It's What Friends Are For

Anne is an aging widow facing a small, lonely life with even fewer prospects. Unexpectedly, her tiny social circle expands by one with the arrival of Beverly. As the two women bond over their many commonalities, Anne’s dreary existence brightens. Their blossoming friendship soon sparks something more, sweeping Anne into an emotional affair before embarking her on an adventurous new journey beyond anything she’s known.

What first appears as a fun, lucrative modelling gig becomes the initial step down a winding path of exploits entirely outside Anne’s norm. Under Beverly’s guidance, Anne’s life grows increasingly removed from convention – yet isn’t that what friends are for? When domestic circumstances then steer events toward seedier terrain, Anne finds herself immersed in the sex industry, again chaperoned by her new companion.

From bad to worse, a family crisis threatens to embroil Anne’s daughter in her unconventional lifestyle. Finally, Beverly bares menacing true colours through blackmail, leaving Anne hapless and despairing. With nowhere left to turn, could a humble bookkeeper hold the key to her salvation?

Born in Leicester in the 1950s, Philip Gooding is of a generation who witnessed a meteoric change in our country, the endless countryside explored in youth now concreted over with roads and houses and homes forever changed. The arrival of black and white TV with only three channels and closing down before midnight ensured that books were read and relished to fill the Gradgrind empty vessel of the youth.

Philip cannot claim a disadvantaged or deprived background, but neither has this individual any university education, but instead a mix of being a supermarket worker, technician, manager, teacher, personnel officer, and business owner seems to have provided the skillset to bring about this work of fiction.