'Diving into Writing' by Lorna Smith (published in Use of English 2014)
Diving Into Writing: reflections on the first year of my involvement in the National Writing Project.
Lorna Smith, Senior Lecturer in Education, University of Bristol
In July 2014, I was fortunate enough to be able to interview Michael Rosen when he came to the NATE conference in Bristol to deliver the Harold Rosen Lecture. The theme of the conference was ‘Change and Challenge’ and so I asked him whether, at his time of curriculum upheaval, he had any messages for English teachers. His response was typically upbeat and reassuring. He said it was important for us to remember that we are experts in our field, intelligent and well-qualified. He advised us to think carefully about everything we are asked to do by central government and ‘to read, and read, and read’ (Rosen, 2014: NP). I asked him whether he thought we should write and write and write too. He responded,
“We used to have a strange idea that teachers could teach children to write without being writers themselves…[yet] the more you write, when you’re a teacher, the better you understand what writing is.” (ibid)
This, in a nutshell, is the philosophy behind the National Writing Project (NWP).
The most important thing I do is daydream. This is the springboard for me to write. (Rosen, 2014: NP)
I had written sporadically during my ten years as a classroom teacher and keep a daily journal, but did not consider myself a ‘writer myself’: I had been one of those whom Michael was implicitly criticising. I have since realised that I had not given myself the permission I needed to ‘daydream’, perhaps having seen that as a frivolity that would interrupt the serious work of teaching. My interest in writing myself has developed gradually through my role as a teacher educator. I co-led a small-scale research project on creative writing a few years ago (Fitzgerald and Smith, 2012), but focused more on encouraging the student teachers to write than writing myself. Yet, since having established an NWP group in Bristol in September 2012 - inspired by my enjoyment of a creative writing session I’d run for my student teachers to prepare them to teach the new Creative Writing A Level - I have begun to exercise my writing muscles properly and experience the adrenalin rush that comes with diving deeper in; I am also increasingly realising how important it can be in my work.
The Bristol group (also known as Teachers as Writers) is an offshoot of the NATE National Writing Project, a professional research project, begun in 2009. Founded and led by Simon Wrigley (English adviser 1994-2013, NATE chair 2004-6) and Dr Jeni Smith (Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of East Anglia), it is a network of about 25 teachers' writing groups, run by teachers for teachers. It is a grass-roots, not-for-profit research project that aims to explore writing and find out answers to the central question, 'What happens when teachers gather together to write and share their writing?'
The NWP was inspired by a similar project in the United States, which is this year celebrating its 40th anniversary. The principles of both projects are the same: that teachers are agents of reform, beginning in their own classrooms; that sharing the process of writing is a form of authentic professional development as well as personal development; that ongoing and sustained creative partnerships are of value in themselves and, collectively, have value as research data too; and that it is important to disseminate evidence of effective practice. Testimonies from those involved in America over the past four decades are profoundly moving: teachers write about the hopelessness they felt when taking over a low attaining, demotivated class at the beginning of school year and how, through bringing what they had learnt from their own experience of writing to the classroom, they gradually saw students become enthusiastic readers and confident writers (Jester, 2014). As Rosen said in his interview,
“… if teachers write, they’ll find the difficulties [involved in starting to write], they’ll find those moments where things happen [successfully] and they’ll say, well, how can I make those things happen with my students?” (op cit)
Similar findings are beginning to materialise from the UK project. The NWP project’s findings have already shown that, ‘through shared creative endeavour, teachers feel a greater sense of agency and are gaining greater understanding of writing and the teaching of writing.’ In turn, their pupils enjoy writing more and become fuller writers as a result of the changes their teachers introduce – and they make good progress (nwp.org.uk).
