamic extremism, is just too much for Cockney Fred who cracks under the strain and finally dies, leaving a widow who is content to join him when "The Good Lord" decides. Tony Sharp's latest book is funny, politically 'incorrect' and 'subversive'. This tale might well have been the nightmare of more than one, honest Englishman - with a glimpse of the future and its inverted prejudices and struggle for power. Could this be black humour at its blackest.