- Tribute film and poem...Unemployed Craig O'Sullivan, 25, of Barley Street, Ingrow, died on 22nd March 1998. He started on heroin when he was 18. This is the story of HIS LIFE'S LAST DAY.
- SULLY LAD....A SHORT SYNOPSIS
This short based on true events, is the saddest story of the UK Heroin epidemic's five decades spread and it's affects on the youth, the life, his struggles and ultimately his untimely death in Keighley at age just 25. What if he did not die, what if he got clean and changed...that is the sad part. SULLY LAD was Craig O'Sullivan. This tribute film from a poem by his friend Keighley writer Mickey Thompson, written in 1998.Was filmed in Skipton, in lockdown 2021, with a cast of seven from Keighley, Leeds, Bradford and Ilkley. See's the lead role of SULLY LAD played by spoken Word Poet Simon Pickles, his first acting role. SULLY LAD is a young Keighley man, who suffered and eventually died of addiction on March 22nd 1998. SULLY LAD is a one persons life story recounted, and has Adult Content. Co writing credits for actor Derek Lawson are added as he developed the bouncer role of John Daley, a man who haunted, hunted battered and mentally abused our hero. The story prides itself on showing his point of view, his account even, of those events and times that happened on the day he dies. Putting the poem into film in simple terms, the film is the poem and the poem is the film, but an addicts point of view is not clear to understand from the outside world, that was the challenge for SULLY LAD it shows the view from inside addiction, and how society treats those inside the addicts mindset. Vulnerable, yet angry, a lost soul like the kind we still see sadly today begging in our major Cities and often tapping up the people of Keighley as they go about their daily business, SULLY LAD is or could of been one of those we sadly still see receiving banning orders and abso's. Along with the newspaper reports of their crimes and prison sentences. They still exist and some have five decade long addictions. SULLY LAD might of escaped this demise...were he helped... The story, in the short film begins at an end for Sully Lad , the short film ends recounting the doors slammed in Sully Lad's face on the day he dies back in 1998 by establishment figures, professionals and people, who were meant and often in paid position to be able, to help addicts and the families of addicts. Who lost loved ones, and are still losing them, the families to, they also became victims of this epidemic. With constantly been arrested, labelled, judged at home, on the streets and handed prison sentences, suffering violence, sharing needles and been let down by society, an finally by his addict mates, SULLY LAD veneers across the many faces of addiction, we see those faces in SULLY LAD. We see them as part of the criminal justice system, the probation system, the NHS we see the lack of treatment for those entering or attempting to try to recover in the 1990s and eventually his drug buddies deserting him, and the ultimate let down. These are among the issues touched on and still to this day, remain, that they still affect so many, those still drug using in and around the scene of just one small Northern Town. Keighley my Town, your Town a groomed Town, a raped Town, people who are a forgotten part of our Town, a Town let down and a generation let down. SULLY LAD is from that time it is a film about... His Life's Last Day...
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![Heaven-Leigh Spence, Emmanuel Ale, Simon Pickles, Simi Carver, Saby Khan, Michael Thompson, Derek Lawson, and Bob Jordan in Sully Lad](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOTJmMWFjYTMtM2ZiMi00NjZjLWFjYzktODRmZWNjYjkxOTk3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTI4MjQwNjU2._V1_QL75_UX90_CR0,0,90,133_.jpg)