As teachers, we know that encouraging our students to explore ideas, experiment and solve problems for themselves is effective. Ofsted has noted that the best English teaching includes modelling writing (and reading) ‘powerfully’ (Ofsted, 2012:16) - it’s not about writing frames and worksheets (and definitely not just about SPaG). And we are not just talking about what is traditionally seen as ‘creative’ or what the national curriculum terms ‘imaginative’ (DfE 2014: 3) writing: this approach is a ‘force’ (Goldberg, 1998: NP) that infuses every genre and can potentially ‘reinvigorate’ (Andrews, 2008: 5) how we teach all types of writing.
How will I know what I think until I see what I write? (EM Forster in Fleming & Stevens, 2010: 89)
As the Bristol group has only been running a year, it would not yet be true to say that we have sufficient data to show that these findings are yet replicated in our own classrooms, but we are actively thinking about our writing; we are in training. We meet once a term, six times a year, on a Saturday morning at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Bristol - a conveniently central location, which the University generously allows us to use free of charge. Participants span all generations of English teachers, from student teachers and NQTs, to teachers of many years' experience and Heads of Department.
And represented amongst us are writers with a whole range of experience too. Developing the swimming metaphor, there are beginners - those just dipping their foot into the inviting yet intimidating pool of words and phrases and genres and ideas; those that written covertly for years and are seeking the courage to strike out beyond their depth for the first time; and those who are established writers, kicking confidently through the waters, with publications to their name. One writer is studying an Open University course on Creative Writing, one is just completing her first novel. What unites us is the urge to write in a supportive community and the desire for a constructively critical audience.
Each Saturday morning follows the same broad pattern. We meet at 10.00 and share in a collaborative activity designed to stimulate writing. Sometimes we have a special guest – once Simon Wrigley shared his philosophy on writing and led us through some writing activities; on another occasion, the poet David Briggs (and Head of English) read some of his work and discussed his approach to poetry with us. Both are highly recommended. We have visited Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, we have taken magnifying glasses and binoculars to a local nature reserve. After that initial inspiration, we write. Following a break for coffee, we read and comment on each other’s writing, acting as critical friends. We have a password-protected section of the NWP website - a shared area into which we can upload our work in progress, ask questions of our writing colleagues, and make suggestions on their work if responses are sought.
One year on, I am in a position to reflect on the success of the Bristol project do date.
What is immediately striking is the enthusiasm and dedication of the participants. One writer comes from Wales, another from Dorset, several from south Somerset: it is a considerable journey to Bristol for these teachers, yet they are happy to commit their Saturdays to taking part. I did not know when I set it up whether people would wish to continue beyond the academic year, but there is a definite drive to continue and I am planning the 2014-15 programme at the time of writing.
The greater proof, of course, lies with the writing generated. Prompted by the NWP resources (see the Research tab on the website), we have reflected on the writing process itself, and I’d like to quote from several participants.
‘I love words. Words are a very real, constant present in my life, to the point of obsession. I make lists of words, I highlight and underline words I read, I say strange words out loud, I carry a dictionary almost everywhere with me, I record new words I hear, I challenge words that seem inept to me and, in short, I can’t stop hoarding words, words, words! A true logophile. But I soon found that finding a use, an outlet, for these words is as important. This is potentially where writing became significant for me. Putting words together, finding the perfect words to make expression effective is a satisfying puzzle.’ (Jacq)
‘Since I started teaching the AS Level in Creative Writing, I've made myself participate in my own lessons, which has been really interesting - it helps to see things from the students' perspective, but is also a rare opportunity for writing in school time. I get very focused and have had to be reminded that it's time for lunch by the students on a couple of occasions now!’ (Sarah)
‘Lists of things to do; lists of things to buy; reports; emails; emails; emails. I spend much of my day writing, yet hardly any time writing what I really want to write. I do keep a personal diary (and have done since I was about twelve), but there is a fixed row of lines for each day that leaves little room for exploration or elaboration. I don’t write creatively nearly enough and I’m hungry to write more… Our group has only met twice, but already I feel more of a writer. Talking about words and how those words can meld into writing is both chastening and liberating. In the group we have shared ideas and memories which opened a tap and flooded my mind with thoughts that I raced to write down before they were washed away.’ (Lorna)
Thinking about how, why and what we write enables us to ask the same questions of ourselves that we ask of students – what is the purpose, what is the audience, what do I want to say and how should I best say it? Over the coming year, we will reflect on the impact that asking ourselves these questions explicitly has on our teaching and on our students. We want to help them take the plunge. I am particularly interested in exploring to what extent the approach can help to improve literacy skills, in comparison to more formal literacy interventions.
