Hello, and thank you for visiting my site. I hope that you'll return often and always find something of interest about my world and what inspires me to pick up a pen. (This is a figure of speech, unfortunately. My handwriting is terrible!) Here's what I've been up to recently...
The camera never lies?
Well, I hope that this chap’s hard work will pay off for me!
15 December, 2014 - Make the first comment on this story
Swanwick 2014 – starting to flag a little but…
By the middle of each Swanwick week, the late nights and early mornings start to catch up with me and this year has been no exception. However, Tuesday is traditionally a more relaxing day. There used to be an organised outing, but in recent years we’ve tended to ‘do our own thing’ and take the opportunity to explore some of the nearby National Trust properties. However, a full day out wasn’t possible this year if I was to attend the Derbyshire Police Forensics Team’s presentation.
This, once some technical hitches were sorted out, was well worth the sacrifice. Yet to serve on a jury (except as an extra on Emmerdale), I was relieved to learn from Jim Smith, ACSI Manager Forensic Investigation Unit of the Derbyshire Constabulary, that the police now have at their disposal a software package designed to spare jurors from gruelling photographic images while still giving them all the necessary facts. What was shown was horrific enough, though, and I take my hat off to people who can calmly investigate murder scenes, especially the very gory ones and those where the body has been lying around for a long time.
Time being limited, we spent a couple of hours at Denby Pottery in the afternoon and I’d very much like to go again with a few more hours at my disposal. As well as shopping opportunities, there are craft room and factory tours on offer, a cosy restaurant and ‘Pottery Beach’, where children can play in the sand and enjoy music and other entertainment. (There are even deckchairs for their weary parents!) However, an invitation to Joy and Shirley’s party beckoned and very convivial it was too. We were unaware then of a disaster brewing in a Lakeside bedroom close by. Suffice it to say that trying to cram in too many guests for a private drinks party can lead to trouble. The gentleman in whose room the incident occurred was later to immortalise the event in song: The Man Who Broke The Bed In Swanwick Lakeside and hopes that it might add to his manly reputation!
Our evening speaker, crime writer and TV reporter Simon Hall brought the house down with some of his anecdotes. I particularly enjoyed the one about an outside broadcast on road kill, where Simon found himself having to use the hand dryer of a Little Chef to defrost a frozen otter, much to the horror of the manager.
Buskers’ Night, once again organised by Mark Iveson, was a real showcase of Swanwick talent with both well seasoned and new performers giving it their all. One of the latter group was fellow Ripon Writers’ Group member Cathy Grimmer, whose unaccompanied rendition of ‘Somewhere that’s green’ from Little Shop of Horrors and her own parody ‘Glad to be Grey’ was very well received. I’m sure that the event could have gone on for at least another hour, had it not been for the need to consider people trying to sleep in the rooms above. Every conference has its owls and its larks, after all, although some Swanwickers do attempt to burn the candle at both ends, as witness their empty chairs or pallid faces at breakfast.
Wednesday saw the annual photo call; Swanwick competition prize winners lined up with representatives from Writers’ News. I was delighted to be included for my poem Commemorated In Stained Glass, (which can be read on this website).
Sometimes called upon to give talks about my writing or my television work, I thought that Michael O’Byrne and John Lamont’s two part course on public speaking would be ideal for me and so it was. Laced with self deprecating humour, as one would expect from those two, it was nevertheless packed with a great deal of solid information – the DONT’S being just as (or even more) useful than the DOS.
Guest speakers David and Hilary Crystal gave us new insights into places in Britain which have helped to shape the English language and then the dais was cleared for the eagerly anticipated Swanwick Page to Swanwick Stage performances.
Of the many striking images of the evening, I think that Simon Hall, stripped to the essentials for his role in Phil Collins’s play, will linger longest in the memory of most of the ladies present! Most of the plays, written in advance and workshopped during the week were humorous, but you could have heard a pin drop during Cathy Grimmer’s poignant Requiem. In between were some improvisations, including one performed by some young writers from the Top Write scheme, and all thoroughly deserved their applause.
It’s no wonder that I’m tired, because I couldn’t go to bed without joining in with the late night ceilidh. There weren’t many of us there, but what we lacked in numbers we certainly made up for in enthusiasm!
14 August, 2014 - There are 2 comments on this story
Swanwick 2014 – heading for the halfway point
My room in Lakeside is now looking as tidy as ever it will during my stay!
