The memoir · Paul Tunstead
Made With
Conviction.Survival Instinct.
Children’s homes. Prison. Addiction. The instinct to survive — and the determination to build a life beyond it.
Inside the story
A life lived
at full tilt.
From growing up in Runcorn to life behind the door. Told with the humour, detail and North-West voice of the man who lived it.
The beginnings
The young Urchin
Children’s homes, restless energy and a boy already looking for a way out.
Behind the door
A world within walls
The people, routines and unwritten rules of prison life, seen from the inside.
The long fight
Addiction & instinct
The pull of addiction and the determination to keep surviving until it was conquered.
Beyond survival
A life with purpose
Movement, discipline and a reason to help the next Urchin find his way.
The road through it
Survival was
only the beginning.
The story follows the years as they happened, with the people, places and music that bring them back.
Moments along the way
Different places. Different years. The same Urchin.
Explore the chaptersA glimpse inside
Places. People.
Turning points.
A selection of stories from the memoir. Each title opens onto another time, another place and another piece of the life.
Smashing Times
Runcorn, 1987. A window dive and the fractured snapshots of what followed.
A Bully’s Bully
Stoke Heath, 1989. A new padmate, a direct question and an understanding reached.
Strangeways Riot
1 April 1990. The day the riot began. Three days on the roof. The story told by a man who was there.
Two Pints Of Lager and a Packet Of Mogadon
2004. The defiant events that led to the last conviction.
The reason for telling it
For the next Urchin.
“Show future Urchins there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
The man behind the memoirPaul Tunstead · The Urchin
My life.
My words.
I grew up in Runcorn. Children’s homes came first, then prison. Nineteen years inside over a twenty-two-year span. Along the way there were books, sport, addiction, friendships and more than a few moments that stayed with me.
Made With Conviction is that life, told in my own voice.
The Urchin’s outlook
- “If one man can do it, then so can I.”
- “Prison was my university.”
- “I don’t do bitter.”
- “Freedom is a state of mind.”
Made With Conviction
The story
continues.
Survival Instinct, by Paul Tunstead.
Follow the writing, the memories and the road towards publication.