Bramblewick, Essex · 1993–1999 · all true
Never Got
Caught
The parents never knew about any of it.
Forty-four true stories from one village, one long decade and a gang of kids who got away with absolutely everything. Written from the inside by someone who was ten when it happened — so the details are exact, the parents are always in the background, and nobody gets caught.
Real village
Real decade, remembered scene by scene.
Four volumes
One era each, released week by week.
Free spread
Join the list, the first one is on the house.
One a week
Straight to your inbox, no spam.
Status
Being drawn now
“Nobody ever asked where the crates came from.”
In the background
- Mum, pegging washing, facing away.
- Dad, newspaper, three feet from the evidence.
- A dog who saw everything and said nothing.
Upcoming stories
A new spread or story every week
Book one is being drawn now. After that, a new story gets written up and a new spread gets inked every week. The list sees each one first.
Next · 30 Aug 2026
Book One spread: Nineteen crates
Nineteen milk crates nobody could explain, stacked where no adult ever looked. Every single one of them was about to leave the ground.
SpreadRead →
Then · 6 Sep 2026
Two On One Bike
My Raleigh bicycle was built for one. But Barry is sitting on the handlebars, which means I can't see and he can't steer…
StoryRead →
Then · 13 Sep 2026
Book One spread: The launch
One and a half seconds of being the tallest boy in Essex, one trainer already gone, and not one adult in the garden looking up.
SpreadRead →
Then · 20 Sep 2026
The Great Nettle Catastrophe
There is a shortcut home from the park, but it means taking a leap of faith over a deep ditch. A ditch that is completely full of stinging nettles…
StoryRead →
Then · 27 Sep 2026
The Hovis Bag Water Bomb
In 1994, a plastic bread bag makes the perfect water bomb, holding almost four pints…
StoryRead →
Then · 4 Oct 2026
Book One spread: The cover-up
Every crate back. Every knee brushed. And then Dad, with his mug, saying the one sentence that could have ended everything.
SpreadRead →
The trick of it
Kids read an adventure where they win. Nobody is grounded, nobody learns a lesson, nobody gets a talking-to on the last page.
Grown-ups read the background: the washing line, the newspaper, the barbecue nobody checks. The parents are in every single spread, calmly facing the wrong way. Everyone had a childhood. This one just got written down properly.
And they still have not found out.
Read a bit
Four spreads from book one. Read them out loud — that's what they're built for.
Pages 4–5
Behind the shed there were nineteen milk crates. Nobody knew whose they were. Nobody had ever asked. And nineteen, if you think about it, is quite a lot of crates.
Pages 12–13
“Higher,” said Barry. So we went higher. “Higher,” said Barry again, from the ground, where it was safe.
Pages 22–23
For about one and a half seconds I was the tallest boy in Essex. Then I was a boy in a hedge.
Pages 30–31
We put every crate back. We brushed the grass off our knees. Dad said, “You lot have been quiet.” And we said, “Have we?”
Forty-four of these, in four volumes
1993 to 1999, all within a mile of the same street, split into volumes by era — The Early Years, Out Of The Garden, Wheels And Fire, The Last Summers. A new story goes up every week. A taste:
- 011993
The Great Milk Crate Prank
“For about one and a half seconds I was the tallest boy in Essex. Then I was a boy in a hedge.”
- 021993
Two On One Bike
“Barry sat on the handlebars, which meant Barry could not steer and I could not see. We agreed this was fine.”
- 031993
The Great Nettle Catastrophe
“The ditch was full of nettles. We know exactly how full, because we counted them later, on my legs.”
- 041994
The Hovis Bag Water Bomb
“A bread bag holds four pints of water. A brand new Cavalier holds all four of them at once.”
- 051994
The Treehouse Demolition
“You should not take a hacksaw up a ladder. Two dads were nine feet away and neither one turned round.”
- 061994
The Honda PX In The Long Grass
“It had no brakes, no lights and no owner. It had a kickstart, and that was enough for us.”
See all forty-four, by volume →
Getting it properly printed
There's going to be a Kickstarter
A proper riso-printed first edition of Book One: 32 pages, four inks, cream paper. Real ink on real paper, drawn properly, bound properly, the sort of book that survives being read in the bath.
That costs money up front, which is what the Kickstarter is for. No publisher, no committee, no one softening the stories to make them safe.
Shush — the honest bit
Everything on this site is the rough version. Nothing you read here has been edited beautifully. It's first-draft, written-at-the-kitchen-table, typos-and-all storytelling, put up as it comes so you can watch it happen.
The polish — proper editing, proper proofing, proper printing — is exactly what the Kickstarter pays for. You're backing the finished book, not this draft.
It launches around Spring 2027. Kickstarters live or die in the first 48 hours, so the whole thing depends on people being ready on day one.
The list is how that happens. Join it and you get one email when the campaign opens, plus the early-backer price. Nothing to pay today.
What backers get
- The riso-printed first edition, numbered.
- Your name in the back of Book One.
- The edited stories before anyone else reads them.
- Early-backer price, only on day one.
What backers do not get
- Marketing emails.
- Anything sponsored.
- A watered-down version of what happened.
One more thing
Book one is being drawn now: 32 pages, four inks, cream paper, the sort of book that gets read until the spine goes soft.
When it's ready to print, the people on the list hear before anyone else. No other announcements, no spam, and nothing to buy today.