where the wind takes you – in support of Mind UK.
For a while it felt like the day would never come. If you had told me that this book would have taken five years then I don’t think I would have started but if the horizon is only revealed to you one day at a time, then the journey seems doable.
It has certainly been a long road and tested both my patience and attention to detail, neither of which are my strong suits. What started as a slurred anecdotes, became a dozen recounted short stories and then COVID happened. As I reflected on the airmiles and the wind farms visited from my “study” (see photo), I contacted old friends in wind techs, ex-colleagues and site managers to share stories, reminisce and check in with each other. It was a hard time for everyone involved and I have already heard of numerous cases, especially young people, who have long term mental health issues that can be traced back to the pandemic. Devoid of confidence, agoraphobic, they are crippled by their own anxieties whilst languishing at the bottom of the NHS referral list. For this reason the book will be in support of mental health charities in the hope that it could help someone else just as writing it helped me.
I was just going to leave the stories disjointed and make them into a downstairs toilet book for friends and family, but I took them to an editor friend. She convinced me to thread them through a main character and before I knew it I was writing a proper book. I didn’t think I could do it, but I was never one to shy away from a challenge. Now I have a book that I feel is worthy of even a Farrow and Ball painted downstairs toilet.
I hope that it brings the same joy and reflection to its readers as it did to me in those dark days.
Alex
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