Category: Writing

London Literary Festival

Writing

The Southbank Centre is hosting the London Literary Festival in May. I have attended a number of events, I listened to authors reading excerpts from their novels for World Book Night, its so interesting to hear from the horse’s mouth how the words and phrases sound.  Mark Haddon

Mark Haddon read from his novel The Curious Incident of the  Dog in the Night-time, I also saw the play recently, a masterpiece of staging and acting.  I have also seen him perform a monologue “Swimming and Flying”, he spoke for an hour, moving from memoir to pithy comment, to voicing of fears and witty remarks with a flow and sense of everything fitting together that is remarkable. He performed a new piece at the Hay Festival this week too, I wish I had been able to go.

Last Monday I went to an evening of readings by the 10 authors short-listed for the 2013 MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE. The authors read in their own language, a fascinating to hear words, sounds and accents so unfamiliar, and then actors read the same text in English.

Peter StammPeter Stamm read his piece in both German and English, so interesting to hear the same voice in both languages.

Pip TorrensThe actor Pip Torrens read for several authors who could not attend in person, he has a marvellous rich mellifluous voice.

Lydia Davis Lydia Davies was announced as the winner on Wednesday at a ceremony at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Her stories are marvellous fragments of vitality, she conjures up complex witty scenes with just a few sentences. She is at the forefront of a new movement in short story telling. The form has certainly come back in from the cold. I feel encouraged to write more. . .

Yesterday, I spent the whole day at the Southbank Centre, attending three events. Roman KrznaricRoman Krznaric’s How to Find Fulfilling Work, was all about finding that place where our talents meet our values, he led us through a kind of 10 point plan, and I discovered that I had indeed followed that plan instinctively and unknowingly during the last decade.

Alesander Hemon Aleksander Hemon – The Book of My Lives, was born in Sarajevo, he was visiting Chicago in 1992 when war broke out and has not been able to return. He told us of how it feels to start a new life in a different language and country. He is a very witty man and warm man. I can’t wait to read his other books too,  I bought The Lazarus Project.
Rupert EverettIn the evening  was an Audience with Rupert Everett, he is such a wit and has perfect timing. He is a delightful writer too, his books are filled with snippets from his life eloquently portrayed. He was also the perfect gentleman when it came to signing books, I was third in the queue for my first signing, then I went back again for a second, right at the end of the queue (which was at least 45 minutes long) and he was just as attentive and solicitous as the first time.

Berlin April 1947

Writing

All that we found of their existence was a crumbling box in a dark corner of the abandoned apartment.  Inside, a pencilled diary and a dress of grey folded neatly its white pique collar spoiled by spots of rust from the pin of a cheap brooch. As I read through the pages, I felt the cloth of the dress between my fingers and a vivid scene played out in my mind. Late 1942, a young woman abandoned and alone in the once grand apartment of her Jewish employers. It was almost six months since they had been dragged away to their awful fate.

Each of the few people she had known had by now disappeared from the city.  She starved a little more each day, the money had run out and everything worth anything at all had been stolen from the ravaged rooms.

At last she was befriended by a soldier who brought her food and broke up the shutters and doors for firewood. They lay in the flickering light clinging to each other. Her pale straight hair spread out over the pillow while she thought about how she might have died silently in the dark with no-one left to mourn her passing.

Brompton Square

Photography, Writing

I have been taking photographs on the streets at night with a small group of people. I happened to capture this group of running figures and heard some shouting.  On waking the next day I found this part-story already formed in my head. I don’t know yet if there will be more to come but let me know if you find it intriguing (or daft!).

