The Complex Passport Adventure

My Blog is suffering . Too many adventures happening too close together and not enough time to stop and write ? I wish ….. Or maybe inertia is getting the better of me ? You decide !
Yesterday’s Enid Blyton moment was thwarted only by the reluctance of local police to co operate . Sadly PC Goon was not in attendance when we rolled up at North Shields police station to make our crime report and hand over our log of Suspicious Findings . In fact , the Special Constable was notably more interested in the arrival of her late lunch or early afternoon between meals snack ( a cheese pasty , we think , judging by the greasy bag ) than in our crime reports and to our minds opened the half door in the wire meshing separating police and punter only to admit our wet and soggy bag of evidence because of the arrival of the aforementioned cheese pasty .
But as usual I race on ahead of time .

Such was our desperation for adventure that when L and I spotted ( well ok I admit , she spotted ) a wet passport lurking under a rock on the beach when out in the sunshine for our morning constitutional , we began our search for attendant neatly folded piles of clothes , final messages to loved ones , even an abandoned car in the pub car park .
Admittedly we had time to kill as a big greyhound was looking over at us from the far corner of King Edward's Bay and Alice was urging us to keep a low profile as she had sustained a nasty bite last Sunday when ( for once ) minding her own business she was chased by a young greyhound who doubtless mistaking her for a small rabbit ( easily done when you're only thirteen months old and a bit silly ) took a big chunk out of her back leg .
By the time said passport was bagged up ( dog-poo bags can be so useful ) , pocketed , unbagged again ( for a blog photograph . Right . Ok , how sad are we ? ) and surrounding area thoroughly searched , and indeed big boy greyhound had given his human companions the slip and come bounding over to check Alice out ( causing humans much anxiety as noting her angry flesh wound they mistakenly assumed their boy was the cause ! ) , we had invented numerous stories regarding the missing passport and its significance .

All handwritten details had been erased in the water but it belonged to a twenty one year old student with an unusal surname , born in Newcastle upon Tyne .
We decided it needed to be handed in to the loal police and contacted them to report its whereabouts . They took no details , simply asking us to hand it in when we had time .

We decided therefore to make our own enquiries using the internet and although we did hand in the item , within an hour or so of searching were able to locate the young man's mother . The man himself , although having one entry on Google which told us that he had won a national debating competition when still at school , unusually had no Facebook, Bebo or MySpace entry and therefore we drew a blank , but we quickly made a connection via his unusual surname , discovering that his mother was a rather well known local author and poet , who had links with the late Julia Darling who was known to myself though not personally , to many of my friends in the area . As I looked through Google entries attempting to find a way to contact his mother just to let her know we had handed in the passport , I realised that two musicians who were tragically killed in 05 following a hit and run incident in the Westgate Hill area of Newcastle upon Tyne , also known to me at the time as they were friends of friends , were part of this passport story . One of the men who was killed was in fact the father of the young man whose passport we had .
Small world . I read on . A 17 year old boy had in fact taken a BMW whilst under the influence of alcohol and mounted the pavement , hitting the two men who had been playing music , rehearsing for a gig to commemorate the life of Julia Darling which was to have taken place the following evening . Both men were hurled into the air and , I think , killed instantly . News reports stated that the partner of the other man , whose name was Joe Scurfield , asked that the 17 year old see the body of the man he had killed and he agreed . He received a five year sentence . The passport Boy's mother was reported as saying that she was sure that when the 17 year old took the car he had no intention of killing or causing harm or words to that effect . Amazing .

She did have a Facebook page . I contacted her yesterday to say we had handed in the passport . She wrote quickly back to say the passport had been stolen two months ago at the Sage ( music venue ) . Relief that no more sinister connotation .
Small world though . And complex stories everywhere .