This article ends with some of the writing produced from our first year. The NWP website provides further information for anyone who wants to join us. Come on in, the water’s lovely.
[Writing is] practical magic (Almond in Steven and McGuinn, 2004: 1)
Writing inspired by a sketch: Simon Wrigley asked us to draw a map of a building or room that we remembered. We annotated the map with words, phrases, fragments of ideas, and developed these into a piece of writing.
I vaguely remember my first impressions of the house in Ware Road that would become my family home. It was 1971 when I first visited it. I can't truthfully remember the season, but I see it in my mind's eye always as an overcast day, or rather just dull, a sky white and mild as milk. Air tepid as a bath that's been left. I don't think the garden grass was wet when I lay on it, but it was soft. I lay by a low wall in what was once a miniature sunken garden and looked back towards the rear wall of the house and felt what I might now call foreboding. The house was dark and huge and had smelt of damp. There was also a cellar and an attic. Stuff of nightmares. This house was so far removed from the cosy cottage, Tavern Cottage, in which I'd been born and had lived the first four years. As we'd walked through the ground floor I'd been struck by just how dark and gloomy it seemed, this new house, where we would be moving. The decision had been made, the grammar, implacable. We'd 'outgrown' the cottage. I somehow sensed it was my fault. The kitchen and larder were cramped and there was also something Mum called 'a scullery' - I imagined it was where the skulls of the dead people who lived here were kept - and neither Mum nor Dad realised the need to explain the word and so the idea stuck. Anyway all this, kitchen, larder, scullery was to be knocked through, made into something very vogue in the '70s, something my parents called 'open plan'. They seemed to like 'open plan'. There'd be a window here, in this wall, the back wall overlooking the garden, and a large dining area for the whole family to eat at, together. The oil tank for the central heating, (yes that's right there'll be proper heating in this house - no more Calor-gas stoves and three layers of jumpers in winter), the oil tank would be outside against the back wall, underneath the 'picture window' where the washer-upper at the sink (my mother, in other words) could keep an eye on us and our mischief. We'd bask in the warmth of our oil-fired centrally-heated, open plan new home. This was a new start for us all. We were none of us to know that coming in the next two years was a middle east oil crisis, the three day week, power cuts and a marriage breakdown. (Puck)
Autobiographical poetry: David Briggs encouraged us to ‘write the self’ and to look for ‘the real toad in the imaginary garden’.
Flora
You battled me from the day of your birth.
Came out fighting,
Tiny fists beating at an invisible world
A battle that has never stopped.
Your brick red, tantrum streaked face
Alternately frustrating and hilarious
Then an equally impassioned embrace
Anger turned to love, on the turn of a moment.
Questing, curious, independent, knowing
Your font was knowledge rather than religion
Why? When? Where? What?
By turns maddening and endearing.
I see the woman you will be
In the malleable, changing form you are.
I see your truth, your beauty, your hope
Even in the screams of ‘It’s not fair!’
My mother thinks she’s helping when she says
I was just the same as you.
I can never hope to be, in my whole life
All that you already are.
(Fay)
This is a mixture of fiction and autobiography.
They said they’d leave a chair empty, so that people would remember he had five children not four. So that people would know she was there in spirit. Her brother Peter had called and asked if she’d like to email something he could read out: to be a part of the proceedings, if only by proxy.
