The Shadow of the Black Sheep

From London to New Zealand Laurie Davidson spent twenty five years travelling the world with his guitar pumping out his music as a busker on the cobbles and in the markets, wearing the personal injustice heaped upon him like a badge of honour. There was no other way. He was a proud man and took the social rejections on the chin, picked himself up and was straight back into it. When down and out there was but one way for him to go and that was up and he wouldn't be stopped. Four years of prison was a hard school for a young man who lost most of what he loved when punished for a crime he did not commit, but he came to realise the friends who remained at his side were true friends who loved him in spite of what he did, or didn't do. Caught in the act in front of an empty safe with a hold-all containing £48,000 at his feet, a security officer unconscious and bleeding in an alleyway; there could be little argument. It's a fair cop, guv'ner. None the less the presiding justice failed to be impressed by his plea of 'Not Guilty, m'lud' and was further disturbed by his lack of remorse when handing down a sentence of 5 years. Forty years of Laurie's life are exposed in these pages as he battles with honour and trust in a stirring family saga that puts loyalty and forgiveness to a demanding test. Rejected by society he chooses to leave England in search of the man who took the lives of those most dear to him; that he might find the strength and understanding to forgive him. Journey's end is in New Zealand and it takes twenty years of experience and learning for him to return to England and fulfil what he knows to be his purpose in life. His best friend once saved his life and used that act to betray him and condemn him to prison. Laurie Davidson rises above that and uses the hardest experiences of life to fine tune himself into a forgiving character whose love for people and music transports him 10,000 miles around the world in search of the man who killed those most dear to him; that he might forgive him and cleanse his soul.