The good news is that every single copy of Easy Money For Writers And Wannabes that I brought along to sell has been snapped up. I don’t even have one for myself at the moment, because I’ve had to part with the proof copy! However, the omnibus edition of my short story collections is still available in the Book Room. (Both books are featured on Amazon and can be downloaded to Kindle etc. or ordered as print editions.)
I hope that my promotional T-shirt for the short story collections will work its magic* if it doesn’t really get me arrested! The lovely Michael O’Byrne, our Vice Chairman this year, is a retired chief constable after all!
My head is bursting with useful information at the moment, much of it gained from ‘official’ sources – Shirley Blair’s excellent two part course on writing for The People’s Friend and Karin Bachmann’s afternoon session on using Twitter to better effect – plus a large number of hints and anecdotes from fellow Swanwickers encountered at breakfast, morning tea break (with biscuits), lunch, afternoon tea (with cake), dinner and all those times in between. It would take a will of iron to lose weight at The Hayes!
Did I mention magic earlier on? Maybe my appearance at the Wizard of Oz themed disco will do the trick! Mark Iveson, DJ for the evening, certainly kept us all moving!
11 August, 2014 - Make the first comment on this story
Easy Money For Writers & Wannabes now in print!
The title of this post says it all, really. Well, not quite all. Creating an e-book with illustrations is much easier than laying out a print version. However, here it is and I hope that all the people who’ve requested a ‘real’ book to buy will be pleased with it. It’s been a labour of love on the part of my son Richard who, as ever, has given me the benefit of his considerable technical expertise.
Illustrations for a print copy should ideally be of a higher resolution than for an e-book, which isn’t easy when photograph archives are being plundered. That’s why the cover for the paperback has had to be different from (although still in the same spirit as) the original.
Bringing out the e-book first has given me the option of adding some reviews to the back cover. I hope that new readers will also submit their thoughts.
19 July, 2014 - Make the first comment on this story
An unexpected competition success!
Attendance at the Writers’ Summer School in Swanwick is always a highlight of my year and I’m very proud to be among this year’s prize winners. You can see the full list by following my link to the Swanwick website.
The theme for 2014 was ‘Unsung Hero’, very apt for the year in which we commemorate both the 100th anniversary of the start of WW1 and the 70th anniversary of D-Day. I’ve no idea how many entrants used these events or military themes in general for their poems, but my Noblesse Oblige was inspired by the many stained glass windows commissioned by grieving families for churches and cathedrals nationwide. Grief cannot be measured by wealth or social class, but the ability to record it is quite another matter.
Given that most poetry prizes nowadays seem to be awarded for blank or free verse, I wasn’t optimistic that my entry would appeal to the judges. (I struck lucky in 2006 when I won the Swanwick poetry prize for To My Writing Partner only, I believe, because the brief was to write a sonnet and the strict parameters imposed by that form appealed to me.) No matter how hard I try to resist, every poem I write – and there aren’t many of them – ends up with a regular rhyming scheme and metre.
Whether you see what follows as a parody, cautionary tale or an attempt to make a political statement, I’d appreciate your comments.
Noblesse Oblige
Commemorated in stained glass,
Claude Eustace Ralph de Quincey Brown,
Shining example of his class,
Will be remembered by the town.
Yet what of Joe, the orphan boy,
Sent off by Lord and Lady Brown
As batman to their pride and joy
When their whole world turned upside down?
They knew their own beloved Claude,
Would much prefer to sketch and write.
Young Joe could shoulder every load
And workhouse boys knew how to fight.
No warrior he, their gentle son,
Yet fear of shame kept him at war
Until his trench was overrun
And he lay dying on the floor.
Joe, wounded too, still tended him.
‘Rely on me, Sir, you’ll be fine.’
He waited till the stars grew dim
And shouldered Claude back to the line.
Though in great pain and losing blood,
Joe focussed on his one intent;
To save his master from the mud
Before all energy was spent.
The surgeons did the best they could,
But soon faint hope turned to despair.
Not every hurt could be withstood
And so it was with the young heir.
Without a word he passed away,
His loyal batman by his side.
Joe had no further part to play
And, duty done, collapsed and died.
Prostrate with grief, the Browns had Claude
Borne home by private ambulance;
Remains to be revered, adored.
Brave Joe they left unmourned in France.
