maggie o’farrell at st mary redcliffe…

Moira, Ru and I went along to St Mary Redcliffe Church tonight to hear Maggie O’Farrell talk about her work – and, in particular, her latest novel “The Marriage Portrait”. The book imagines the story of Lucrezia, daughter of Cosimo de’ Medici, who married Alfonso d’Este, the Duke of Ferrara in 1558… but, a year after entering her husband’s court in 1560, aged just 16, she died. The novel was inspired by Robert Browning’s poem “My Last Duchess” which describes a painting portraying the young woman who actually lived. I’ve yet to read the book for myself (Moira’s just about to finish our copy) but, in it, Maggie O’Farrell imagines 16th-century Italian courtly life and the brief days of a girl forced into marriage at a very young age.
O’Farrell is a wonderful, natural speaker and communicator – eloquent, beguiling, amusing and informative. I’m a great fan of her writing and “The Marriage Portrait” will be the fifth book of hers that I’ve read (I think). I’ve loved all the books of hers that I’ve read, but “Hamnet” was very, very special.
The evening – which was organised by our wonderful local Storysmith bookshop - was a great success… and all the more so for us because, when Moira mentioned the difficulty she has in hearing what’s said at such events to Storysmith’s Dan and Emily, they set aside three seats in the front row for us! How special was that!?
Great event. Wonderful speaker.
Photo: the view from our front row seats. 

how to disappear completely…

One of my Lent books this year is Si Smith’s comic entitled “How To Disappear Completely”.
Yes, one of my Lent books is a comic.
Its author/artist, Si Smith, is a great mate of mine. As well as being a Christian and a brilliant artist, he’s funny, thought-provoking and hugely inventive. Over the years of our friendship, he’s regularly come up with stuff that makes me think or he suggests music that he reckons I’d like (invariably, he’s absolutely right) or he recommends Bristol theatre/gigs (he lives in Leeds!) or he gets me involved in various art projects. I’m constantly amazed by his creativity and the breadth of his abilities.  
Well, I’ve read his 64-page comic several times already (and I just know that I’ll be reading it SEVERAL more times this Lent… and well beyond). It’s profound, harrowing, challenging, sad, uplifting, funny and hauntingly beautiful. It reflects on the realities of life and faith in modern-day Leeds: “there is beauty here, if you look for it…but it’s a thin line – love and hate and this city is an ugly place too, with its gaudy excesses… and this compulsion to consume and be consumed”.
But you don’t need to have a faith to appreciate this gem… it contains messages for us all in today’s materialistic, greedy world… (and I just KNOW I’ll gain new discoveries every time I read it – seeing small details that I’d previously missed).
I know I’ll continue to reflect on it for days and months to come.
Typically (and brilliantly), Si has also included a suggested playlist to accompany his comic… and, of course, it really does provide a perfect soundtrack (he’s a very clever man).
So, whether you’re a person of faith, or an artist, or into pop culture, or simply someone who cares about our world… I can’t recommend this publication strongly enough (and, ridiculously, it only costs £6.50, including postage).

more ink...

It’s a very proud moment when your daughter has her first novel published – especially when it’s been received by those who ‘know’ about these things with some acclaim.
But, of course, there comes the time when you actually read it for yourself...
I’m not particularly a ‘fiction’ person and I can’t actually think that I’ve read a YA (Young Adult) book before. Wouldn’t it be awful if I loathed it!?
Well, huge relief, I finished it this morning… and I loved it.

I’m not going to spoil things for you and so I’ll just repeat some of the words on the book’s cover: “Imagine a world where your every action, your every deed, is marked on your skin for all to see…”.

Yes, it’s a YA novel almost written in the form of a fable (I’m sure Alice would disagree!), but I also think it could be interpreted as a profound reflection or metaphor (for young adults and adults alike) of what’s happening in the world today. It’s about truth, wisdom, loyalty, justice, love… it’s about fears and taboos; it’s about society and who we are; it’s about greed and power; it’s about belief; it’s about conformity; it’s about passion and beauty; it’s about integrity and honesty; it’s about the future.
Yes, it might ‘just’ be a YA novel for goodness sake(!), but it also spoke to me about such matters as society’s attitudes post-Brexit, what’s happened in Syria and even Mr Trump!
For me, the novel’s transparent world (where your every action is marked on your skin) reminded me of the virtual facebook world - where we can choose to post stuff that allows us to come across as being an enviable ‘good guy’ or ‘the perfect couple’ (complete with happy family photos, news about our latest wonderful world cruise and the like). The difference is that, with facebook, we can also choose to hide our true beliefs and characteristics (and the details are forgotten within a couple of days).

