Only Tim himself could answer that question – or perhaps you’ll find the reason why secreted somewhere within the pages of this collection. I myself got some kind of glimpse the first time I saw Forced Entertainment perform live. They were doing a piece called The Set-up early in the evening at a local venue called The Leadmill. The Leadmill was (& still is) housed in an old bus garage – just about all the places I frequented in those days were based in places where things ‘used to happen’. I needed to find out what all this shouting was about. I had a right to know why my sleep was being disturbed. I’d seen some ‘street theatre’ at various local festivals & that was pretty dire so my expectations were extremely low. But as soon as the piece began I was transfixed. This was not Theatre As I Knew It. Minimal set, choreographed moves, most of the dialogue coming over the PA from a pre-recorded soundtrack that also featured some very interesting music. I was inspired – I wasn’t sure exactly what it was saying but it set off some feelings inside me. For some reason I am unable to explain I ran back home to the factory & got dressed in an acrylic star jumper that was two sizes too small for me & went back to The Leadmill. The play had made me feel like that Fall lyric from the song ‘Winter’ – ‘I’ll take both of you on, I’ll take both of you on’. Proper got me going. Theatre had never done that to me before.

I had no idea that these stories of Tim’s existed. Some of them even date back to times I have been describing. When I read them I was instantly transported to the Sheffield of the mid-80s & the lifestyles of those who haunted Sheldon Row: a factory ‘just off The Wicker’. It fucking terrified me.

These stories are the opposite of nostalgia – & this feels like the perfect time for them to appear. At the time of my writing this introduction we are once more ruled by a Conservative Party leader who has no problem with declaring war on at least 50% of the country that they are supposed to govern. & these stories tell you what it’s like to live in that kind of atmosphere for years on end. They are frightening – but they’re also necessary. Good things happen when you face stuff head on.

‘Endland’ is right – ‘Endland’ is where we are right now. But the fact that these stories exist at all shows that times like this can be survived – transcended even.

This book is dangerous. This book is a bitter medicine. This book tells it like it was & is.

I respect this book – but I never want to read it again.

Jarvis Cocker, hard shoulder of the M1, August 2019

Endland

Kings, lords, liars, goal-hangers, killers, psychics and prostitutes,