R J Lloyd was working hard to trace his family tree. he had managed to trace it back to the 16th century. But he was unable to find any trace of his great-great-grandfather Enoch Thomas Price. It seemed that he had vanished without trace.
So, what had happed to him? After many years of false starts and dead ends a cousin called him with some exciting news. His cousin had found evidence of what had happened to Enoch Thomas Price all those years ago.
A Californian called Susan Sperry had recently taken her retirement and finally had the time to search through a box of documents that her mother had given her three decades previously.
Susan Sperry found references to her great grandfather, Harry Mason, a wealthy hotelier from Florida who had died in 1919. What possible link could there be between poverty-stricken Enoch Thomas Price and wealthy hotelier Harry Mason? It transpired that they were the same person!
The story that writer R J Lloyd uncovered was one of poverty, violence, betrayal and triumph. And he has used his skills as an author to fill in the blanks.
It's 1844 and Enoch Price was born into grinding poverty. However, Price was an ambitious young man and he travelled to London to seek his fortune as a bareknuckle fighter. However, bareknuckle fighting was a murky world operating at the edges and often beyond of lawful society and soon Price finds himself in the clutches of an unscrupulous illegal moneylender well-known for his use of violence.
He is, by now, a married man with three daughters and he is facing ruin and imprisonment. He decides to flee England for Jacksonville, Florida. The decision to abandon his wife and three little girls reportedly haunted him for the rest of his life.
By the time he arrived in Florida, Enoch Price is no more, replaced by Harry Mason.
By a series of adventurers in his new country, Harry Mason plays a vital role in the development of the growing city of Jacksonville, all through a variety of schemes and risk-filled enterprises.
However, he is wracked with guilt over the callous way he abandoned his wife and three daughters and he makes contact with his wife, pleading with her to join him in Florida. However, she feels she cannot trust him and declines his offer.
Mason weds again, though bigamously, and he fights to keep his true identity a secret. However, his public life is one of significance and success and he achieves political prominence, becoming a member of the Florida State House of Representatives in 1903.
His business enterprises he boosts via a range of practices, not all of them honest and there is talk of him becoming the Governor of Florida. However, what good is it if a man gains success in his business life if his personal life is filled with bitter self-recrimination?
He planned to return home to England and face the music but the intervention of the Great War and the subsequent virulent Spanish Flu put paid to his plans.
It's a well-written, poignant story of how one decision can change the outcomes of the lives of many.
It's published by Troubador at £10.99.
