(Find out more about Seven Answers).
2. Describe a pivotal experience in your life.
Getting depression. Ended up being the most positive experience of my life. Finally realised that people liked/loved me for me, and not for what I was able to do for them. Was no help to anyone, but my friends and loved ones still wanted me around. Helped me with my self-esteem and to work out who I wanted in my life.
Wednesday, 15 February 2017
Seven Answers III: A Memory
(Read more about Seven Answers).
6. Describe one of your early memories.
I was fourteen months old, still in diapers, and sitting in the mud puddle which always formed after a rain at the corner of our dead-end street. It was a shallow puddle, very warm, and I vividly remember the feel of the clay-ey mud below the water, soft as butter, squishy and impossible to grab, and the way it would 'powder' up and turn the water opaque when disturbed with a fist or a foot. I remember fishing out drowned worms and throwing them to one side. I don't remember anyone lifting me out of the water or scolding me for playing in the mud, but I have been told that I did it quite often...
My partner, who is a psychologist and very wise, has patiently explained to me why I cannot be remembering this, that no one can truly remember something from before the age of three or four at the earliest... but I do. Soft as butter...
6. Describe one of your early memories.
I was fourteen months old, still in diapers, and sitting in the mud puddle which always formed after a rain at the corner of our dead-end street. It was a shallow puddle, very warm, and I vividly remember the feel of the clay-ey mud below the water, soft as butter, squishy and impossible to grab, and the way it would 'powder' up and turn the water opaque when disturbed with a fist or a foot. I remember fishing out drowned worms and throwing them to one side. I don't remember anyone lifting me out of the water or scolding me for playing in the mud, but I have been told that I did it quite often...
My partner, who is a psychologist and very wise, has patiently explained to me why I cannot be remembering this, that no one can truly remember something from before the age of three or four at the earliest... but I do. Soft as butter...
Tuesday, 14 February 2017
Seven Answers II: A House
(Find out more about Seven Answers.)
3. Tell me about a house that was important to you when you were a child.
My great aunt's house was mysterious and fascinating and I loved going there. I always wished I could live there. It was in the middle of a Victorian terrace, with green paintwork on the outside, and lots of rooms on the inside. We (my sister and I) were hardly ever allowed in the front room because it was laid out for best with a big posh wooden table and lacy tablecloth and candlesticks and silver and pictures of people I didn't recognise but was undoubtedly related to. The middle room was rented out to Mrs Riordan and you had to be careful not to press the wrong doorbell when you arrived because no one was to disturb her.
My great aunt lived mostly in the back room and the scullery which was a tiny kitchen with no fridge. The toilet was outside and we tried never to go in there because of the spiders. It was quite cold in winter, and there was a gas fire, but you could never get anywhere near it because of Mitzi, a black and white cat who didn't like children. She didn't like anyone if you ask me.
Upstairs there were several bedrooms, one with a bath in it. There was a 'new' indoor toilet with a bench seat that, in retrospect, looked like a medieval garderobe! At the end of the landing was my aunt's bedroom. At the front of the house it had a view over the busy main road. Sometimes she used to sit in the window doing her sewing and looking out. She used to make lavender bags. Once I sat with her. I can't remember where my mum was at the time.
Next to the bedroom door was an alcove with a curtain pulled over it. Behind the curtain was a little stairway. This led to the attic rooms which were dark and full of stuff, with a tiny tiny window. There was also a cellar where we probably were allowed, but didn't want to go on our own, and Mum wasn't coming with us so that was that.
There was a long garden at the back. We spent loads of time there playing with the lawn roller, picking up apples and looking at the millions of flowers that grew in the borders, on the stone walls and even out of the hollow stump of a tree. My great aunt had very green fingers and a very soft wrinkled face. She had a son, who I never met. When she died, well into her nineties, she left the house to him and it was sold. Sometimes, very occasionally, I go past it on the bus and I always look. It isn't green any more.
3. Tell me about a house that was important to you when you were a child.
My great aunt's house was mysterious and fascinating and I loved going there. I always wished I could live there. It was in the middle of a Victorian terrace, with green paintwork on the outside, and lots of rooms on the inside. We (my sister and I) were hardly ever allowed in the front room because it was laid out for best with a big posh wooden table and lacy tablecloth and candlesticks and silver and pictures of people I didn't recognise but was undoubtedly related to. The middle room was rented out to Mrs Riordan and you had to be careful not to press the wrong doorbell when you arrived because no one was to disturb her.
