Buy Philip Brindley a beer

The yUK's Grapes (Public Toilets) of Wrath 2020 - The Winter Isle -

Sequel to the original Wicker Man film

& the yUK's modern version of Grapes of Wrath

Sergeant Neil Howie's son returns to his ancestral lands to bring back morals and ethics to the Island! :)

- Picture in memory of Finley the Collie dog who saw me through the tough times of an entire borough denying everything, scapegoating me and throwing me under the bus! Including officially denying or condoning a police attended incident, with a report which ended in Restorative Justice (luckily for me as it finally gave me proof they were all above the law vileophiles in it together!!) After I got threatened with being sliced up and had a window smashed next to me for stopping what the operations manager told the police about (when I put him on the spot) what he'd been arranging with the parents of 'delinquent' kids to occur in the public toilets next to reception!

The FBI followed John Steinbeck for decades. His book was burned in public. He won the Nobel Prize anyway.

Whilst I, Philip Brindley was threatened with incineration in the south, 18 years imprisonment in the northif I took them (21 people at every level!) to the already set 5 day tribunal after the judge had denied me presenting all the police verified evidence ffs, gaslit by one of the biggest companies in the yUK, and 'thrown under the bus' by an entire borough and beyond!

This is what happens when you write the truth on both sides of the Atlantic nearly 100 years apart

My 1970's CV

John Steinbeck and Philip Brindley believed something many people in power did not want to hear. Listening to poor and ignored people can be dangerous for those who benefit from silence.

In 1939, in Salinas, California, Steinbeck’s hometown, a crowd gathered downtown. They brought copies of a new novel, not to read it, but to burn it in public.

The book was The Grapes of Wrath, published on April 14, 1939. The author was Steinbeck, a local man who many felt had betrayed them.

They piled the books together and set them on fire. As the pages burned, they believed they were protecting their town. Instead, they showed exactly why the book mattered.

In the mid 1930s, California’s farm valleys were filled with desperate families called Okies. They had fled the Dust Bowl, hoping to find work in California. What they found was hunger, low pay, and abuse.

Families lived in dirty camps. They picked fruit for wages too small to live on. The children went hungry. Landowners used force to stop workers from organizing.

Many Americans did not know about this. Others did not care. Some believed the migrants deserved their suffering.

Steinbeck wanted to know the truth.

He did not study these people from far away. He lived with them. He wore worn clothes, stayed in their camps, worked beside them, and listened to their stories.

He saw children weakened by hunger. He saw families living in shocking conditions. He saw workers cheated out of pay and beaten when they spoke up.

He wrote down everything he saw.

The novel followed the Joad family, farmers pushed off their land in Oklahoma by drought and banks. They traveled to California looking for work and found a system built to use their misery.

The story was fiction, but it was based on real life. Steinbeck had seen it himself. The book was honest and painful. It angered people who wanted poverty to stay hidden.

When the book came out in 1939, the reaction was fast and harsh. Powerful farm groups in California called it lies. Landowners said it was propaganda. Politicians demanded it be banned.

In Kern County, officials removed it from libraries and schools that same year. In Salinas, people burned it in public. The book was banned and challenged in many places. Steinbeck received threats. His family was harassed. But something else happened at the same time.

The book sold more than 400,000 copies in its first year. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940. It forced Americans to see a reality many leaders wanted ignored.

Eleanor Roosevelt defended it. Groups that helped migrant workers shared it widely. The country could not look away.

And the FBI opened a file on Steinbeck.

For many years, the FBI collected information on Steinbeck. His writing kept appearing in fights about labor, poverty, and loyalty to America.

The released files are more than one hundred pages long. They never proved he was a member of the Communist Party. He was not. He was a writer who believed ordinary people mattered. He wrote what he saw, even when it made others uncomfortable.

That alone made him a target.

Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas. His father worked as a county treasurer. His mother was a schoolteacher. The family lived a stable middle-class life.

He could have stayed comfortable and safe. Instead, he spent his twenties working hard jobs. He was a ranch hand, fruit picker, builder, and surveyor. He was learning how working people really lived.

His early success came with Tortilla Flat in 1935, about Mexican American life in Monterey. Then, In Dubious Battle in 1936, about striking farm workers. Then, Of Mice and Men in 1937, about traveling laborers.

Each book moved closer to people pushed aside by society. Each showed where Steinbeck’s loyalty was.

Then came The Grapes of Wrath, and everything changed.

When his hometown turned against him and powerful groups attacked him, Steinbeck did not stop writing. He kept going.

After The Grapes of Wrath, he wrote Cannery Row in 1945 about working-class Monterey. He later wrote East of Eden, his most ambitious work, about good and evil in California’s history.

During World War II, he worked as a war reporter. He focused on soldiers, not generals, and on daily life, not grand plans. He continued to write about people who were ignored and mistreated. Slowly, the country began to understand him.

By the 1960s, The Grapes of Wrath was taught in schools, even in places where it had once been banned. The book, once called dangerous, was now called a classic.

In 1962, Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The committee praised his realistic writing and deep concern for human dignity. In simple terms, he told the truth about ordinary lives with care and skill.

Success did not erase the damage.

Steinbeck struggled with depression later in life. All three of his marriages ended. His relationships with his sons were difficult.

The anger and criticism never fully disappeared. In 1968, at age 66, Steinbeck died in New York City.

Today, Steinbeck’s books are read around the world.

The Grapes of Wrath is required reading in many schools. Of Mice and Men is one of the most taught novels in America. East of Eden is widely seen as a great American novel.

But his true legacy is larger than awards or sales. He wrote about people whom many others ignored. He showed that poverty is not a personal failure, but a result of broken systems. He insisted that suffering should be seen and questioned.

For that, his book was burned. He was attacked and watched. He was called a traitor in his own town.

He could have written safer stories. He chose not to. The book they burned now sits on library shelves everywhere.

That is what happens when someone writes the truth and refuses to look away.