Tuesday 27 September 2016

Janet and John Go To Cornwall


Last Few Days in Cornwall - photo Jennifer Pittam

So I'm here in Cornwall for the last few days before I have to pack up and go back home to London.

I am fascinated to discover that the Alverton was once a nunnery - the Order of the Epiphany. An epiphany (from the ancient Greek) is, apparently, a manifestation, or an experience of sudden and striking realization.

The Hotel Was Once a Nunnery








One of the manifestations I want to see whilst I'm in this beautiful land is more writing.  It's not that I lack will-power as such - I write copy for yoga mats and running shoes with zeal and application. Yet, in the year since my mother died I've found it so hard to get back to my historical novel.  The book is based on a story she told me; one of those from London's East End. When she went, my inspiration seemed to take a dive, in spite of encouragement from friends and attendance, rather erratic, at JoJo Thomas's Creative Writing Workshops.

JoJo Thomas' Workshops








Then, quite by chance, I started working my way through Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way on Kindle.  I think it helps that it's on Kindle, even though I have the paperback and love its large format. On Kindle you get just a small helping at any one time. Religiously (ha ha!) I work through each and every exercise. I don't skip, and I don't rush. I don't look ahead. I just take my notebook - yes, my notebook, and my trusty four-coloured biro out for hours at a time, when the paying work permits, and bury myself in writing Daily Pages, and completing exercises that involve my honouring my one-time desire to be a nurse, an explorer and a flamenco guitarist.

Janet & John Reader 











Whilst I'm in Cornwall I listen to BBC Radio 2 a great deal - my room doesn't stretch to many mod cons - and I'm by turns entranced, awed and not a little tearful by the tribute to the late Terry Wogan. I remember Terry myself, for he was one of those broadcasters with an uncanny knack for appealing to all ages.  Many's the time Mother, Nana and I were doubled up in hysterics over one of his jokes. In particular, I used to love the 'Janet & John' stories. If you're over a certain age and grew up in Britain you'll have learned to read from a Janet & John reading book.  Janet and John were white, middle class and as I remember them, quite insufferable. Still, no matter your ethnicity, social class or religious faith, you still approached the skill of reading via their safe daily routine of walks in the park, by the stream and the bench.

Growing Up in the Veldt








A former boss, Editorial Director at Macmillan Publishers, once told me that she read Janet & John whilst growing up in the South African veldt. She wondered for years what a 'stream' was.  Terry's version, thinly veiled smut, was at times so excruciatingly funny that my Nana had to put the kettle down mid-pour, lest she scald herself.

Tea at the Alverton








Well, Terry Wogan was said to be the ultimate mult-tasker, dashing off a filthy Janet & John story whilst playing a record and eating a doughnut all at the same time. At the Alverton, one of the highlights of my stay has been their way with speciality teas - not only do they serve it in a china pot with a matching cup but they bring a glass timer so that you know when to pour! One of the more pretentious of the guests said it 'adds a touch of class' but for me, the sand-glass provides a perfect excuse for dashing off a timed writing exercise.

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped a berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

W B Yeats 1836-1939
Read at Terry Wogan's Memorial Service


Wednesday 7 September 2016

Intrepid in Cornwall


Setting off  For Cornwall


Like most writers I have to perform a juggling act. There's  the creative writing that comes straight from the heart, the copy-writing for rubbber gloves and wrinkle creams, and the fascinating work I have as a Clerk of the Court in London. 

Trendy people call it a 'work portfolio' and talk rather pompously of 'income streams.' If I'm honest, I don't care what they're called. Each brings its own mix of fun, despair, creative satisfaction and, well, money, in varying quantities.

This month one of the 'income streams'  brings me to Cornwall.  I have not visited that enchanted place since childhood. I remember it as a goblin-land - mysterious, beautiful and much warmer than London. Terrified that it won't be like that now, I book a ticket from London Paddington to Truro.  The Cornish Riviera Express - it doesn't disappoint and transports us at an unruly speed as far as Plymouth. After that, we meander further and further away from the capital city and all its angst. 


One of the things I want to do while I'm down here is rediscover my own creative wellspring, which has sadly deserted me in the year since my mother's death. Yes, I've met my commitments. I'm a professional, right? But my own, personal projects are stuck, and I cannot seem to recover that joy I used to have when I sat down with my novel and lost myself in another world. 

Photo JEnnifer Pittam

 I check into my hotel, The Alverton. It was once an abbey, owned by the Order of the Epiphany - well, there's serendipity. I could do with a bit of an epiphany. Things are looking up.