Commemorated in stained glass
Claude Eustace Ralph de Quincey Brown,
Shining example of his class,
Will be remembered by the town.
11 June, 2014 - There are 4 comments on this story
Three month update
It’s getting on for three months now since the launch and I’m pleased to report that sales continue to go well and the book has attracted some very positive reviews. Thanks are definitely due to all those fellow writers who’ve given me the oxygen of publicity through Facebook, Twitter and their own websites and to our local press. A spike in sales has followed each mention and a HUGE one after Kath McGurl was kind enough to feature the book on her wonderful Womag blog. (Link to the right)
I’m particularly happy to have received feedback from readers who’ve already been substantially rewarded for their ‘fillers’, whether with useful amounts of cash or other prizes.
Family circumstances have led to a delay in the publication of a paperback version, but I hope that this will be achieved within the next few weeks. Please watch this space!
4 June, 2014 - There are 4 comments on this story
Nothing wrong with nostalgia!
Included in this issue and retitled My, How We’ve Grown, was inspired by a recent visit to Norwood Grove, the little terrace where I spent most of my early childhood. Our home – two up, two down and a cellar – was very cramped by today’s standards and had no indoor ‘facilities’, but at least it was a ‘through’ house at a time when many families in Leeds occupied ‘back to backs’.
Memories of the Second World War had started to fade by the time I came onto the scene, but the neighbours who’d lived through it were as tightly bonded as any community could be. With the men away fighting, the wives had helped each other in every way they could and the support network was still going strong years later. It was a wonderfully secure environment for children to grow up in and, although our material possessions were scanty in comparison with those enjoyed by subsequent generations, we never felt deprived.
Norwood Grove is now part of ‘studentville’ and many of the houses have roof extensions and ‘opened up’ cellars, giving a great deal more living space. Almost every house boasts a satellite dish and burglar alarm and vehicles line the street from end to end. Evidently today’s children, if any actually live there, don’t have the freedom that we did to play out from dawn to dusk, chalk endless hopscotch squares on the pavement or look forward to Bonfire Night. It’s inconceivable now that a team of fathers would be allowed to pile up on the cobbles anything that would burn, throw a ‘guy’ on top and set fire to the lot while the mothers bustled around with baked potatoes, home made toffee apples and trays of ‘parkin’. Health and Safety hadn’t been invented and we all took our chances with whatever fireworks anyone had brought along. Happy days!
22 May, 2014 - Make the first comment on this story
Tiptoe Through The Bluebells
Yes, I know that the old song referred to tulips, but that point is explained in the story!
‘And a singing bus driver’s the unlikely catalyst for Maggie Cobbett’s lively romance’ in the new issue of the People’s Friend, available today. Even more unlikely, some might say, is that it’s set in Milton Keynes! I love the accompanying illustration, not least of all because the handsome young man bears more than a passing resemblance to my husband in his youth. The title wasn’t my choice, but hey, I bow to the TPF’s superior knowledge of these things.
7 May, 2014 - Make the first comment on this story
An easy puzzle to solve!
Guess who’s ‘Puzzler of the Week’ in the 1/5/14 issue of Real People! One of the categories of ‘fillers’ I describe in Easy Money For Writers And Wannabes is for puzzles and quizzes and it has just born fruit (£50 worth) for me. Admittedly, it took longer to compose than most of the fillers I submit, but it was a simple idea and well worth the effort. In fairness to the magazine while it’s still on sale, I can’t reproduce it here, but you’ll find it on page 20 together with a nice little blurb about its creator.
The book continues to sell well and I’m indebted to two more people for helping it on its way. Kath McGurl has featured it on her wonderful blog – womagwriter.blogspot.co.uk – and I also have a new 5* review on Amazon.
5.0 out of 5 stars Very useful little book 26 April 2014
27 April, 2014 - Make the first comment on this story
Local recognition
The support of Graham Chalmers, our local paper’s Weekend Editor, is always very much appreciated. The article above is in the current issue which, in its various editions, has a wide circulation in North and West Yorkshire. Fingers crossed that a surge of sales will follow!
In addition and in response to a distressing article last week about the persecution of the red kite, a poem I wrote some time ago about these magnificent birds also appears on the readers’ letters page. ‘Red Kites Over Eccup Reservoir’ is included amongst the stories and poems available for you to read in the Stories + Poetry section of this website.
25 April, 2014 - Make the first comment on this story
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