She sat at her desk, fingers poised over the keyboard, distracted by the cicak skittering up the wall beside her. The children were asleep, safe from whining mosquitoes beneath white nets . The house was quiet, with just an occasional bark from strays in the street intruding on her thoughts. A glass of red, her liquid muse, had yet to fulfil its role: which words to choose; which memory from over four decades of material; which single event to convey the volumes she wished to say in the couple of minutes allocated her?
She let past time flow around her in the sticky heat of the present, picking up, examining and then discarding moments as unequal to the task. But then a memory stuck. She took a closer look, and with a smile her fingers started clattering on the keys as the story emerged of an afternoon forgotten, one not archived in the family albums.
They had been on holiday in Luxembourg – or was it Austria? – on a campsite by a lake. Dad was rowing with her and James when he’d said he wanted a swim. No swimming for them though – the water was much too cold. He demonstrated how to hold the oars and then lowered himself over the side. Something flopped into the boat and they had squealed, imagining perhaps a fishy invader, before recognising it was just their father’s swimming trunks oozing water at their feet.
How he loved to be naked – a tangential memory of scouting the corridor before allowing sleepover friends to emerge from her room threatened to break the thread, but she brushed it aside.
At some point they decided to row for the shore, re-enacting the stealing-the-clothes gag guaranteed to always raise a smile. Their father had remained calm; traversing the lake with slow, strong strokes. He then emerged dripping from the lake and strolled back to their caravan for a towel. She remembered feeling horrified and yet somehow in awe at his boldness.
Clicking ‘Send’, she exhaled slowly and slumped back in the chair. She picked up the forgotten wine glass as other memories drifted in and out, until the moment when she’d had to say goodbye was snagged on an invisible hook and hauled front and centre.
Her father had been much reduced when she saw him on her visits to the hospital - a sick, old man replacing the strong figure she held in her mind, one who had been so proud of his masculinity even as he aged.
He insisted she choose some CDs to take back to Borneo with her – their love of classical music a private connection long cherished. As she browsed through the cases stacked on the window sill, she suddenly asked, ‘Who were you particularly into when we were in Labuan, Dad?’
‘Labuan? Why do you ask?’
‘I was just thinking about when I used to wake up at night and wander into the sitting room to find you with those monstrous black headphones on, wildly conducting invisible orchestras. Then you would lie down on the couch with me and play the music softly over the speakers so I could hear it.’
He too smiled at the memory. ‘Beethoven.’
Sitting side by side on the hospital bed, conversation failed them. What to say in that moment? Most goodbyes suggested a see you again but they both grasped the finality of this occasion. She remembered the quiet crying. His, not hers; military stiff-upper-lip abandoned. Its uniqueness had shocked her and she had been aware of a piercing despair at the role reversal – she didn’t want to be the parent, she wanted to remain the child in that moment, Daddy’s Girl.
She’d left the room quickly, wishing she’d organised someone to be there, to comfort him.
Pausing in the thankfully deserted corridor, she laid her head against the cool, sterile wall allowing herself to mourn those moments missed, past and future - and the distances kept.
A familiar creak on the stairs and a plaintive “Mummy!” broke into her reverie. Draining her glass, she vacated the chair and went to her daughter.
