THE VAMPIRES OF FANTASY ISLAND

                                              "Those ungrateful drones who would,
                                               drink your sweat and suck your blood".
                                                                            - Percy Byshe Shelley.


Whilst I've been doling out my Tea and Sympathy to Lou Santangeli (quite rightly I might say ) over the ingratitude shown to him after his tremendous feat in clearing the names of Kelly and Connolly, I had a blind spot about my own efforts in that direction.

Well, that is until I met an old old friend in town the other night and after a good few drinks, he  reminded me of some of them.
 "Remember", he said, "when you were home on leave from Ruskin, and represented  Mick so-and-so- who was a neighbour, and you won his DSS Appeal against having his Dole stopped?" 

Yes, I remembered all right. I didn't expect nor did I get anything off him because he was out of work and had young kids.  But I regretted it afterwards when I  was told he was an enforcer for a Loan Shark on a Huyton estate.

Then there was the Halewood pensioner, a former market trader
my family had known for years from the city centre. He was only on a pension, topped up with Income Support. And theChild Support Agency was taking pounds off him every week because he'd been foolish enough to marry a much younger woman and have two kids to her.
   I took his case to a DSS Tribunal and won him all his money back.
Again I didn't expect any reward, and I didn't get any. Afterwards, outside the Tribunal in Dale Street, he promised me a bottle of single malt 14 year-old Scotch.
I'm still waiting for that whisky, which must now be at least 30 years-old!

Then there was the case of the 36 year-old foreman on a Work Experience gardening project in Kirkby, who was unfairly made redundant.
Kenny was a nice lad and a hard worker. Being skint he couldn't get a lawyer to take his case (you couldn't get legal aid for tribunals) so he literally begged me to represent him at an Industrial Tribunal - which I did. 
The case took weeks of  hard preparation. But I took great delight in defeating the Government's barrister by winning the case for Kenny and getting him £3,000 compensation. 
I got no fees or costs of my own but got great satisfaction from putting one over on the Government and rubbing the snobbish barrister's nose in it!  
 When I handed the  three grand in notes to Kenny and suggested celebrating by going out for a meal and a drink, his girlfriend - who was counting the money - advised him not to. Instead he offered me some of his own home-made "Tea-Wine" and ten Russian ciggies!!  Needless to say, I made my apologies and quickly left!!

But I didnt learn any lessons from these episodes.

The next Vampire hovering above for more blood (they must have all known I was a Night Owl myself)  was a West Derby guy who contacted me after reading my book about injustice -The Cameo Conspiracy.    
    But his was a different kind of injustice: his son had been the victim of an horrendous stabbing by two thugs who  had been let off because they were also police informers.  
Well. after about 8 years of continual advice, telephone calls  and numerous letters and reports on his behalf, he didn't get in touch for a few months. When he finally did so it was to tell me he'd written a book about his son's case and would I look at it.
 I  readily obliged and corrected all of the grammar, syntax, punctuation etc. I also gave him some literary advice, suggested an eye-catching title and actually wrote a Foreword for him.
A few more months went by then he got in touch again, handing me a copy of the book which he had published himself.
He had not used my suggested title or my Foreword. And for my years of hard work dvice and support there was no acknowledgement worth speaking of.
Like my pensioner friend, he told me that as a gesture of thanks for my nine years work, he  had intended buying me a bottle of Scotch.. He didn't so because - as he told me with a straight face -he didn't know what brand I drank!!  
Haven't seen or heard of him since.
I believe his book sold 50 copies.
 
But the most recent case of serious abuse of my good nature has determined me, Never again! No more Mr Nice Guy!

This was a working-class guy from the slums of Toxteth who made a fortune in the rag trade through his own industriousness and hard work but he lost it all in 1992 on Black Wednesday. But I admired his grit and still admire  grafters like that. 
So when he wrote a book about his life of rags to riches it was obvious that, like most people who are very good with figures, he was hopeless with words. In other words, he was no writer.But I felt he had a great story to tell so I decided to help him. 

Over several weeks I went through the book with him - which was overlong and repetitive - proof-reading, painstakingly correcting and  editing it until  the whole 450 pages were knocked into shape and fit for publication.
At the time he was so effusively "grateful" he promised me a percentage if it became a best-seller, promised to praise me in the acknowledgements, and that once he had a publisher he would open doors for me for the book I  was writing.

Well,  as with all the other vampires, I heard nothing more for several months until he contacted me to tell me he had acquired a literary agent and a national publisher for his book who had given him a £5,000 advance. 
His re-titled book is out now. I don't get a mention in the acknowledgements. And I'm still waiting for my percentage and my introduction to his publisher!!

No, I told my old friend, I hadn't forgotten all of these  vampires. But, let's face it, such mean, ignoble and ungrateful parasites quite simply are not worth remembering, are they?