Chris Walsh – Dig Street Festival

‘Dig Street Festival’ by Chris Walsh is rather funny and a little bit crazy but you can’t help but smile through it.

It’s 2006 in the fictional East London borough of Leytonstow. The UK’s pub smoking ban is about to happen, and thirty-eight-and-a-half-year-old John Torrington, a mopper and trolley collector at his local DIY store, is secretly in love with the stylish, beautiful, and middle-class barmaid Lois. John and his hapless, strange, and down-on-their-luck friends, Gabby Longfeather and Glyn Hopkins, live in Clements Markham House – a semi-derelict Edwardian villa divided into unsanitary bedsits, and (mis)managed by the shrewd, Dickensian businessman, Mr Kapoor.
Mr Kapoor weirdly makes him creditworthy John surprises absolutely everyone by telling them he will organise an amazing ‘Urban Love Revolution’ (the Dig Street Festival really). Johns plans take a different turn when he finds out dark secrets st the D.I.Y store and also Mr Kapoor’s plans to make Markham House more upmarket, with no thought to anyone living there.

John is a man who has dreams of bigger things and still lives his life following his normal routine, the same things constantly…day after day. He is so busy doing his daydreaming he tends to be blinkered to things happening in front of him.
His friends are as quirky as him and they all live together in the same shabby building. They are such a lovely group even with their idiosyncrasies and everything going against them. John is willing to do almost anything for them and they for him too. The characters are all the misfits of society but they are so genuine and I love the fact that they have the biggest hearts. When John discovers dodgy dealing with Markham House and at work too, it’s up to them to right the wrongs (not forgetting John needs to show Lois he is worth her time too).

A story that is a mix up of the zaniest programmes I have seen in the past but with its twist. There are moments of the story that are so sweet and warm that you spend your time feeling all warm and cosy. On the next page, you are laughing your head off.

Chris Walsh has written a novel that filled me with happiness and laughter. A story I didn’t want to leave as it means I had to let go of three friends I felt I had made on this journey we had been on.

Thanks to Emma at Damp Pebbles Blog Tours and Louise Walters Books for the copy of the book.