FIRST-TIME novelist Saqib Deshmukh knows a thing or two about lives lived between the lines in the shadiest side streets of High Wycombe.

Having moved to the town 17 years ago as a youth worker, his job went hand in hand with the issues, divisions and inequalities in the lives of youngsters and racial minorities in the ever-changing town.

A freelance writer and playwright, the activist also championed the cause of Habib Ullah – known as Paps – and is a key campaigner in the Justice4Paps movement after the Wycombe man’s death in police custody in 2008.

And after extensive research on the roots and subsequent branches of the town’s past, Saqib’s new novel ‘West Richardson Street’ delves heads first into High Wycombe’s tumultuous past.

He said: “One way or another, for the last 17 years I’ve been involved in the life of this town.

“For me there is a clash between the view of affluent, picturesque market town in the Chilterns, its industrial history and recent past with racial tensions, “They’re all in the mix in this book. It took me seven years to write it, it was a lot of research, and I didn’t realise what I was getting myself into. It takes over your life!

“The key thing is looking into recent history, I don’t really see Asian and African Caribbean population figuring, yet this is a big part of the community, but I’ve not seen that documented and I wanted to do that.”

West Richardson Street spans a century of history, from the pre-war height of Wycombe’s furniture industry through to the race riots of the 1980s and tensions after the 2006 terror raids.

It follows Shiraz, a newly appointed Police Community Support Officer who discovers the body of an Asian prostitute in a skip in West Richardson Street, This runs alongside the story of Anna – the daughter of a furniture worker in High Wycombe in 1913 and her adventures in the heady pre-war days during an industrial peak.

Saqib says the murky secrets and dark discoveries lying in wait along the alleyways and side roads were an important fascination for him in the unfolding of the troubling plot.

And with such direct references to place and time, he admitted it’s hard not to identify elements of his experiences pepper throughout.

He said: “People who know me will recognise some of the characters and situations. When you write something like that it’s quite personal.

“I was on West Richardson Street when the idea for the book came to me. I remember seeing a skip and it made me think right, what if something was discovered in there?

“I know the town and all the roads and paths that exist, they’re intricate and often no one goes down there, but I did and I saw quite a lot of things.

“It’s when you go down these side roads you get a different view of the town and that’s what I’ve tried to capture in the book. It’s what makes a town unique.”

Though much progress has been made with race relations in the town, Saqib says tensions and inequalities still exist.

And the author believes his book reflects the realities faced by people forced to live side by side in a town with multiple identities.

He said: “When I first came here, I found the town quite polarised, after all I was employed to work with young Asian men in the town centre.

In many ways it’s improved, the community sits together, but there’s still a myriad of different Wycombes.

“If you look at a couple of the recent incidents it doesn’t much take that to break, and for it to shatter.”

West Richardson Street is now available on Amazon.

For more information, visit http://saqib67.wordpress.com/