Samhain

My Dad was a gardener. Even though the rest of his family, his dad and his brothers, all worked on the railways Dad didn’t want to be an engine driver. He had green fingers and went to work on the land as soon as he left school.  He was apprenticed to a market gardener and grew vegetables for sale on the market.

Even after war was declared he refused to go into the reserved occupation his family had and went off to join the navy.  He never really left the service, because he worked as a civilian with the RN after he was demobbed.  But he never stopped being a gardener.

I used to watch him all year round, tending his plants and harvesting his vegetables and, though I never inherited the green fingers – if I even look at a pot plant it wilts – I did learn one thing.  Life can be tough.  In order to get the best out of a plant you must often be cruel to it. 

Tomatoes won’t set if you leave the side shoots on. You have to nip out the buds as soon as they appear. You even have to take off some of the adult leaves as the fruits start to ripen or they sap the plant’s strength and the tomatoes develop small and hard.

Roses will not flower unless you prune them. The best blooms appear on year-old wood. Any older than that and the flowers never reach their best, are pallid and fade quickly, dropping petals after only a few days.

Fruit trees must be lopped each year to remove the old wood that can harbour pests and disease. Unless you take out the exhausted branches the tree starts to fail. Year after year the crop will reduce until only a few, wizened apples appear that are sour, like the crabs they were bred from.

And so it is with people. Or so it seems. For the harder we are pruned the stronger we are. The more challenges we face the more understanding we become. The tougher the task, the greater the pride when it is finished. The sharper the pain, the deeper the ease when the pain finally subsides.

Autumn is a time for pruning, for preparing a plant for the winter and removing the dead and dying parts to make way for new growth.  It’s Samhain, the start of a new cycle of seasons and the end of the old. The pruning is over. With time I shall bloom again.

Maisie

Maisie knows. Whenever I settle down with a book she is already there, fussing and purring, insinuating herself between my eyes and the page with soft determination. While I try to change position to accommodate her, she slaloms around my arms, expertly remaining central and obscuring my view.
It is as if she can anticipate every move and calmly prevent it with sinuous and practised ease. She always succeeds.
Even before I think of reading, Maisie knows.

The Muse

L’égérie (The Muse) it said

On a plastic plaque beside the work.

I looked at it (a long time)

But felt no echo in my mind, 

No similarity with mine.

How could this angular thing inspire?

This flat, red multiple thing

With extra heads, but lacking arms

(and charms). I could not see.

Perhaps sculptors need a driving force

More pointed (or with razor's edge)

To guide their hands, their hammers,

Or their welding torches.

We of the words need gentler touch

(I feel). 

Past Life Regression

Some years ago when I was a journalist I was asked to cover a session with hypnotist Joe Keeton* in which a number of invited readers were asked to undergo initial tests to see if they were suitable candidates for hypnotic regression.

Joe, from Meols on the Wirral, was at that time featured in a TV series and had brought out a book based on some of his more involved cases.  Before we started Joe warned that people who claim to be descended from Julius Caesar or Marie Antoinette were frequently disappointed to find that actually the lives they remembered were ordinary, humdrum and often squalid.

We persevered and a small group of us – myself included – met whatever standards Joe was looking for. We actually met up with him several times and underwent hypnosis about five or six times in all. Each of us was hypnotised and “taken back” to a time before our current life’s birth. 

Before I go any further let me explain how it went… We all gathered in a small room and went through some exercises – mainly visualisation – and Joe would decide who was most receptive and that person would be hypnotised with a particular phrase. (I can still remember mine and it still helps me get to sleep some times) Then we were asked to go back to a particular time, either a date given by the group or to a significant event in the character’s memory.

In my case I had three sets of memories that emerged.  One was (I think) Victorian but I never really managed to get past a rather scary memory of a fire.  The “group” interpreted it as my having died in a fire but actually it seemed more like some sort of public bonfire and I’d been pushed to the front and I was just scared.   A second character was the one previous to my present life (Going back to five years before my “current” birth takes me to the last few years of the previous life)  That one would say nothing but answered every question with a giggle or a strange noise. I THINK I was in a lunatic asylum and shut away by myself but I don’t have terribly clear memories of that either.

Number three was more interesting. She was daughter of the gamekeeper on an estate somewhere in Surrey – near Farnham – and the first time we encountered her she was cooking rabbit in the kitchen of the house she shared with her father.  One of the group suggested that maybe she shouldn’t be eating rabbit but she was quite indignant and insisted that they were “allowed rabbits”.  She also fancied the squire’s son who was a hunky blond guy in a scarlet army uniform.  Some romantic suggested finding out if there was a happy ending and we went to the squire’s son’s wedding day – sure enough he was walking out of a house by the church with a very beautiful dark-haired beauty befitting his station.  And my character was standing in the crowd watching, like the good estate worker she was!

