Blog

I’ve seen plenty of autumn leaves in my time. They’re the sort of people who drift in when the sun’s out and the beer’s flowing, only to blow away the second the wind picks up and the clouds turn grey. You find them everywhere. They’re common as muck and just as fleeting.

But the diamonds? They’re the ones who stay. They’re the ones who stand their ground when the grit gets under your fingernails and the world starts to squeeze.

I wrote Nightmare in Jamaica for the...

Ten Books by Tommy Kennedy IV

I don’t write one book and vanish. I build. Over time.
On this site, you’ll find ten books I’ve published—autobiographies, fiction, biography, and flash fiction. Together, they form a continuous body of work that defines my voice as an author.

Autobiographies

Nightmare in Jamaica – My first autobiography. Raw, unfiltered, and lived.

Notting Hill Ponces – Second autobiography, direct follow up to Nightmare in Jamaica. Same voice,...

Meat Space Explained: What It Means and Why Younger Generations Use the Term
Meat space is a term increasingly used by younger generations to describe the physical world, the offline world, the place where bodies exist and consequences land. It exists in direct contrast to cyberspace, which is everything that happens online.

This is not tech jargon or theory. It is a practical word for a real divide that now shapes everyday life.

What Meat Space Actually Means
Meat space is the world you can trip...

12 January 1966 – 3 December 2025

Shit news hit our family on Wednesday.

Our kid, Anthony John Kennedy, has died.

He was a superstar. A family legend. Full of life and full of fun. He could blag his way in and out of anything. He lived everything larger than life. He possessed a generous heart and gave freely to everyone he met. He would do anything for anyone and he loved a proper party.

A...

In a seaside town, a story unfolds about a woman named Jezabelle. Her journey takes her through darkness and tests her limits of redemption. She is consumed by addiction, haunted by betrayal, and torn by her forbidden love for a priest. Her struggles play out on the streets of Blackpool, and her tale is so shocking that it defies belief.

"LUCIFER"

My twins have finally left home, leaving me to rot in...

Rainbow George and his friend and neighbour Peter Cook.

"The Wondering Jew "

“I have discovered that people with money have no imagination, and people with imagination have no money.…”

"Make your life as interesting as you can so it’s worth watching when the tape plays back"

Who 'Rainbow George Weiss' Really Was.

London forgets people like Rainbow George Weiss faster than it should. He was born in 1940 and gone by the first of December 2021. Eighty-one...

You imagine a creative writing degree teaches you how to become a writer. It doesn’t. What it really does is strip you down, hand you a mirror, and tell you to stop lying on the page. I learned that in the first fortnight and kept learning it every week after. Nobody warns you about any of this. So here it is, straight.

1. You won’t graduate with a book. You’ll graduate with questions
People outside...

Why I Read The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison
I picked up The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison expecting a grim lecture on inequality. What I found instead was a clear and steady voice showing how the American justice system protects wealth while turning poverty into a lifelong sentence. I’m reading it from the UK, yet every page felt close enough to...

https://tommykennedyiv.com/blog/reading-a-1o00-books-over-a-lifetime

Thirteen Years in the Walls of the General Penitentiary: Vybz Kartel’s Story

Some walls do not forgive.
Some cages do not forget.
Some men leave them changed forever.

The General Penitentiary is Still G.P.

Renamed Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre, the prison holds the weight of history.

The walls remember...

Some lads got a break. Some got a warning. I got Borstal Training, handed down in a Crown Court that smelled of polished floors and sheer, unyielding judgement. Six months to two years for police assault. Open-ended. It was a sentence that settled into my chest, heavy and cold, long after the judge had walked away and left the room quiet.

Everthorpe Borstal rose out of the Yorkshire flatland like a threat carved into brickwork. I stepped...

https://authorwebsites.bookbub.com/dashboard/blog

Borstal Boy – Nightmare in Jamaica


Borstal Boy
Anon, 1960





" BORSTAL BOY"
A Borstal boy came home one dayl

To find his love had gone astray
Though he knew the reason why
she’d left him for another guy.

Late that night, just by chance,
he saw them at the local dance.

She looked at him and softly said,
‘If you had lived an honest life,
I would have been your darling wife.

But still you choose your life of crime,
so...

Sam Cooke Biography | Music Legends Series | Bring It On Home to Me & A Change Is Gonna Come

Sam Cooke gave soul music its first true voice. From gospel roots to pop charts, he turned struggle into melody and pain into power. This is the story of the man who sang love, loss, and change into history.

Music Legends: Sam Cooke – The Man Who Sang Change Into Being

Every now and then, someone comes along who changes music without shouting about it. Sam Cooke...