Brompton Sqaure

Brompton Square

It was a wet, cold night in February the kind of night where puddles lie full of wild reflections flickering with vivid colours. Brompton Square was a good address in a respectable area of London but if you look hard enough you’ll find something dark behind the curtains.
I waited at the Cromwell Road end of the Square the damp creeping into my shoes. I was sure that something was going to kick-off.  I knew the where and the likely when but not the what.
I had a clear view down the brightly lit terrace of stuccoed Regency houses. Rows of wrought iron railings and shiny black doors where the lions-head knockers kept their polished eyes on the street. A London cab was parked down the far end the headlights throwing everything in their path into silhouette. Two men in dark overcoats and a woman with flesh-coloured tights were strolling towards me, just as they passed under the street light, I snapped a discreet shot or two of their faces from low down by my waist hoping they wouldn’t notice. A group of dark-coated figures standing far down the street were huddled too tight to count.
The first group walked passed me disappearing into the rush hour throng on the Cromwell Road.  She gave me a bit of a sideways glance sending chills down my back, did she recognise me? Soon a car pulled up opposite No57. A middle-aged man got out, walked over to the house and with a fumbling at the lock with his key he pushed open the door. I caught him in my view finder and clicked twice, once at the fumble and then again as he slipped into the bright hallway the door closing behind him. This was the right place then, he was wearing a hat. I was expecting that.
Ten minutes later I moved out of the shadows and crossed the street to the corner, hovering for a last look, maybe this was a mistake after all. It was right then as I turned to go that it began. A figure of man with a fur-collared coat was briefly lit by the shaft of bright light as he came out into the street from the corner house. Shouts and dull thuds of punches or baseball bats on flesh came from the far end. The taxi revved and sped down the street in my direction. The huddled group had burst apart, figures were leaping the railings into the central gardens. Three more were running fast as hell towards me coats flapping in crow-like panic. It was now or never. I got just one shot but you couldn’t see their faces.  I didn’t stop for a second shot, I needed to keep out of sight. I turned quickly out of Brompton Square and up towards Harrods melting into the crowd. They’d be after me for sure if they’d seen me.

The next morning I read the newspaper version of what had gone on down there in genteel Knightsbridge and there were my photos. I had sent my three good shots to my contact and he’d passed them on.  My job had been to prove that certain people had been in that place on that night. The man in the hat from No57, the woman in the flesh-coloured tights and the running group. I didn’t ask why, the less I knew the better.  It would be a long time before the whole story came out but by then I was a long way from there.

The Orange Rose

Writing

I was travelling on the underground,  after a couple of stops  some passengers got off and I had an uninterrupted view of the young man, strap-hanging in the next doorway. I noticed his hat first, dark tan coloured felt, folded tight around his head. The unadorned, close-fitting hat set off his smooth-shaven chin and high cheekbones, his fleshy lips just a little blue at the centre. He made me think maybe he was Russian, perhaps a Cossack with his high-collared, double-breasted grey coat.
He was holding a long stemmed rose in his right hand, unwrapped and in full bloom, a bright orange rose.
It seemed odd that the rose was unwrapped, unprotected, surely not bought from a florist, had he picked it from a garden? unlikely as this was late December.
I pondered, whilst waiting for my stop, the young man’s eyes were fixed on the floor at his feet, his only movement a gentle rolling of the stem in his fingers. I wondered who he would be meeting, to whom he would present his vibrant flower, orange is a symbol of amusement, the unconventional and the extrovert.
He had dressed carefully, pressed his trousers, polished his shoes, he looked out of place amongst the majority of youths in their casual mismatched clothes, he must be meeting someone important. He seemed serious, perhaps a little anxious though not excited, eager or optimistic.
We both got off at London Bridge station, swept along by the surge of passengers eager to catch their connecting trains to Kent. I tried to keep him in my sights curious to see to whom the orange rose would be delivered, maybe here at London Bridge Station on the gleaming new concourse.

It began close to me, at first a quiet humming like the start of an overture then building into a full-throated a capella song. The young man, a few steps in front of me on the long escalator riding upward into the cathedral-like concourse, had begun to sing in a deep rich voice, a song of haunting melody, of love and warmth and joy, though in a foreign tongue the tone was unmistakeable. All around people ceased talking, stood still and listened as his voice was caught up in the atrium, echoed and multiplied as if in a great concert hall.
It was a Russian song, sung right from his heart to someone he loved.
As we rose up into the open space, the crowds parted letting the singer walk on towards the centre of the concourse where a tiny figure was waiting, dressed in an elegant fur coat and hat. He knelt at her feet holding out the rose as he finished his song. The woman smiling, took the the rose in one hand and his hand in the other and they embraced. My last sight of them was a glimpse of their backs as they made their way to Platform 2 for the 17.28 to Walmer. All seemed right with the world as the the young man slid a protective, guiding arm around the waist of his adored grandmother.

The Past

Photography, Writing

Sorting through some boxes in my loft, I found a box of letters I had written to my mother, I didn’t know she had kept them – including this tiny photo of a boyfriend from way back. (1968?) Its so interesting to see this young man – I barely recognised him at first sight, the double exposure, showing his profile made me sure.

I spent a day reading the letters, many dating from when I was 16 and gradually dwindling in numbers as telephoning became cheaper and easier. I was astonished by the fact that I seem to be the same person, the hand-writing, the phraseology, the subject matter – just as I might write today. I seem to have had a surprisingly close and frank relationship with my parents – I have always felt that it was so but its been interesting to see the proof.

Boyfriend