I was but made fancy
By some necromancy
That much of my life claims the spot as its key.

St Juliot, Thomas Hardy 1913




Saturday 30 April 2016

Leicester City, King Richard III and A Profusion of Smells

This Week I'm in Leicester
Photo by Jennifer Pittam

So my work as a Clerk of the Court takes me north to Leicester, slap bang in the middle of England. I check in at a little hotel, former home of artist and architect Ernest Gimson. Immediately, I fall in love with its art deco touches and 1920s oil paintings.

The Belmont Hotel








When I've dumped my bags, I'm out exploring.  Writers love to explore - I think we're born inquisitive or as they say in Leicester, born nosey-parkers. Presently  the colour  blue features everywhere you look - blue blue flags, blue scarves and hats; even the cathedral is lit up in blue. That's because, on Sunday 1 May, this little city's football team Leicester City will play the mighty Manchester United for the Premier League cup.  Only a few months ago, the bookmakers were offering shorter odds on Elvis Presley turning up alive.

Even the Cathedral's Blue












Leicester has history, too; stone-built and elegant, and lots of tantalising smells. Because I write historical fiction I must capture colour, sound and every stinky aroma going,  I cram into a curry house by the railway. Sipping a glass of lassi (yoghurt with mint and a little salt, served as an apperitif). I make jottings in my writers' notebook. Close-packed bodies/Shrinivas incense/cracked black coriander seeds spitting in an iron skillet.  Cobra beer, tawny gold/fat baked potatoes seared in tumeric.  It's vital to get it right so I use a technique learned in yoga nidra class.

Sipping a glass of Lassi











 I transport myself back mentally to the same curry house, then a coaching inn, the year 1826. It's the time of my novel in progress. No 21st century morals then. I recall that the French emperor Napoleon, embattled and exhausted, once sent an urgent missive to his wife: 'Home in three days. Don't wash.'


Plump Coriander Seeds








When my court case is over I have time to spare and waving cheerily at all the blue-capped lads and lasses who have been so kind, I pay a fleeting visit the grave of King Richard III. Richard reigned for just two  years in the 15th century.  He's known  for 1) having a hunchback  2) supposedly murdering his two nephews, the 'little princes in the Tower' and 3) dying in battle on Bosworth Field.But what became of his body? Did he escape? Did he die  in a ditch? Was he kidnapped, held captive? Did he die a brave warrior's death?

Laid to Rest in Leicester Cathedral


Then in 2012 some workmen dug up a car park in Leicester. They unearthed something strange -  bones, swords, stuff like that. To put it bluntly, the grave of King Richard. This answered so many of the unanswered questions -  yes, 'Richard Crookback', as Shakespeare called him, did have a scoliosis of the spine. He died very bravely in the battle, his wounds showing clearly that he fought for hours. The little princes? We still don't know. His coffin didn't contain a signed confession, that's for sure.

The Princes in the Tower?

He wasn't, I think, the nicest of men -  but it was a rough, tough time to be alive.  There's something about the grave of a warrior king and I bow my head. This one has been beautifully put together. He has an oak and yew, lead-lined coffin crafted by his 17th great grand nephew, a modern carpenter. There are stained glass windows depicting the discovery of the body, the inquest (yup, we still needed an inquest after 534 years)  the months of squabbling between the City of York and the City of Leicester. Should Richard of York return there to be buried? A valid point say you, but the tradition is that a British soldier dies where he falls.

The Well on Bosworth Field









On 26 March 2015 his body was carried from Bosworth field to a final burial in Leciester cathedral I suspect that, more than anything, Richard would have liked to be laid to rest as one more English warrior soldier.











Outside the cathedral I sit on a bench with bluebells at its foot, soaking up the sun. I draft  my last few chapters. I need to take the reader to the inquest.  In 1826 the Coroner's inquest for the dreadful, bloody crime I've depicted would have been held in a local pub or dancing room. It must have smelt like Leicester cathedral, only much, much worse. Cheap tallow candles stinking of animal fat, fried fish, sweat, local-brewed ale, naked fear.  I take a good sniff, then write....


Bloody thou art, 
Bloody will be thy end...

Duchess of York (Richard III, Act 4, Scene 4)
William Shakespeare 1554-1616

Sunday 6 March 2016

First Aid and First Goals - A New Writing Course

A Funny Old Week











Well, this has been a funny old week, as we say in London. I'm determined to get creative.  I'd like to take a class but at present, time and finances forbid. So I get a course in a book.


