Alf Smith

Jack Benson Alf Smith

Victorian England - 1850. A lazy, worthless, wretch of a man named Jack Benson, whose existence in life holds no appreciation or interest in conducting a normal life composed of honest endeavour, contemplates a plan that will transport him from his present life of impoverishment, squalor, and misery of existence, along a path that will guide him to the fulfilment of the needs and desires that his dreams declare he deserves. Following a robbery and subsequent murder, Jack absconds to London and thereby begins his rehabilitation of hitherto unknown qualities of integrity, ethics and morality. As he craves to improve on the blank canvas of his mind, these changes begin to subtly alter the man he represents into the man he wishes to become. The story is conducted within the interlude of the world that was characterised by an economic explosion of activity, national change in numerous directions, the development of refined sensibilities, and a period when the British Empire expanded into the largest realm of governed authority that has ever been known to mankind. This is a story that displays how a man can rise from humble beginnings to achieve the importance and acceptance of love and respect, not only from family, friends and community - but for himself.
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