Death of a Nightingale

HOPES BETRAYED

Teacher stress, bullying, child frustration, parental anger, Inclusion disillusion?

WHY GOVERNMENTS IN THE UK AND USA HAVE FORFEITED TRUST

And badly damaged many of the very people who voted them into power.

Travel an amazing journey into political folly - in particular special needs education with chronic bullying, and now just who lit the blue touchpaper for the 2008 Credit Crunch? But it points a new way forward.

A Play in a Book

For students of politics, has power been abused with diverse individual needs trampled on? Has dogma highjacked racial, gender and religious equality attempting to homogenise everyone with disastrous consequences in education and student debt culminating in the 2008 credit crunch? The evidence is damning.

For the media, a journey of exploration and discovery. If you have the appetite for it, the"Death of a Nightingale"Website is just Tapas compared with the A la carte Banquet that is this 260 page book, with "Alice in Blunderland - The Mad Hattter's Committee Meeting" to entertain.

For theatre lovers, a real life drama and a drama from real life. Tracy, a pupil with cystic fibrosis, tells the story of her school as it faces the bulldozer. Why does Margaret, its head teacher, attempt to take her own life? Can her love with John Errington, the English teacher, survive? Act 2 Scene 5 The Gift of Love.

For parents of children with special needs, helping to end the stigma attaching to special schools put about by those who thought that what was right for them was right for all.

For music lovers, a music lesson. How important is music in education, especially for children with special needs? And it has something to say in the age-old debate between people of faith and the people like Richard Dawkins.

For lawyers, academia and educationalists, an abattoir for a herd of sacred cows and a challenge they should not ignore.

For bureaucrats, a cautionary tale with some lessons they may want to learn.

A human story with a challenging interplay of fact, fiction, satire and commentary. It brings to life dry-as-dust issues important in education and beyond it. Which is wiser - Equality or Fair Play? How far does declaring a "Right" provide the protection of "a Right"? Have we lost control of our own destiny?

URGE OTHERS TO BUY THIS BOOK TOO

Reviews of the play at the "New End Theatre, "London 2009 & 2011

BBC LONDON http: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_kcMtZU6Iw

""Compelling, controversial and confrontational""

Len Parkin The Teacher

""A searing tale of a fight to save SEN school which drove head teacher to brink of suicide"" Kerra Maddern, Times Educational Supplement

""A wonderful night, very moving - I learned about another world, which can be as cruel & cynical & as warm-hearted & surprising as my own. Don't miss it, esp. if you're a human being." Miriam Margolyes

"A refreshingly uncompromising and meaty piece ... I loved the emphasis on music and its power to heal and educate."Susan Elkin, The Stage (2009)

And representing those of an opposite disposition - the best evidence that the play hit the target "Alan Share's badly written, didactic play - full of platitudes such as "Everyone can achieve something in life with a helping hand" - is more preachy than pertinent. It is a kind of anti-theatre, virtually untouched by any attempt at direction."Public Service & Commercial Union Editor and activist, Jonathan Lovett, The Stage (2011). Brian Attwood, Editor, The Stage, describes his own reviewer on seeing some of his Tweets as ""Yep, he's worse than Pol Pot.""

LET TRACY HAVE THE LAST WORD HERE: "Remember the little white dandelion heads blowing away in the wind... Y'see I'm not just going to blow away in the win"