Beehives in the Park











The Course comes as a big fat tome and a download for my Kindle. I lap it up on the London Underground, in the park with the bees humming around the hives, in the cafe under London Bridge Station (a bit similar to working whilst bricked up in an Egyptian mummy's tomb). I'm a great believer in taking classes no matter how experienced you are - in the same way I still take yoga classes after decades of practice, I trust I'll never be too proud to take a writing class.

When I'm not making jottings I'm busy stretching every nerve, brain cell and joint to pass my First Aid Certificate. In one sense, taking a course from a book isn't the same as going at it live. With an instructor from the St John Ambulance shouting,'two rescue breaths, thirty pumps on the heart', I make very fast progress on my First Aid. Still, I'm determined to make a success of my writing course too. I remind myself that in the past, writers wrote, they didn't spend hours on Facebook or have the luxury of even, necessarily, attending school so very much, never mind attending college.

Thirty Rescue Pumps











Chris Sykes' course has loads of exercises and begins, in the introduction, with asking the student to think about how and where they write. Then, tease out their reasons for wanting to write, and finally to write down three short-term and three long-term goals for their writing self this year.

I jot down a few things about myself, and note a couple of modest successes.

'Lives in the mad, bad beautiful city of London,' I begin. 'Dredges the events of the past for stories, head firmly in the now. Writes on the tube, in the park or best of all, at the zoo. Rather fond of prawns. And ginger nuts. Winner of Coast to Coast Writing Competition ('I Remember Very Well'); Winner of Writer's Village Flash Fiction Competition ('Past Times'). Articles published in Prediction Magazine, Astrology Now, Aquarist & Pondkeeper; titbits read out on BBC Radio 2 by Zoe Ball, and by Anneka Rice.



Writes at the Zoo

Now for some goals to give my course bite:

Three short-term goals:

1. To champ away on my blog and Facebook page weekly for the next three months (5 June 2016)
2. To finish my W.I.P. 'Face The Champion' by 5 September 2016
3. To have completed a basic outline for 'Keep Them Safe' by 5 September 2016

Three long-term goals:

1. To submit 'Face The Champion' to every possible publishing opportunity by 5 March 2017
2. To have my website functional by 5 December 2016
3. To save for and attend the Historical Novel Society's conference in September 2016.


Rather Fond of Gingernuts

Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go. 
E L Doctorow 1931-2015



Saturday 27 February 2016

Creative Writing Workshop Beats Black Dog



A Toilet of a Year

This has been a W.C. of a year. Battling with the anguish of bereavement and supporting my father through two operations, I find it tough to get back to writing.

People tell me to 'pull myself together' but have bugger all idea how I might go about it. Still, there is a gem of truth in those old wives' tales.

This week I pull myself together in three ways; 1) sign up for a creative writing workshop 2) start a fresh, new course and 3) win a prize for a piece of flash fiction. In a literary city like London there are loads of workshops available; large and noisy, intimate and searching, cosy and hilarious, stretching and expensive.  I choose one called 'Less Thinking More Writing'. It's run by JoJo Thomas on Sunday mornings. The atmosphere's creative and beautifully prepared, with fab fab home-made cakes and coffee.


Delicious Homemade Cakes
There is little critique. The extended a.m. session (4 hours for £40) is targeted towards creativity. Packed with exercises and perfect for a Sunday, the 'round the table' set-up with discussion and lots of funny, insightful reflection means that we all leave feeling positive yet gloriously stretched. 'I'll never view haddock in quite the same way,' says Huw, as we say goodbye. And neither will the rest of us.


Set in Torbay
 Last time I attended JoJo's workshop I turned one of the exercises into a teensy story which, to my delight, won first prize in a Flash Fiction competition. The judge describes it as 'beguiling', which was great. I can live with 'beguiling'.


 The flash fiction story is set in Torbay and I use the raw grief of my mother's death for this piece - better than boring everyone on the bus. The prize of £50 is a huge boost to my morale. This week's results may, according to JoJo, have produced a deliciously new, darker beginning to one of my novels in progress. Watch this space.


A Darker Beginning


There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.
Somerset Maughan 1874-1965 



Sunday 12 July 2015

So On Thursday Mother Died


So on Thursday morning at dawn, my mother died.  My sister and I had received what we, for years, had termed 'the 5.30 am call'. It means, in our family, a cry for help from one of the tribe, delivered as 'early as decent'. In this instance the message was simple - 'If you want to see your mother alive, come now'.

A Cry From One of the Tribe








The experts say that bad news sinks into the human brain in three stages: disbelief, acceptance, fortification. So, for an hour or so we had this ludicrous disbelieving conversation in which we reasoned that we would probably arrive too late for our mother's departure and that, based on our kindly father's desire 'not to bother us' we probably should just wait until the funeral.