(Bev)
References:
Almond, D (undated) in Stevens, D and McGuinn, N (2004) The Art of Teaching Secondary English: Innovative and Creative Approaches, London: Routledge Falmer,
Andrews, R (2008) Getting Going: generating, shaping and developing ideas in writing London: DCSF; available at: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130401151715/http://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/00283-2008BKT-EN.pdf [last accessed 01.08.2014]
Fitzgerald and Smith (2012) Celebrating creativity collaboratively: Inspiring
PGCE English trainees to teach creative writing in ‘English in Education’, Sheffield, NATE, Vol.46 No.1 2012, pp55-68
Forster, EM (1927) in Fleming, M and Stevens, D (2010, 3rd ed) English Teaching in the Secondary School: Linking Theory and Practice London: David Fulton
Goldberg (1998) Teachers of Writing Should Write US NWP available online at http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/568 [last accessed 01.08.2014]
Jester, J (2014) NWP: Where Teachers Meet True Grit available online at: http://our.nwp.org/ [last accessed 27.07.14]
National Writing Project (UK) available at: http://www.nwp.org.uk/ [last accessed 01.08.2014]
National Writing Project (USA) available at: http://www.nwp.org/ [last accessed 01.08.2014]
Ofsted (2012) Moving English Forward Manchester: Ofsted
Rosen, M (2014) Michael Rosen's message to English teachers available online at: http://www.nate.org.uk/index.php?page=34&news=340 [last accessed 27.07.14]
Lorna Smith, Senior Lecturer in Education, University of Bristol
In July 2014, I was fortunate enough to be able to interview Michael Rosen when he came to the NATE conference in Bristol to deliver the Harold Rosen Lecture. The theme of the conference was ‘Change and Challenge’ and so I asked him whether, at his time of curriculum upheaval, he had any messages for English teachers. His response was typically upbeat and reassuring. He said it was important for us to remember that we are experts in our field, intelligent and well-qualified. He advised us to think carefully about everything we are asked to do by central government and ‘to read, and read, and read’ (Rosen, 2014: NP). I asked him whether he thought we should write and write and write too. He responded,
“We used to have a strange idea that teachers could teach children to write without being writers themselves…[yet] the more you write, when you’re a teacher, the better you understand what writing is.” (ibid)
This, in a nutshell, is the philosophy behind the National Writing Project (NWP).
The most important thing I do is daydream. This is the springboard for me to write. (Rosen, 2014: NP)
I had written sporadically during my ten years as a classroom teacher and keep a daily journal, but did not consider myself a ‘writer myself’: I had been one of those whom Michael was implicitly criticising. I have since realised that I had not given myself the permission I needed to ‘daydream’, perhaps having seen that as a frivolity that would interrupt the serious work of teaching. My interest in writing myself has developed gradually through my role as a teacher educator. I co-led a small-scale research project on creative writing a few years ago (Fitzgerald and Smith, 2012), but focused more on encouraging the student teachers to write than writing myself. Yet, since having established an NWP group in Bristol in September 2012 - inspired by my enjoyment of a creative writing session I’d run for my student teachers to prepare them to teach the new Creative Writing A Level - I have begun to exercise my writing muscles properly and experience the adrenalin rush that comes with diving deeper in; I am also increasingly realising how important it can be in my work.
The Bristol group (also known as Teachers as Writers) is an offshoot of the NATE National Writing Project, a professional research project, begun in 2009. Founded and led by Simon Wrigley (English adviser 1994-2013, NATE chair 2004-6) and Dr Jeni Smith (Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of East Anglia), it is a network of about 25 teachers' writing groups, run by teachers for teachers. It is a grass-roots, not-for-profit research project that aims to explore writing and find out answers to the central question, 'What happens when teachers gather together to write and share their writing?'
The NWP was inspired by a similar project in the United States, which is this year celebrating its 40th anniversary. The principles of both projects are the same: that teachers are agents of reform, beginning in their own classrooms; that sharing the process of writing is a form of authentic professional development as well as personal development; that ongoing and sustained creative partnerships are of value in themselves and, collectively, have value as research data too; and that it is important to disseminate evidence of effective practice. Testimonies from those involved in America over the past four decades are profoundly moving: teachers write about the hopelessness they felt when taking over a low attaining, demotivated class at the beginning of school year and how, through bringing what they had learnt from their own experience of writing to the classroom, they gradually saw students become enthusiastic readers and confident writers (Jester, 2014). As Rosen said in his interview,
“… if teachers write, they’ll find the difficulties [involved in starting to write], they’ll find those moments where things happen [successfully] and they’ll say, well, how can I make those things happen with my students?” (op cit)
Similar findings are beginning to materialise from the UK project. The NWP project’s findings have already shown that, ‘through shared creative endeavour, teachers feel a greater sense of agency and are gaining greater understanding of writing and the teaching of writing.’ In turn, their pupils enjoy writing more and become fuller writers as a result of the changes their teachers introduce – and they make good progress (nwp.org.uk).
