11 Oak Street by Graham Cook
What's It About?
Life seemed good for divorcee Graham, until a number of unscrupulous people in his life and two cashier’s checks sent to the wrong address set in motion a train wreck of events.“Truth is stranger than fiction” has become a common phrase tossed about. English author and screenwriter Neil Gaiman takes it a step further by saying, “Life is always going to be stranger than fiction because fiction has to be convincing, and life doesn’t.” This is how you know that Graham Cook’s memoir, 11 Oak Street, is, indeed, real life. Things couldn’t get much stranger!
Graham Cook was in a good place in his life. After growing up one of six children under impoverished circumstances in England and leaving school at the age of 15, he was able to get an apprenticeship as a Heating and Ventilation Engineer.
By the age of 32, Cook had started and sold one successful large company after another, building up accumulating wealth along the way. The usual ups and downs of life followed, including a marriage, twin daughters and, subsequently, a divorce, but life seemed good … until a number of unscrupulous people in Graham’s life and two cashier’s checks sent to the wrong address set in motion a train wreck of events.
Small Mistake with BIG Aftermath
When Graham first met his second wife, Barbara, there were some red flags, but they soon got married and had a son. Just a couple of years later, Graham was blindsided when Barbara announced one day that she wanted a divorce. Complicating matters, Graham was from the UK, with business there, but had moved to the San Francisco area with Barbara and their son. Graham hired Californian attorney, Urie Walsh, to handle his divorce.
At the time, Graham was a client of the exclusive UK bank, Coutts & Co. Unknown to Graham, Coutts & Co mistakenly sent two large cashier checks meant for his lawyer to the wrong address … 11 Oak Street instead of 1111 Oak Street. These checks were to pay Urie Walsh’s legal fees for Graham’s divorce proceedings and the mortgage on their condominium in San Francisco. When the envelope didn’t arrive at Urie Walsh’s office, Coutts & Co wired replacement funds to the lawyer but never told Graham Cook of their mistake.
When the original envelope containing the two checks later turned up at Urie Walsh’s office, the lawyer tried to deposit these canceled checks into his own trust account. Not unexpectedly, they bounced. To cover his tracks, Walsh publicly told everyone that it was Graham Cook who had bounced the checks on him. Walsh then illegally sued Graham (who was living in England at that time) for the money.
This all set off a spiraling chain of events that included the abduction of Graham’s three-year-old son from Bristol, England to San Francisco by his ex-wife, and years of court battles where he was blocked again and again by inept, self-serving and corrupt representatives of the California justice system. At one point after the abduction of his son, Graham saw his former wife at the San Francisco Superior Court and the first words she said to him were, “If you had not bounced a check on your lawyer, none of this would have happened!”
In telling his story, Graham names names and holds those people who hindered his appeal for justice accountable. He’s now on a mission. As the author says in his dedication, “The thrust of this book is a common problem that permeates our society: the misuse of children by vindictive parents, and the needless consequences of such actions. It is also about corrupt and malevolent lawyers and, sadly, the sometimes cruel hand of fate.”
Heartbreaking & Unnerving Story
The story Graham Cook tells about his fight to maintain access and a relationship with his young son is heartbreaking. It opens the reader’s eyes to what many people face when dealing with costly and intimidating legal proceedings … often ending up bankrupt and even homeless, as the author did.
I spent much of my time reading this book with my mouth agape. How could such things happen? Graham spends 13 years in and out of court (as well as prison), battling against corrupt lawyers, unscrupulous judges, outrageous legal claims, a vindictive ex-wife and her cronies, and even his own family. The story follows the twists and turns of the cases and the domino effect of his circumstances. At times I wondered how he could go on, but amazingly Graham persisted and never gave up.
The story Graham has to tell is both appalling and unnerving. Could something similar happen to any of the rest of us? The book keeps you on the edge of your seat as, just when you think things couldn’t possibly get worse, they do! And the whole time I kept thinking what a perfect streaming limited series this would make!
Graham Cook’s story is a gripping exposé of how a seemingly small mistake can snowball into a tragedy, upending one man’s entire life.
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