Over hot tea and buttered toast, we came to our senses and pelted down the platform for the first train out of Paddington Station, London, to a destination in the far west of Britain.

The First Train Out of Paddington








We reached the parents' cottage in time, in fact time enough to gather round our mother's bed, not for a maudlin death-bed scene but for a family sing-song. Ma even frowned at me for getting the second line of the Welsh National Anthem wrong, as I always do and she always does. She lived another four days, actually, while the temperature soared in the hottest July on record. Gradually the surreal NHS 'End of Life Package', became our accepted norm. We rang our places of employment, not once, but the next day and the next. As the sun baked the garden to death, we wheeled her bed to the porch where she could hear the seagulls.

Where She Could Hear the Seagulls

We moistened her lips with wet tissues instead of those awful sponge swab things, and when we weren't talking to her, reminding her what a great Mum she'd been, we got on and cooked the dinner like a normal family.  They say that hearing is the last sense to go, and I like to believe it fortified her, as well as us, to hear the family carrying on as usual, arguing over the washing up, reminding one another to water the roses, discussing the merits of the new vaccuum cleaner.


Flowers in Her Hair

After she passed over, I had the great privilege of helping to lay her out, instructed by two ladies, Kerry and Diana, who did a stunning job. Oiled and anointed, with flowers in her hair, she looked almost like a young girl again. Then, with the kind of tact only British bureacracy could manage, a psychotherapist called Candida telephoned from the local hospital. Mother had, she said, seemed a little depressed during her last visit to hospital. Would it help if she, Candida came around and had a bit of a chat? "Not really," I replied.  "If I'm honest."

How many loved your moments of glad grace
And loved your beauty with a love false or true
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you
And loved the sorrows of your ever-changing face

William Butler Yeats 1865-1939


With grateful thanks to the wonderful teams from Devon C.Air and Pembroke House Surgery Paignton

Monday 6 July 2015

Our Mother, Val Doonican & Omar Sharif



The Urge to Dignify Death

After a death comes a funeral, pretty much anywhere in the world.The urge to dignify the passing somehow means that we try to despatch the departed loved one with a ritual. In Victorian times, certainly in London, it  took as long as possible and 'death-bed' scenes were strung out with weeping and wailing. There were specific words, rituals and keepsakes known as 'memento mori'.

Unless you work in a funeral parlour or something, the language of death, arriving right slap in the  rawness of your grief, comes as an experience both surreal and funny.

The first thing that happens, in Britain at any rate, is that your family doctor certifies that the recently departed is actually dead, and there's nothing suspicious about it.

The Doctor's Jaunty Tie
In our case, the family doctor had been calling daily throughout the final week of my mother's life. The visit was strangely similar to the day before's, except that he arrived wearing a dark blue tie instead of his usual jaunty scarlet one.

Naturally, my sister and I wanted new outfits for the funeral. Even when you know someone's going to die, there's a reticence about going out to choose your special frock before the event. After our mother passed way, without thinking we arranged this ludicrous schedule, making sure that when we felt that urge to shop, one was always available to stay at home.

Feeling That Urge to Shop
 That's true grief, we discovered. It's not about how sad you feel or what a huge gap someone's left in your life. It's about the little things. Forgetting that you can now go shopping,


Much-Travelled Posy
That week I learned, too, about floral artistry, and the unique terminology that goes with it.  For example, you don't order a wreath but a funeral posy. If you order for a funeral on Dartmoor when you live in North London, Interflora doesn't actually drive 200 miles with said posy, they just charge you as if they had.

Another thing that made us fall about laughing was a Cockney superstition that my Nana, born and bred in London's 'East-End', taught us. If you hear of a death, then the next two people you hear of in the same predicament will go to Heaven with the first one.  So for example, our local butcher died this week and will now go to the abode of the angels arm-in-arm with the critic Brian Sewell and the much-loved writer of erotic fiction, Jackie Collins.

Clearly this sweet old fairy tale dates back to the time when London was a collection of small communities centred around the docks, the alleys etc. To Ma and me, it didn't matter a jot that there were millions of people in the world and hundreds of deaths per day. We still applied the theory, to gales of laughter, every time we heard of a death in the news or in our part of town.

So for what it's worth, my mother, who died on 2 July 2015, went to Heaven with Val Doonican and Omar Sharif. And boy, won't she remind us of that one next time we see her.

  Weep if you must,
Parting is hell.
But life goes on;
So sing as well.

Joyce Grenfell 
1910-1979