The cover - more than Fifty Shades of Grey

Take a look at the cover of 'Beneath the Perfect World' and you'll see a nothing but shades of grey. The shot was taken by Michael Horsfield, a friend of mine and amateur photographer. I took an interest in his photography after he posted some of his pictures on Facebook, many of them taken whilst out cycling in the Dales. I had a look through his Flickr page. The obvious connection between the location and protagonist made this the likely place to find a suitable cover photograph. I thought the black and white shot captured the bleakness of the protagonist's situation and also the shadow hanging over him.

The image depicts the opening scene of the book. Susanna North suggested superimposed the bike, although I would have been happy just to use the original photograph. I was told the bike would arouse a bit of curiosity in the reader. Why the hell is that there? You find out in the first chapter. The cover picture is Fleet Moss, about fifteen miles from where the fictional location of Clayton is meant to be. It's the middle of nowhere, the nearest major town being Skipton, which isn't that big, and the nearest city being Bradford, some thirty miles away.

So, the more than fifty shades on the cover represent the sinister edge to life in a seemingly gentile village. No bondage gear allowed there. At least if you had it, you would have to be ultra discrete because the locals like to gossip and it's very difficult to keep your life private. Alan doesn't have to anything too outrageous to rock their world. Where the police don't intervene, a deputation of neighbours will.

The inspiration for the community came when I was living in Bradford. I lived in the Urban village of Heaton, in the centre of Bradford opposite the local church. The residents of Clayton were based on the church community. In 2001, the vicar decided to put a mobile phone mast in the spire. The jury was still out at that stage as to whether or not these things were safe and the local community opposed it. What struck me was the outrage the church community showed when the local residents challenged the vicar. It was like, how dare you challenge a man of the cloth. Most surprising was being told no one had ever challenged the vicar before or spoken to him in the way we did. Eh? We were a group of educated, sensible people voicing a concern. We were far from the riotous militants we were made out to be. Yet the slightest dissention caused uproar within the church.

We staged a few peaceful protests outside the church during Sunday worship hours. Mortified by our antics, one of the congregation came out of church with a camera announcing, 'I'm going to take a photograph of this!' What was he going to do, show the world this bunch of infidels? The vicar saw sense and didn't publish it in the church magazines.

They got their mast in the end. I felt as though the thirty or so people who attended the church thought they were the whole world. So I stuck them in the middle of nowhere, where their self-importance could reign, and wrote about them. My protagonist is the rest of us rolled into one. He can't fight them; he just has to go elsewhere.