My great aunt lived mostly in the back room and the scullery which was a tiny kitchen with no fridge. The toilet was outside and we tried never to go in there because of the spiders. It was quite cold in winter, and there was a gas fire, but you could never get anywhere near it because of Mitzi, a black and white cat who didn't like children. She didn't like anyone if you ask me.
Upstairs there were several bedrooms, one with a bath in it. There was a 'new' indoor toilet with a bench seat that, in retrospect, looked like a medieval garderobe! At the end of the landing was my aunt's bedroom. At the front of the house it had a view over the busy main road. Sometimes she used to sit in the window doing her sewing and looking out. She used to make lavender bags. Once I sat with her. I can't remember where my mum was at the time.
Next to the bedroom door was an alcove with a curtain pulled over it. Behind the curtain was a little stairway. This led to the attic rooms which were dark and full of stuff, with a tiny tiny window. There was also a cellar where we probably were allowed, but didn't want to go on our own, and Mum wasn't coming with us so that was that.
There was a long garden at the back. We spent loads of time there playing with the lawn roller, picking up apples and looking at the millions of flowers that grew in the borders, on the stone walls and even out of the hollow stump of a tree. My great aunt had very green fingers and a very soft wrinkled face. She had a son, who I never met. When she died, well into her nineties, she left the house to him and it was sold. Sometimes, very occasionally, I go past it on the bus and I always look. It isn't green any more.
Seven Answers I: A Dream and a Crime
You can read about Seven Answers, my slow-cooking polyphonic project here.
1. Please tell me about a recent dream you've had.
I have a recurring dream which varies in its details but retains the central theme. The dream is that something has been taken from my house. It is generally a picture or a piece of furniture. I wake up in my bedroom and look at the walls, still convinced that certain items have been taken, though I am never exactly sure what they are. I try to picture the things which have been taken but can never fully bring them to mind. I fall asleep and when I wake later on I realise this [sic] nothing at all has been taken.
When I wake first I am completely sure that things have been taken but it's not burglary. It is rather that someone I know thinks there is an arrangement that they can take them due to something I have omitted to say or do. I've had the same dream for some years now and have been known to wander about in the night checking that my possessions are still there.
I can see some interesting links with my answer to question 7 here which hadn't occurred to me before.
7. Tell me about a crime you've committed or a lie you've told.
I'm too much of a scaredy cat to commit much crime knowingly. However I do remember coming home from a friend's house when I was very young with something which wasn't mine. It was a little metal hair clip covered in felt gloves for a doll's house. I seem to remember thinking that it was so lovely and I wanted it so much that surely I should have it. It didn't really occur to me that it was wrong to take it until the girl's mother telephoned my mother to say that I'd taken it. I had to take it back in person and apologise.
The experience had a big influence on me, before this I didn't realise what it really meant to steal someone else's property, though part of me still felt I should have the hairgrip since I valued it much more than she did! And now my dreams are all about how it feels when someone takes something which is yours!
Seven Answers
Samuel guarding the polyphony
Five years ago I devised a project based on seven writing prompts. I sent the prompts to my friends and asked them to reply anonymously.
Thirty-three people responded, each answering at least three of the prompts. My plan was to make a polyphonic prose-poem in seven parts, using fragments of their replies woven together to create a new whole.
These were my prompts:
1. Please tell me about a recent dream you've had.
2. Describe a pivotal experience in your life.
3. Tell me about a house that was important to you when you were a child.
4. Describe a romantic or sexual encounter you've had.
5. Tell me one of your deepest fears or wishes.
6. Describe one of your early memories.
7. Tell me about a crime you've committed or a lie you've told.
In the five years that have passed the fragments have refused to weave together. The trouble is that the responses are so interesting that chopping them up destroys them, and it misses the point too: the replies often sound like delicate confessions. There's a sense of freedom about them and they're often giddy and childlike. Cutting them into pieces robs them of their quality of spontaneity.
I've decided to publish my favourite replies as they were meant to be read: in their entirety, each one the voice of someone I know, though I have no idea whose story is whose.
Like other spring flowers, the pieces will emerge over the coming weeks.
