Off Balance

Roy Chadwick has been a writer and analyst of aspects of society for most of his working life. He has edited internal marketing publications and written newsletters and books, for among others, industrial and commercial energy buyers and landlords.He has run a multiracial youth club in Paddington and a community centre on a Labour housing estate in a Conservative constituency. He has travelled extensively in the USA, the Caribbean, North Africa and Asia. He has volunteered for the CAB and worked on behalf of asylum seekers and other disadvantaged people in Salford. He has tried to keep vocal jazz alive as an unsuccessful promoter. He has coauthored a children’s book on the history of tunnels with a civil engineer. He is a Sociology B.Sc. from LSE.In the 1970s and 1980s he was involved in the creation and consolidation of the financial services sector, a scenario that helped him understand better than most, the process of energy and utility privatization in the 1990s and the relationship between markets and government.In 2006, following his divorce and with his children safely grown up, he sold his house in Salford to bring his dream, of owning a restaurant specialising in vocal jazz, to reality. He chose Blackpool where he could afford property, a town buzzing with the prospect of renewal through a super casino, a town with a long season and a shortage of entertainment venues and interesting restaurants. Then there were problems with building and finance and the dream died before the premises could open. Blackpool lost its bid and super casinos disappeared from the political agenda without explanation. Property values collapsed and Roy was bankrupted. Off Balance is his first completed novel. It draws on his understanding of the dangers of the private provision of public services, and his research into the history and influence of Las Vegas to present a frightening picture of what might have happened behind the scenes when Blackpool bid for its super casino.