Jim Higgins

Shaking Jim Higgins

The SHAKING trilogy: part one SHAKING. The younger members of the family were being re-housed in the peripheral housing scheme and life including Jim's with cerebral palsy. Annie and Johnnie get re-housed in a five-apartment flat. They live through the Blitz. Cathie meets Jimmy and have a troubled sectarian marriage, experiences a difficult birth with Jim. Jimmy is demobed after serving in the War. He gets a job as a slater and plasterer and gets "plastered" (drunk) quite often! He falls from roofs. Separations and reunions. They move to different homes in the city. They discover that Jim; their first child has cerebral palsy, because of the accident with the forceps at birth. There are changes in the lives of the other members of Annie and Johnnie's family. Jim's school days cause trouble at home and school. He attends a school for handicapped. He then attends a school for "able-bodied" children. Life's difficulties increase with ridiculed and bullying He learns about sex He questions his faith. This affects his health and schooling when he is there and not away receiving speech and physiotherapy Jimmy goes out to the library goes missing. Eventually arriving in Hong Kong, Months later, he arrives home with serious problems. Trilogy 2 "HEAD-BOY" and 3 "STILL SHAKING"