Merlyn was never sure whether his rare condition was a blessing or a curse. The Jazz singer Jimmy Scott said that all that was “needed was the courage to be me. But That courage took a lifetime to develop.” Like Merlin the mage, he felt old but also to be moving closer to a rebirth as the years passed. Was he also some kind of shifter of shape or gender?

This story begins in Wales as it passes through the fragmenting post-1960s era. 1976 and Merlyn is rootless, with an uncertain identity. The world he is thrown into is falling apart, some say in the final stages of decay. There is something in the air, a sense that a big change, was coming. Like the Fool in the Tarot, or a Candide, descending, Merlyn is at first a soul lost in search of a self. There are no experts to give wise counsel, only his companions, the comrades as they call each other. All these characters are beginners too, with the imperative to find a way as best they can in the three worlds, the physical, the perceived, and the represented.

Rebel, Rebel 7
A Bus Ride Home 9
“Fuck off 1976!” 12
Dawn Explosion 21
Mags 22
Phil 31
Newtown 35
Fighting 38
Special Branch call 47
London 57
Women 61
Protest 72
The Mall 77
The Sand Bar 81
School 87
The Red House 90
Politics is dead 95
The Police 102
New Years 109
Merlyn 118
London 1986 122