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“Whilst I continued to spend my days buffing up the bones of the dead, I knew in my heart I wanted to work with the living.”
Riddled with doubt (and a serious strain of leptospirosis he’d caught from a Copper Age coccyx) David’s career in archaeology was going nowhere. But a chance encounter with a mystical crone resulted in a journey that would change his life forever.
Full Metal Cardigan is David Emery’s first book and chronicles his adventures in social care, from enthusiastic volunteer to feral frontline worker, taking in abusive popstars, chanting cults, drug runs and assessing a corpse.
He recounts how he gained international notoriety for cheating in a pancake race, encounters with the supernatural, High Court appearances, accidentally booking someone into Dignitas, one-inch death punches in Woolworths, waterboarding, psychotic psychopaths, plunger-wielding pregnant women and suicide attempts with rhubarb along the way.
This is a humorous look at life as a social worker: in turns both laugh-out-loud funny and mind-boggling.
Buy Link: https://amzn.to/2vTb8op
Excerpt
The travel and treasures that I had imagined as an undergraduate were never to materialise and, instead of 3 ancient Egypt and Aztec gold, I was to spend six months of the year in a draughty portakabin scrubbing pottery fragments with a toothbrush. On one occasion I was flung out of a JCB scoop whilst trying to take an aerial photo of what I thought might be the markings of a Roman villa (they weren’t – they were JCB tracks from the previous day) but, that aside, the general lack of adventure provided by a career in archaeology caused me to rethink my future. Aware that I needed to do something different but unsure of what this might be, I was to persist in the portakabin until one fateful afternoon when, having been given the day off after traces of leptospirosis had been detected in the bones I had been handling for the last three months, I went down an alleyway in the local town and stumbled upon a volunteers’ centre. Though I’d spent many lunchbreaks aimlessly wandering these streets, I had never noticed this before and, seeing it as a sign of the universe’s cosmic intervention into my destiny (rather than my poor sense of direction), I decided to go in. Inside, a smell of incense hung in the air and the mating calls of pregnant dolphins were being piped through antiquated speakers. In the far corner sat a wise crone with a scarf on her head, an amulet around her neck and a menthol cigarette in her hand. “Come closer my dear,” she beckoned, “come closer.” I sat down in front of her and, encouraged by her gentle coaxing, I told her about my need for change, to find something different, a fresh path to follow, a new adventure to begin. I was shocked by the strength of my own emotions as I poured my heart out to this stranger. I would try anything. Anything. 4 Anything. After an hour, it was clear that anything did not include children, animals, old people, religion, nature, charity shops, public speaking, fundraising, horticulture, promotion, art, culture, heritage, stewarding or meals on wheels. “That doesn’t leave us with much,” she told me, “except...” Looking cautiously over her shoulder (which was odd as she had her back to the wall) she reached under her desk. “Call this number,” she whispered, passing me a tattered piece of card and disappearing into a fog of National Trust pamphlets
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