The bit that fascinated me most, however, was actually a mistake.  For some reason the group wanted to find out where she died. The breathing got very rattling and uneven and everything was quite dark and they mistimed it. Joe actually let her die. Yes – I really got as far as walking along that corridor with all the hands and the light at the end.  Since which time I really haven’t been scared of dying.  I still wonder if I’d have come back if I’d been allowed to walk all the way. Maybe not.

*Sadly Joe died in 2003. I'm sure he's sadly missed by everyone who ever had the opportunity to work with him.  If you'd like to know more about him you can read it here. 

Bookcases

One of the things I love to do when I first visit a person’s home is to check out their bookcase, because it can offer a wonderful insight into the person’s nature. Appearances can be deceptive, but a book collection gathered over a lifetime reflects some of the things that have interested a person and made them who they are. I compare whether they have similar tastes to mine, whether familiar titles are on the shelves, but I also look for authors outside my experience. 

I have made several discoveries of great writers by poaching someone else’s taste. I also check whether the pages are dog-eared or if the owner uses bookmarks. If so, what kind of thing do they use - perhaps an old envelope, or a carefully crafted marker with ribbon or tassel to keep the place. I check if covers are treated with care, or if pages are creased and spines broken. 

Above all I look to see whether the books are ordered by size or colour, as if they are purely for show or whether they have signs of regular use. Perhaps there is a dictionary or reference book still on the table from being recently consulted, or a novel with a bookmark part-way through and left on a chair. Readers can always find something they have in common and new friendships can be forged through shared experience of a favourite tale. I find most of my real friends are regular readers who like to have books around them.

My Dad

(Rescued from some old files.)

We looked alike, my Dad and me; but I shouldn’t be surprised because the whole family were really similar. Dad’s three brothers and their father. Like peas in a pod they were. Considering they weren’t close they could never deny each other. They were too much alike for that. The whole family was a bit fragmented. Only got together on high days and holidays and then, as the years went by, just weddings and funerals. And lately it was just funerals.

I was only young when my grandad died and I don’t remember much about his funeral.  He was still a relatively young man but he’d had a tough life and it had taken its toll. He lied about his age to get into the army in time for the first world war and got gassed for his trouble.  Not to mention the eye that he lost when a bit of tree flew off near his face as result of a sniper bullet. But it got him out of the war and back home into a reserved occupation. Spent the rest of his working life on the railways like his sons after him. Except my Dad.

There wasn’t much that my Dad took from his family except a love of gardening and a general care for the world around him.  He left home just as soon as he could, almost like his father, he joined up as soon as he was old enough and went off to be a sailor at the end of world war two. He never saw action because he scared everyone that Britain was fighting against, at least that’s what he said.  He reckoned that as soon as anyone found out that he was on his way to fight they gave in. First the Germans then the Japs.  He arrived in Tokyo just in time for the party to celebrate the end of hostilities and sailed into the harbour to the sound of “Land of Hope and Glory” ringing in his ears.  He used to talk about that a lot.

He never really left the navy because almost as soon as he was out he was recruited back to do something I never understood and he didn’t talk about. Something secret. Not that he was a spy or anything, though the kids at school whose dads were just butchers and car mechanics used to think he was, he just wasn’t allowed to talk about it. Something to do with the Cold War.  My Dad must have been at some sort of war for most of his life.

We were always close, my Dad and me. Whatever I was doing he wanted to know and showed an interest and often came with me, fossil hunting or finding animal tracks in the mud or identifying leaves or touring round burial mounds and standing stones. Yes, we were always close and he always said that he enjoyed my education much more than his own and learned a lot more too.

We had the usual troubles as I grew up. The kind of “you’re not wearing a skirt that short” and “can’t you bring home a smarter young man than that” type of stuff but it was always well meant. It was never harsh or cruel, unlike my mother’s criticisms, but constructive and always said with a kind voice.

His voice was always kind, and easy to listen to. He taught me to read by sitting with me and telling me what the words meant in his favourite books. After I went to school and started reading what teachers had given me he would sit at breakfast and ask me about them.  “What are you reading at the moment?  Who is it by?  Are you enjoying it? Why?” I could never avoid his questions.  I was expected to tell him the story so far, in my own words, to show that I had read and understood what I had seen.  If I got it wrong he used to say so and suggest I went back to read it again. I thought he had read every book in the world. He hadn’t, of course. He was just reading the same book after I went to bed so that he was a few pages ahead of me by morning.

It was the same thing every day. “What are you reading? Who is it by? Are you enjoying it?  Why?” So I had to get it right and I quickly developed a talent for being able to read and remember clearly anything in a book.  A useful skill, and one I have never lost. We could always share books as a result.  He could read something and just hand it to me and say “you’ll enjoy that” and he was never wrong. So many of my favourites were first given to me by my Dad.

