The Fiddle

Description

After thirty traumatic months they are rescued by their mother and moved to Keighley in England’s industrial north. Brendan, a gifted thief, has an inclination towards mathematics. As a boy the main influences on his life are Chipry, the lativian landlord and Robert Frost’s ‘two-roads’ poem. At seventeen whilst apprenticed to an instrument maker he steals five valuable violins. In the late sixties he gains a place at London University and rubs shoulders with the likes of Penrose, Bondi and the phenomenon Hawking. In his first semester he sets himself the task of stealing £50,000 from the millionaire Chas Earl. Thus far – he has achieved little. His claim to fame?He’s taken Stephen Hawking to the toilet’