As teachers, we know that encouraging our students to explore ideas, experiment and solve problems for themselves is effective. Ofsted has noted that the best English teaching includes modelling writing (and reading) ‘powerfully’ (Ofsted, 2012:16) - it’s not about writing frames and worksheets (and definitely not just about SPaG). And we are not just talking about what is traditionally seen as ‘creative’ or what the national curriculum terms ‘imaginative’ (DfE 2014: 3) writing: this approach is a ‘force’ (Goldberg, 1998: NP) that infuses every genre and can potentially ‘reinvigorate’ (Andrews, 2008: 5) how we teach all types of writing.
How will I know what I think until I see what I write? (EM Forster in Fleming & Stevens, 2010: 89)
As the Bristol group has only been running a year, it would not yet be true to say that we have sufficient data to show that these findings are yet replicated in our own classrooms, but we are actively thinking about our writing; we are in training. We meet once a term, six times a year, on a Saturday morning at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Bristol - a conveniently central location, which the University generously allows us to use free of charge. Participants span all generations of English teachers, from student teachers and NQTs, to teachers of many years' experience and Heads of Department.
And represented amongst us are writers with a whole range of experience too. Developing the swimming metaphor, there are beginners - those just dipping their foot into the inviting yet intimidating pool of words and phrases and genres and ideas; those that written covertly for years and are seeking the courage to strike out beyond their depth for the first time; and those who are established writers, kicking confidently through the waters, with publications to their name. One writer is studying an Open University course on Creative Writing, one is just completing her first novel. What unites us is the urge to write in a supportive community and the desire for a constructively critical audience.
Each Saturday morning follows the same broad pattern. We meet at 10.00 and share in a collaborative activity designed to stimulate writing. Sometimes we have a special guest – once Simon Wrigley shared his philosophy on writing and led us through some writing activities; on another occasion, the poet David Briggs (and Head of English) read some of his work and discussed his approach to poetry with us. Both are highly recommended. We have visited Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, we have taken magnifying glasses and binoculars to a local nature reserve. After that initial inspiration, we write. Following a break for coffee, we read and comment on each other’s writing, acting as critical friends. We have a password-protected section of the NWP website - a shared area into which we can upload our work in progress, ask questions of our writing colleagues, and make suggestions on their work if responses are sought.
One year on, I am in a position to reflect on the success of the Bristol project do date.
What is immediately striking is the enthusiasm and dedication of the participants. One writer comes from Wales, another from Dorset, several from south Somerset: it is a considerable journey to Bristol for these teachers, yet they are happy to commit their Saturdays to taking part. I did not know when I set it up whether people would wish to continue beyond the academic year, but there is a definite drive to continue and I am planning the 2014-15 programme at the time of writing.
The greater proof, of course, lies with the writing generated. Prompted by the NWP resources (see the Research tab on the website), we have reflected on the writing process itself, and I’d like to quote from several participants.
