Oh Hell

Pat started to write this book as a doodle, why not, as that is how he started writing in the first

place. Yes a doodle but a cathartic doodle, one that was not meant to go anywhere except to the

unfinished manuscript folder on his PC. But like a truck with a heavy load on a downward

slope, it took off, faster and faster, not easily stopped. Of course it helped that periods of his

family’s history is interesting, but it was more than that.

There was a compulsion, an imperative that was larger than me. The story that needed to be

told is one of insidious illnesses that affects a large percentage of the population of western

society – the illnesses are dementia, depression, anxiety and panic attacks.

This is a story of people, real people, and how their lives were destroyed by these diseases.

It is about the ravages of World War Two and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. As this is a

story about people with various afflictions. The author wanted it to remain about those people

and so has not deviated with long medical descriptions or treatments, and have kept complex terminology to a minimum.  Although the author wanted to highlight the plight of those with the afflictions, so readers can understand how sad and debilitating they are, it is a story and not a textbook, and so complexity is limited.