I can still remember the day that I went home from school and said I’d found this wonderful book and it was about these animals, a mole and a rat and the mole had been spring cleaning and got fed up so he went for a walk and he met the rat and they went up the river for a picnic and there was a boat and sandwiches.  The smile was the only clue that the book was different. “Who is it by? What is it called? Are you enjoying it? Why?” It was the Wind in the Willows of course and destined to become one of my all time favourites; the same as it was one of his.  One of hundreds of good reads that we shared over the years.

So how do I commemorate this wonderful gift that my father gave to me: this love of reading, this need for books? Well, I currently own around two thousand novels and text books, many of which I inherited when he died, several of which I had bought as gifts for him and then received back when he no longer needed them. Poetry, short stories, art, history and tall tales are all included, as is a small part of my Dad, whenever I pick one of them up off the shelf and start to read.

More creative writing

I was set a task to write a short piece with 3 facts and 1 fiction in it.  Can you tell what's what?

The parish church of St Martin stands, unusually, almost at the edge of the village of Edwick. Nobody is quite sure why it isn't central, but there have been many explanations put forward over the years. Perhaps the most picturesque is that it moved miraculously when the Devil once tried to get in the door. 


Closer to the village centre is the old school, now a youth club, which stands directly opposite the black and white Edwick Arms, where many of the club members drink their first sneaky sips of underage alcohol. That's if they can't get away with buying it from the nearby mini-market. 

Jack Wright of Welwick

A writing exercise for the FutureLearn course - Starting to write fiction

Jack Wright strolled down to the pub from his rented cottage on the edge of the village. On the way he passed the tall corten steel sculpture of the four Jacobeans with their barrels of gunpowder. He was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans, low heeled boots, and a black jersey. The collar of a blue and white striped shirt just showed above the neckline, and he ran a finger uncomfortably under the cloth as he walked.  He had tried various outfits in the month since he arrived, but none of them seemed to sit well with the locals. He always felt uneasy when he walked through the doorway into the bar and silence fell, as many pairs of eyes turned on him with an air of disapproval. Despite smiling and wishing everyone a good evening the best he had elicited from anyone was a brief grunt. Even the landlord managed only a curt, “Jack” then waited for his order.

Ever since moving to the village Jack had been aware that he had the same name as one of the four figures in the artwork. The original Jack Wright had been part of the Gunpowder Plot, as had his brother Kit, though their given names were John and Christopher. Jack wasn’t short for John in his case though, he’d always been Jack. He thought perhaps the coincidence was part of the reason for the locals’ poor reception of him. As an early thirty-something he was half the age of most of the old codgers around the bar, which didn’t help either, but he suspected the real trouble was yet to come when he introduced his partner into the mix. Why did he have to have a partner called Kit? A male partner called Kit. He was pretty sure this place wasn’t ready for a gay couple, especially where one was such a flamboyant peacock as Kit Spencer.

Inspired by the news

This was a writing challenge to create a piece of up to 500 words inspired by something we heard on the radio.  Except this was on TV.  Whatever.

One by one Terri pulled open the drawers and checked the contents. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. It was so disappointing that this 1960s classic was yielding nothing of interest. Not so much as a sheet of newsprint to line the old pine.  As a furniture recycler she was used to finding odd and interesting things in the pieces she bought. Over the years she’d found postcards, old coins, leaky pens, ancient stationery and all kinds of cheap trinkets that previous owners had clearly not wanted when the furniture went for sale.

Just as she was giving up on this hunt the final drawer put up a fight and refused to open. There was no lock, so it couldn’t be that, it had to be that it was sticky, that’s all.  And so she put all her effort into hauling on the handles. Sixties design looked cool, but it was a case of form over function. It was almost impossible to get a good grip on the smoothly polished block of wood but that only served to make her more determined. There must be another way.

Taking a good look at the sides of the piece she realized she could probably get something sharp behind the drawer front, if only she had the right tool. Rifling through the toolbox she came across a screwdriver with a sturdy handle. She remembered the object from when she inherited the box from her dad and she’d thought at the time that she’d never have a use for it. She couldn’t imagine ever having to unscrew anything so big, and really didn’t believe she would have the strength to use it, even if she did have the need.  But she had faithfully kept the tool all these years because it had been her dad’s and she couldn’t bear to part with it. This box of treasured tools was one of the reasons she’d taken up restoration as a new career.

“Thanks Dad,” she said as she hefted the chunky piece of iron and placed it carefully on the line that separated the drawer edge from the frame, “It’s the next best thing to a jemmy.”

She pushed carefully and managed to insert the very edge of the screwdriver in the crack, then levered gently at first to see if there was any movement. Gradually she increased the pressure, then suddenly the crack widened and the drawer shot forward several inches. Excitedly she pulled the drawer forward and saw inside a printed leaflet. It had a photograph of a pretty girl who looked as if she was in her teens or early twenties with the tragic words “In memoriam” printed beneath it. Terri’s eyes immediately filled with tears.