Val R Brown

Freedom's Progress Val R Brown

Growing up in the 1950's, childhood was blissful for the three young friends, free to roam the hills and dales surrounding their home in a rural Derbyshire village. Unknown to them, their idyllic lifestyle would change dramatically on reaching their teens when much of their liberty would be crushed under the heavy weight of expectations imposed on them by the world of work, family, religion, relationships, class and society in general. All three would eventually search for opportunities to discard some of those restrictions, with the ambitious Angie being the first to act by breaking out of her comfortable but claustrophobic lifestyle to head for the U. S. A., the land of the free. The often-lonely Sandra experienced life-changing events in Italy while the third, Dennis, found liberation closer to home in the wide open spaces of the hills in northern England. Each individual believed the freedom they sought would lead to greater happiness but they discovered, instead, it was the route towards an aimless lonely life. In response they resolved their problems by inserting a new set of restrictions into their newfound liberty, the important difference this time being that they had exercised free will; they chose to live within rules and commitments which were self-imposed. Older and wiser, they had discovered that the most important freedom of all is probably freedom of choice.