ONE MORE WOULDN'T HURT By Rick Smith A Novel of Booze, Birds and Getting Banged up Tommy Bradman is on the downward spiral of alcoholism. In his mid-twenties, he is treacherously good looking, a compulsive womaniser and a criminal. The one constant in his life is Val, his long suffering girlfriend, who loves him with a passion, but knows she must eventually leave him. One More Wouldn't Hurt is a story of their struggle, and of those close to them. It is a hard hitting, rollicking novel of life in the raw. Extract Eastchurch, hut number two, Sunderland wing. It was an aerodrome during the war years: part of coastal command, according to Mr Newman: an amiable screw with a badly pock-marked face whose nickname was maggot. Like lots of small airfields constructed in desperate times it had gone downhill. Been forgotten. Fallen into disrepair, until some bright spark in Whitehall decided it would make an ideal open prison being miles from anywhere on the bleak, flat, Isle of Sheppey. Tommy had been there before in Seventy-Five, doing half a stretch: six months, for burglary. The place was a doddle in the summer, a right f****ng holiday camp, and he got the tan of his life during that never forgotten heat wave. However, it wasn't that clever in the winter: especially in the never ending Seventy-Nine winter. Talk about Arctic exploration. To stick your head under a tap of freezing water. Have a piss, or clean your teeth in a windowless, windswept, washroom-come-s**thouse, you had to cover a hundred yards of ice and slush in worn, rubber soled shoes. Not much fun at half seven in the morning, with a force eight gale blowing of the North Sea...