Crissy Rock

I met Crissy in a club in Benidorm in 2009. She handed me a file with some papers, her scribbles and ramblings as she called them. 26,000 words that quite simply blew me away. I told her the next day it was the most powerful and harrowing thing I'd ever read. And so we embarked on a special journey. I told her it would be difficult and it wasn't worth doing unless she bared her soul to the world. She was plainly uncomfortable with that and when I said she needed to write 100,000 words she politely told me to fuck off. She explained the 26,000 words had taken her ten years to write so by the time she bashed out the necessary word count I'd be a pensioner and she'd be dead! I gave her a few days and she rang me. "Bring it on," she said, "let's give it a go." If someone is physically or mentally unable to write I 'ghost' a book for them. If they can write, I simply structure their writing and point them in the right direction. Crissy's 26,000 words made such an impact on me I explained that every one of the 100,000 words had to come from her lips not Ken Scott's. Crissy Rock was not exactly the perfect pupil, her mood swings were hard to take at first and several times I nearly walked away. However, I quickly realised that her mood swings were to be associated with the subject matter we were working on. I cannot imagine what it must be like to discuss and write about for example, the sexual abuse suffered at eight years of age and worse, carried out my her grandfather who she loved and trusted as far back as she could remember. What's more, I think Crissy realised from an early stage that she wasn't just baring her soul to Ken Scott but inevitably to the whole book reading world. Those difficult weeks when I encouraged and cajoled her to tell it how it was, were undoubtedly the most difficult. She was unable to take me back to what she described as the 'dark side' unable even to write it down in the privacy of her own home. In the end she agreed to talk (or rather sob) into an old fashioned desk top tape recorder. I arrived some weeks later and she announced the dastardly deed was done. She pointed to the taperecorder and said I could listen to it. As I prepared to push the play button she told me she couldn't be in the same room and wandered off into the kitchen. What followed next had the same impact on me as I imagined the policemen who listened to the infamous Brady/ Hindley tapes all those years ago. (Brady and Hindley recorded the screams of one of their victims as they tortured abused and murdered him) Crissy, incredibly, had transported herself back to childhood. On the tape recorder I listened to the voice of a confused, hurt and frightened eight year girl. When Crissy returned some twenty minutes later I was in tears. She put her arms around me and we cried together. What Crissy has suffered in life no one should have to undergo and less a mortal would no doubt be pushing up the daisies by now, having taken their own life. And while Crissy openly admits she has an 'odd bad day' her positive outlook on life is both remarkable and inspirational. She has forgiven her grandfather and those who have abused her and incredibly states she wouldn't want to swap her life with anyone. She likes being Crissy Rock and enjoyed her childhood in Liverpool with her beloved brothers as Christine Murray. She is an actress, a comedienne, a singer, an accomplished painter and now an author. In one word... genius. This book has broken the mould, it's honest and witty and an inspiration to us all. Celebrity biography's will never be the same again.