"A yell became an intrusion of privacy. Was this a clamouring for entry into houses...or lives? Looking on then, looking back now, I wish I could have been more definite. It might have made me a different, better person, a player not a spectator."
Ophelia Street, 1970. A street like any other, a community that lives and breathes together as people struggle with their commitments and pursue their dreams. It is a world we recognise, a world where class and gender divide, where set roles are acknowledged.
But what happens when individuals step outside those roles, when they secretly covet, express desire, pursue ambitions - even harm and destroy? An observer in the midst of Ophelia Street watches, writes, imagines, remembers, charting the lives and loves of his neighbours over the course of four seasons. And we see the flimsily disguised underbelly of urban life revealed in all its challenging glory.
As the leaves turn from vibrant green to vivid gold, so lives turn and change too, laying bare the truth of the community. Perhaps, ultimately, we all exist on Ophelia Street.
Author Biography
John Simmons is an independent writer and consultant. He was a director of Newell and Sorrell from 1984 until the merger with Interbrand in 1997. He headed many large brand programmes with companies as diverse as Waterstone's, Royal Mail, Air Products and the National Theatre. He established Interbrand's verbal identity team before he left in 2003. His current clients include Allied Irish Banks, Anthony Gold Solicitors and Marks & Spencer.
John runs "Writing for design" workshops for D&AD and the School of Life. He also runs "Dark Angels" workshops, residential courses in remote retreats, which aim to promote more creative writing for business www.dark-angels.org.uk. He has written a number of books on the relationship between language and identity, including "The Writer's Trilogy" - We, me, them & it, The invisible grail and Dark angels. His books helped establish the practice of tone of voice as a vital element of branding.
He's a founder director of 26, the not-for-profit group that champions the cause of better language in business, and has been writer-in-residence for Unilever and King's Cross tube station. In 2011 he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the University of Falmouth in recognition of `outstanding contribution to the creative sector'.
His most recent books are 26 ways of looking at a blackberry, about the creative power of constraints, and Room 121: a masterclass in business writing, co-written with Jamie Jauncey as an exchange over 52 weeks. In June 2011 John's first work of fiction, The angel of the stories, was published by Dark Angels Press, with illustrations by the artist Anita Klein.
He recently initiated and participated in the writing of a Dark Angels collective novel Keeping Mum with fifteen writers - the novel was published by Unbound in 2014. John is on the Campaign Council for Writers' Centre Norwich as Norwich becomes the first English City of Literature.