‘I love words. Words are a very real, constant present in my life, to the point of obsession. I make lists of words, I highlight and underline words I read, I say strange words out loud, I carry a dictionary almost everywhere with me, I record new words I hear, I challenge words that seem inept to me and, in short, I can’t stop hoarding words, words, words! A true logophile. But I soon found that finding a use, an outlet, for these words is as important. This is potentially where writing became significant for me. Putting words together, finding the perfect words to make expression effective is a satisfying puzzle.’ (Jacq)
‘Since I started teaching the AS Level in Creative Writing, I've made myself participate in my own lessons, which has been really interesting - it helps to see things from the students' perspective, but is also a rare opportunity for writing in school time. I get very focused and have had to be reminded that it's time for lunch by the students on a couple of occasions now!’ (Sarah)
‘Lists of things to do; lists of things to buy; reports; emails; emails; emails. I spend much of my day writing, yet hardly any time writing what I really want to write. I do keep a personal diary (and have done since I was about twelve), but there is a fixed row of lines for each day that leaves little room for exploration or elaboration. I don’t write creatively nearly enough and I’m hungry to write more… Our group has only met twice, but already I feel more of a writer. Talking about words and how those words can meld into writing is both chastening and liberating. In the group we have shared ideas and memories which opened a tap and flooded my mind with thoughts that I raced to write down before they were washed away.’ (Lorna)
Thinking about how, why and what we write enables us to ask the same questions of ourselves that we ask of students – what is the purpose, what is the audience, what do I want to say and how should I best say it? Over the coming year, we will reflect on the impact that asking ourselves these questions explicitly has on our teaching and on our students. We want to help them take the plunge. I am particularly interested in exploring to what extent the approach can help to improve literacy skills, in comparison to more formal literacy interventions.
This article ends with some of the writing produced from our first year. The NWP website provides further information for anyone who wants to join us. Come on in, the water’s lovely.
[Writing is] practical magic (Almond in Steven and McGuinn, 2004: 1)
Writing inspired by a sketch: Simon Wrigley asked us to draw a map of a building or room that we remembered. We annotated the map with words, phrases, fragments of ideas, and developed these into a piece of writing.
I vaguely remember my first impressions of the house in Ware Road that would become my family home. It was 1971 when I first visited it. I can't truthfully remember the season, but I see it in my mind's eye always as an overcast day, or rather just dull, a sky white and mild as milk. Air tepid as a bath that's been left. I don't think the garden grass was wet when I lay on it, but it was soft. I lay by a low wall in what was once a miniature sunken garden and looked back towards the rear wall of the house and felt what I might now call foreboding. The house was dark and huge and had smelt of damp. There was also a cellar and an attic. Stuff of nightmares. This house was so far removed from the cosy cottage, Tavern Cottage, in which I'd been born and had lived the first four years. As we'd walked through the ground floor I'd been struck by just how dark and gloomy it seemed, this new house, where we would be moving. The decision had been made, the grammar, implacable. We'd 'outgrown' the cottage. I somehow sensed it was my fault. The kitchen and larder were cramped and there was also something Mum called 'a scullery' - I imagined it was where the skulls of the dead people who lived here were kept - and neither Mum nor Dad realised the need to explain the word and so the idea stuck. Anyway all this, kitchen, larder, scullery was to be knocked through, made into something very vogue in the '70s, something my parents called 'open plan'. They seemed to like 'open plan'. There'd be a window here, in this wall, the back wall overlooking the garden, and a large dining area for the whole family to eat at, together. The oil tank for the central heating, (yes that's right there'll be proper heating in this house - no more Calor-gas stoves and three layers of jumpers in winter), the oil tank would be outside against the back wall, underneath the 'picture window' where the washer-upper at the sink (my mother, in other words) could keep an eye on us and our mischief. We'd bask in the warmth of our oil-fired centrally-heated, open plan new home. This was a new start for us all. We were none of us to know that coming in the next two years was a middle east oil crisis, the three day week, power cuts and a marriage breakdown. (Puck)
Autobiographical poetry: David Briggs encouraged us to ‘write the self’ and to look for ‘the real toad in the imaginary garden’.
Flora
You battled me from the day of your birth.
Came out fighting,
Tiny fists beating at an invisible world
A battle that has never stopped.
Your brick red, tantrum streaked face
Alternately frustrating and hilarious
Then an equally impassioned embrace
Anger turned to love, on the turn of a moment.
