Yeah, my dad and I used to build snowmen, why are you so interested in that anyway… Oh I see now, you think I stole that snowman because of my dad! You’ve been chatting to that shrink of mine aint ya? He talks a load of crap, but you know what, maybe this time you lot are right, I was jealous. Yesterday on my way back to the hostel I passed hundreds off houses with decorations at the windows, Christmas trees and snowmen in the front yard. Family celebrations, all sat round their dinner tables, yeah that pissed me off! That used to be me. As I continued to walk along the street I could feel my blood begin to boil, and then I saw him, ‘he was magnificent, a tall white mute beneath the cold winter moon. I wanted him.’ I was angry and annoyed at the world! I knew that if I took him, I would ruin some kid’s Christmas, ‘the thrill was knowing that they would cry in the morning!’ Just like I did. ‘Life’s tough,’ you got to learn that to survive. Excuse me? Are you calling me selfish? Nah, I was just teaching the kids a lesson in life.
I was passed from relative to relative, none of them able to cope with my mood swings, I ended up having to see a shrink three times a week and I went on countless anger management courses. Eventually I was put in care; ‘orphan boy’ was my nick name at school. In the playground I used to watch my friends’ mums come and pick ‘em up, I had to wait for my social worker. By the time I was twelve I had started secondary school, they gave up on me as well and kicked me out. Do you have any idea what that felt like? I aint a stupid kid, I was brought up right you know, my mum used to call me her clever little boy. I could have been something. I had to pass a test to get in to the school and I aced it! Don’t know how because I was never in the lessons, always sent out for something or another. Looking back I regret it now, I should have gone to school, got my GCSEs, maybe I could have got a job and made my mum proud. Bought a car or a bike, just like the one my dad owned. He liked cars, dad used to let me back the car out the drive way when I was small. When he died I couldn’t do that anymore.
How was the home? I hated the care home, full of weirdo’s, like that Mr Heinz. So when I was given a foster family I was relieved. Yeah that’s right I went to live at the Potters, nice enough family I guess, never got on with Sarah though. She said I was an ungrateful rat of a kid and that I was a bad influence on her precious son, John. Believe me officer he weren’t no angel. Him and I were like brothers, I was accepted into his group of friends, I was part of the gang. They were two years older than me though, seventeen and they had all left school. I hated school, in the space of a year I had started four schools, all of them excluding me. In the end I just gave up, it was much better working in John’s dad’s garage. That’s where I learnt how to drive and I became a good mechanic. I never got paid for all my hard work though, I had a job but I didn’t have any money! I needed a car.
The first time I stole a car was from John’s dad’s garage but I didn’t think of it as stealing at the time, just a bit a fun with the guys. We only drove around the park and we brought it back in one piece, no harm done, no damage, no need for anyone to know. Well john’s dad found out and went ape shit. He chucked me out, calling me a disappointment; he didn’t even let me keep my job at the garage! I was a failure.
I refused to go back to the care home and moved into a hostel a few months back, on my sixteenth birthday I was alone, with very few possessions, I tried to go back to the Potters but they wouldn’t have me back, John and his mates turned their backs on me, should of known they were only using me. So I broke into their houses, just to have a look. They had everything I didn’t and again I was taken over by jealousy. I was over come by sadness and left with just a camera, which one day I hope to get enough money together to get the film developed. Memories of another family I’ve lost.
Of course I’ve been arrested before, you’ve seen my records. I was a bright kid and I knew a lot about cars, to jump start ‘em was easy, just a few sparks here and there and broom broom, listening to the engine purrrrr. I was careless; John always told me it was ok to steal but not ok to get caught! I used to joy ride cars to nowhere, I felt better after a drive, it was a release! I felt part of the road. Then your lot caught me one day, must have looked like a scene from the movies, I ended up crashing into a shop window.
Anyway, why am I telling you all this, you don’t care! You can just go back to your home, wife and kids. I bet the dinner is on the table when you get in. This is just a job; you get paid for protecting people’s lives, well what have you ever done for me? Nothing. Besides, I’m sitting here in this room because I stole a snowman; I bet you all had a laugh following me along the street, its body’s fierce chill freezing my fingers, breaking my back. I didn’t even think it was a crime to be lonely and in need of ‘a mate with a mind as cold as the slice of ice within my own brain.’
In the piece of writing above I took on the persona of the young criminal from Carol Anne Duffy’s “Stealing” poem. I wrote in first person and created a story based on the idea that the young boy was being interviewed in a police station. I found this extremely entertaining to write and I tried hard to express his true feelings of anger and loneliness. However I found this piece of writing rather depressing and melancholy to read and would have preferred a ‘lighter’ topic to write about. I addressed the reader as ‘you’ to keep the story on a personal level and my intention was to make the reader feel the boy’s hostile and defensive attitudes. Overall I think I executed the task successfully and managed to stay in character throughout the story, and I have also used quotes from “Stealing” and these are shown in inverted commas. To improve this I could have gone into greater depth with the story.