My Story 'Gone' from Lancashire Writers of Today 2024

 

An anthology of the 2024 prize-winning and commended writings of the Lancashire Authors’ Association.

The LAA has been promoting the reading and writing of Lancashire literature since 1909. Fellowship and Friendliness are prime features of our Association and new members are assured of a warm welcome.

Lancashire Writers of Today 2024 is a wealth of contemporary writing from those who cherish Lancashire.

Listen to a reading of my piece of flash fiction 'Gone' from this anthology. 

And find you copy of the book here.  

What is the point of reading and writing?

Once I could read fluently, reading became my default activity. There were frequent trips to the library, pocket money was spent on books and books were requested as birthday and Christmas presents. Once all the chores were completed there was time for reading. My grandmother, however, had other ideas.

One Writer’s Relationship with Books

How it all began

There have always been books. Every house I’ve lived in has had books. As a very young child, before I could read, I had my own collection. I loved people to read to me and soon I knew the books so well that the pictures were enough to remind me of the whole story.

My father was the youngest of nine and we actually lived with his mother. This meant that there were always other members of the extended family present, including my cousins, all older than me, and all knowing how to read.

I gathered reading was about staring at the page for a long time before you moved on to the next one.

Soon, though, I wanted more and nagged my father to teach me how to read. He had no idea how to do that but I learnt a little: how to identify “the “and “a” and my mother taught me to read the names of all the shops we visited daily.  

Learning to read

I can’t actually remember a lot about that. I remember a few flashcards, then Dick and Dora books – I’m too old even for Janet and John. However the latter were around and my parents bought them for me as a supplement for my own reading scheme. You just needed to be able to turn the little black marks on the page into words. I progressed quickly through the books, I’m told.

Leaving the reading scheme

That was an absolute joy. Now I got to choose my own books.  If I was ever ill – and I was quite often until they took my tonsils out - my father would buy me a new book. And oh, the disappointment the day he bought me one I’d already got. Once I could read, I couldn’t get enough books. We had to do something.

The library

Thank goodness for the library. At West Bromwich in the 1950’s it seemed rather grand. A dramatic staircase led to the children’s department upstairs. We were only allowed three books at a time. One particular Easter holiday, I borrowed three books every day and got through most of the Famous Five books and the Mallory Towers ones before I went back to school. There were no more Famous Five books so I had to write my own. By some process of osmosis I knew how to write just like Blyton.

Ha ha! Did my writing career begin then? No, not really. An infant school teacher called in my parents: she was concerned because I kept writing horror stories.

The lean years

But I was still reading, just not for leisure any more, apart from the odd magazine.  At Grammar School it was Shakepeare, Dickens, H.G. Wells, James Joyce, Browning and Wordsworth. Later at university it was Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Brecht, Bőll, Kafka, Hugo, Flaubert, Zola, Sartre, Molière and Baudelaire.

Nevertheless, after a few years of domesticity the trips to the library and the reading for leisure came back.

And now?

I can go shopping for an essential item of clothing and come back with a book instead, without feeling at all guilty. 

I have a Kindle, which I love, and it is always loaded up with about thirty “to be read” books. I still have shelves full of books – those I cannot bring myself to throw away, including several signed copies, and those yet to be read. I try to refrain from buying more hard copy books but it doesn’t work. I have forty-five waiting to be read: ones I’ve picked up at book launches, on special offer at conferences, second-hand at some worthy fund-raising event, or those with too attractive a cover to ignore. And I also have books from the library. I fear retiring in case I can’t afford to buy more books and I finish everything I’d want to read from the library. I still read in several other languages because I can.    

I just don’t get these life-style TV shows about home-making that consider books clutter. To me nothing looks cosier or more welcoming than a room lined with books. Isn’t it also extra insulation?  

I’m a very fast reader these days and I’m also very critical. I find it hard to get rid of the jabbering editorial voice. Very occasionally it happens and I find a book that is an absolute wow. But none of this robs me of enjoyment.

My default activity is reading.  

I’m a lecturer in English and Creative Writing and so am fortunate in having a day job in which reading plays an important part. I’m sure also that reading helps me be a better writer. That is also part of my day job. How lucky am I?          

                             

Your Identity as a Writer

The Sharing Skills session for writers who work in school, held last Saturday in Birmingham, was very useful. As usual, much of the usefulness came from the contact it gave you with colleagues. All the sessions were interesting, though none of them were quite what I thought they would be. One that stood out, though, was about maintaining our identity as writers.

So often on school visits we end up teaching. As a former teacher I don’t find that onerous – I even quite enjoy it – but I do question what value the school and the students are getting from that. By teaching them creative writing, I’m only doing something their own teachers could do better. Yes, granted, many teachers are afraid of writing and don’t write themselves. Even so, a more practical model might be for us to teach the teachers how to write and let them pass that skill on to the students. They are the best people to teach their students.

We must remember too that not every student will go on to be a writer and will only need to write as much as they need to show their knowledge in other areas. It’s just like the fact that although a visit form the local fire service may be extremely interesting, not every student is going to become a fire-fighter. Now and then, however, it may be appropriate to work with a small group of students who have writing ambitions.   

Maybe the traditional author visit is no bad thing – read a little from your work, ask the students questions, let them ask you questions. Let them read or hear some quality literature.

Yes, probably we are expected to entertain. But it may be our writing that engages. We must bring something the teachers can’t and something that we bring because of the type of writers we are. And maybe it’s fine to let students try out some of the things we do.

One delegate said that he always tried to make the workshop in school bring him something as well. Perhaps we might research with our students.

We were asked to think of our tag line and logo in the session. I couldn’t get mine. It kept coming out too long. But I have it now. “Writing for and with young people.” I write primarily for young adults, but do also write for younger children and enjoy working with them. I also work with university students, many of them still relatively young. Hence, “young people”.  Writing with students rather than just getting them to write also seems appropriate.

The logo is yet to arrive. But I’m thinking butterflies or something similar that represents the young at heart.

I’ve also made some decisions about the type of workshop I am prepared to offer in schools, based on what we talked about in that session.