Questing, curious, independent, knowing
Your font was knowledge rather than religion
Why? When? Where? What?
By turns maddening and endearing.
I see the woman you will be
In the malleable, changing form you are.
I see your truth, your beauty, your hope
Even in the screams of ‘It’s not fair!’
My mother thinks she’s helping when she says
I was just the same as you.
I can never hope to be, in my whole life
All that you already are.
(Fay)
This is a mixture of fiction and autobiography.
They said they’d leave a chair empty, so that people would remember he had five children not four. So that people would know she was there in spirit. Her brother Peter had called and asked if she’d like to email something he could read out: to be a part of the proceedings, if only by proxy.
She sat at her desk, fingers poised over the keyboard, distracted by the cicak skittering up the wall beside her. The children were asleep, safe from whining mosquitoes beneath white nets . The house was quiet, with just an occasional bark from strays in the street intruding on her thoughts. A glass of red, her liquid muse, had yet to fulfil its role: which words to choose; which memory from over four decades of material; which single event to convey the volumes she wished to say in the couple of minutes allocated her?
She let past time flow around her in the sticky heat of the present, picking up, examining and then discarding moments as unequal to the task. But then a memory stuck. She took a closer look, and with a smile her fingers started clattering on the keys as the story emerged of an afternoon forgotten, one not archived in the family albums.
They had been on holiday in Luxembourg – or was it Austria? – on a campsite by a lake. Dad was rowing with her and James when he’d said he wanted a swim. No swimming for them though – the water was much too cold. He demonstrated how to hold the oars and then lowered himself over the side. Something flopped into the boat and they had squealed, imagining perhaps a fishy invader, before recognising it was just their father’s swimming trunks oozing water at their feet.
How he loved to be naked – a tangential memory of scouting the corridor before allowing sleepover friends to emerge from her room threatened to break the thread, but she brushed it aside.
At some point they decided to row for the shore, re-enacting the stealing-the-clothes gag guaranteed to always raise a smile. Their father had remained calm; traversing the lake with slow, strong strokes. He then emerged dripping from the lake and strolled back to their caravan for a towel. She remembered feeling horrified and yet somehow in awe at his boldness.
Clicking ‘Send’, she exhaled slowly and slumped back in the chair. She picked up the forgotten wine glass as other memories drifted in and out, until the moment when she’d had to say goodbye was snagged on an invisible hook and hauled front and centre.
Her father had been much reduced when she saw him on her visits to the hospital - a sick, old man replacing the strong figure she held in her mind, one who had been so proud of his masculinity even as he aged.
He insisted she choose some CDs to take back to Borneo with her – their love of classical music a private connection long cherished. As she browsed through the cases stacked on the window sill, she suddenly asked, ‘Who were you particularly into when we were in Labuan, Dad?’
‘Labuan? Why do you ask?’
‘I was just thinking about when I used to wake up at night and wander into the sitting room to find you with those monstrous black headphones on, wildly conducting invisible orchestras. Then you would lie down on the couch with me and play the music softly over the speakers so I could hear it.’
He too smiled at the memory. ‘Beethoven.’
Sitting side by side on the hospital bed, conversation failed them. What to say in that moment? Most goodbyes suggested a see you again but they both grasped the finality of this occasion. She remembered the quiet crying. His, not hers; military stiff-upper-lip abandoned. Its uniqueness had shocked her and she had been aware of a piercing despair at the role reversal – she didn’t want to be the parent, she wanted to remain the child in that moment, Daddy’s Girl.
She’d left the room quickly, wishing she’d organised someone to be there, to comfort him.
Pausing in the thankfully deserted corridor, she laid her head against the cool, sterile wall allowing herself to mourn those moments missed, past and future - and the distances kept.
A familiar creak on the stairs and a plaintive “Mummy!” broke into her reverie. Draining her glass, she vacated the chair and went to her daughter.
(Bev)
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