Backstories Charities
I am proud to be giving 30% of all profits from Backstories to Stop Hate UK, The North East Autism Society and Friends of the Earth. Of course there are many worthy charities, but as anyone who reads Backstories will see, these are the causes that resonate most deeply with me.
I hate prejudice and bigotry of any kind, it is so pointlessly destructive. Which isn’t to say that I’m perfect, not by any means. I guess we’re all a product of our childhoods, and we don’t have too much say in those. But what we can do is challenge ourselves to be the best we can.
Stop Hate UK came out of the murder of Stephen Lawrence and is an organization that stands against all kinds of hate crime and prejudice. Their focus on education is something that particularly appeals to me – and I hope it is an idea that Backstories can develop, by taking the reader into the minds of these diverse characters and showing you that whilst we’re not all the same, in our fears and doubts, dreams and ambitions, we are all flawed human beings.
In all honesty, I should also admit to an element of guilt. There are criminals amongst the characters in my book, and whilst crime may be compelling on page, it is anything but, in real life - and giving to Stop Hate UK is, I believe, a meaningful way to show respect for the victims and their families.
By writing about crime and prejudice I am holding evil up to the light, but I am also making fiction out of suffering. In doing so, I hope to contribute in some small way to human understanding and do my part in reducing such behaviour – but I’m not holding my breath. In the meantime, it feels right and decent to give to people who best know how to help those who need it most and so help to build a better, fairer more decent society for us all.
My second charity is The North-East Autism Society. This is more personal. My son is autistic. That’s why I feel I have to give voice to a group of people who are so badly misunderstood.
Autistic people’s brains work differently to ours, and this difference of approach and intensity can bring something fresh to society, to the benefit of us all. Bill Gates, for example, is autistic, Greta Thunberg, Daryl Hannah, Albert Einstein, Anthony Hopkins and probably Leonardo da Vinci, amongst many, many others – and I hardly need tell you how much they have given us.
Clearly, autistic people enrich our lives, but because they are different, autistic people can sometimes find our chaotic world so stressful that they just can’t function, and all that potential can so easily be lost. So, if only for self-interest, we need to understand, help and listen to the autistic community. Not least, Greta Thunberg.
Which brings me to my third charity, Friends of the Earth, because whatever Donald Trump may say, without the Earth, nothing else matters.
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