Wednesday, 5 October 2016
A Creative Celebration of Ashdown Forest
Photograph by Terry James Walker (www.terryjameswalker.com)
I've teamed up with a composer, two storytellers, two forest school leaders, a conservationist-photograph
The excitement begins on Saturday, with a taster session, and wends its way through a story walk, a poetry reading, a soundscape, music and images, until Saturday 15th brings an evening of storytelling.
Here's a full list of events:
Everyone's welcome, so if you find yourself near Ashdown Forest next week, come along.
Tuesday, 28 June 2016
I voted to remain in the EU last Thursday. I've always loved being part of Europe and in many ways have felt more European than British.
Nonetheless, I thought we would leave. The Leave campaign was strong, Rupert Murdoch's papers, especially The Sun, supported leaving (it seems that in this country nowadays The Sun determines all our election results) and Leave had the catchy slogans ('Let's take our country back' was a particularly powerful one) and the biggest posters. Some were huge: in the weeks leading up to the election the fields of East Sussex were dotted with vast red banners, all shouting 'Vote Leave.' As time wore on I felt increasingly alienated from my neighbours.
Last Thursday my husband Phill & I walked up to the polling office in our village's Memorial Hall. There was a long queue and lots of people smiling and looking happy. I don't know exactly how my village voted, I only know the result for Wealden district was 54.5% to leave. I believe a lot of those happy, smiling faces were looking forward to voting out.
The queue moved slowly into the hall and there above the door was a sign telling us that the place was built in the memory of those who gave their lives fighting in the two World Wars. I felt like crying. It was horrible to think that everyone who was there to vote Leave was doing so in spite of the horrors of two European wars.
On Friday morning Phill got up at five to go fishing for the weekend. I woke up too. Phill looked at his i-pad and asked me, 'Do you want to know the result? It's Leave, 51.8%'
After that I couldn't sleep. Phill and I kept hugging one another. Even though we'd expected it we still couldn't believe it had actually happened, that the people of this country had really done something so stupid. I got up and we listened to Radio 4. There were still a few votes to come in but the results were conclusive. Phill left, though we were both in shock. I told him to drive carefully, I was so worried he wouldn't be able to concentrate.
After he left I kept walking from room to room. I turned on my phone and talked to friends on Facebook, almost all of whom were stunned and horrified. Only one person crowed that we'd socked it to Cameron. I don't think he understood what he'd done. I don't know whether he understands now, I dread speaking to him about it.
Later I phoned my mother, who voted Remain. Her first words were, 'Depressing isn't it.' At least she and I were on the same side and can talk about it. My dad voted Leave. I still haven't spoken to him. I don't know what I'll say when we do speak.
Brexit has changed the way I perceive this country. I'm not sure I want to live here any longer. When I walk into the village I look at other people with mistrust and wonder who among them voted for this mess. When I speak to people for the first time since it happened I speak in code and when they ask me how I am I say, 'Oh, you know.' If they looked perplexed I know they voted to leave.
In my creative writing class yesterday one of my students, who was born in Barbados but has lived here since 1967, told me that on Saturday she heard a little boy ask his grandmother why we'd had a referendum. The woman said, 'To keep foreigners out.' The little boy pointed to my student and said, 'Is that one?' and the woman said, 'Yes.' My student said that when she first came here she had a few problems, but she hadn't had any abuse in years. She was fighting back tears as she told me.
When I got home yesterday afternoon Phill said he'd just spoken to someone whose friend, who's black and born in this country, was on the Tube at the weekend when someone told her she should go back home. I understand that not everyone who voted Leave was motivated by racism, but Nigel Farage and the Leave campaign made it acceptable for people to voice their prejudices and it's frightening to see how quickly Britain has changed as a result.
David Cameron says the result showed the will of the people, but it only showed that of just over half the people who voted. The Government could call the whole thing off, as we all now know the referendum was only advisory, but it doesn't seem to have the courage to do so.
I haven't said anything new here and I haven't even said it very well. Many people I know feel the same way and many on the Leave side think we Remainers should shut up and accept the result, but at times like these we have to nail our colours to the mast. Mine are blue and yellow.
There's a march this Saturday and another next Saturday. I hope to go to both. I've also written to my MP, asking her to vote against Brexit in Parliament. I don't know what else to do. The Leave voters may honestly believe they've taken their country back, but in doing so they've robbed me of mine.
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