I always knew that Alice could write (and isn’t it wonderful when someone’s childhood dreams really do come true!), but I didn’t realise that she had such a gift for storytelling. I even cried at the end (I’m always crying these days… and feel a bit like Keith Brymer Jones, the judge on TV’s “Great Pottery Throw Down”, crying as he marvels at the achievements of a particular contestant!) - partly because of the simple beauty and power of the story, but also because of a realisation that “oh my goodness, she really has done it… and she’s bloomin’ good too!”.

As a friend on facebook said: “you must be very proud”.
You bet.

ink...

Yesterday, Moira, Ruth, Hannah and I travelled up to London for the launch of Alice’s first novel, “Ink” (available at all good bookshops!).
I’d never been to a ‘book launch’ before, but I was conscious of a very real, tangible sense of excitement (and cake… and wine!). It was a very lovely evening.
I’ve yet to read Alice’s book (it’s the first of a trilogy). I’ve consciously avoided reading the proof copy so I can read the ‘real thing’.
It’s a Young Adult novel. Its synopsis is this: “Every action, every deed, every significant moment is tattooed on your skin for ever. When Leora's father dies, she is determined to see her father remembered forever. She knows he deserves to have all his tattoos removed and made into a Skin Book to stand as a record of his good life. But when she discovers that his ink has been edited and his book is incomplete, she wonders whether she ever knew him at all”.
The book has already received some wonderful feedback and, apparently, translation rights have been signed in TEN countries!
At last night’s launch, Alice’s editor at Scolastic read a note she’d received from an Italian editor about “Ink” (I’d previously read it… and it had made me cry). I’d like to share his post and just hope that I’m not treading on anyone’s toes by doing so:
“I have three little scars, right between my eyebrows. It’s what varicella left me back when I was a kid, and I didn’t have the patience to wait for the scabs to do their own course. Though, those little signs became me as much as they are the shape of my nose, or my bad temper, or the people I know.
When a couple of years ago my cat scratched my first son closest to his right eye, after the initial dread I just found myself thinking that he was now different from how he was born. Life happened to him, somehow: in a parallel universe, there is a different version of him who has not that scar, who is another him than the one I know. And it’s mutual: the one that he knows is the version of me with the three little scars between the eyebrows.
And I do hope that he won’t forget me.
How I loved to become a book. How I loved to be able to have my ancestors’ tales with me. And, of course, to be a reader.
That was what left me those enchanting first twenty pages of INK I had the chance to read before Bologna’s Fair. That is why I insisted so much with the people from Scholastic to keep me posted about the book with the purest, most honest, crystal clearest idea I had bumped into in a long, long time.
Yet, the final text thought me much more. Our bodies heal, our bodies repair. My body doesn’t tell tales on me for every single mistakes. I might have three little scars, but if they are important is because they are my dad coming home to spend some time with me, my mother taking care of me, my sister trying to cheer me up. They are somehow the legacy of a love. Just as the scar on my son is the sign of a cat, and the dread of a father.
I’m not the right kind of anything, like Leora; but I do think that book can save our souls. Can help us remember.
And yes, now, Alice Broadway, I remember you. I will always do.
It will be such a pride to be the one who will make other people in Italy remember you as well”.
Pretty special when someone writes such things about something one of your daughters has created?
Absolutely. It brought tears to my eyes again as I re-read it this morning (it must be an age thing!).
I will be reading Alice’s book over the coming weeks (of course!). As you might imagine, the prospect of doing so is both exciting and scary… will I enjoy it? Actually, it doesn’t really matter because I know that lots of other people already have. I promise to keep you posted(!)...
A very special time for Alice… and for Dave… and her children… and for all of us in the rest of her family.
Sometimes, childhood dreams really do come true.
Photo: Ruth’s family pic from last night’s book launch.

the numbers game…

I’ve been reading Bill Bryson’s book “Notes from a Big Country” (published in 1998 and compiled from his regular column in the Telegraph - he’d recently moved back to the USA after living in England for nearly 20 years). In one of his pieces, he was writing about the USA’s national debt – not because he was particularly interested in the American economy, but more because of the figures involved ($4.5trillion)… “but what does $4.5trillion actually mean?” he asked.
I found his following explanation both entertaining and pretty “gobsmacking”:
“Imagine that you were in a vault with the whole of America’s national debt and you were told you could keep each dollar bill you initialled. Say, too, for the sake of argument that you could initial one dollar bill each second and that you worked straight through without stopping. How long do you think it would take to count a trillion dollars? Go on, humour me and take a guess. Twelve weeks? Five years?
If you initialled one dollar per second, you would make $1,000 every 17 minutes. After twelve days of non-stop effort you would acquire your first $1million. Thus it would take you 120 days to accumulate $10million and 1,200 days – something over three years – to reach $100million. After 31.7 years, you would become a billionaire, and after almost a thousand years you would be as wealthy as Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. But not until after 31,709.8 years would you count your trillionth dollar…
That is what $1 trillion is.”
I’m still trying to get my head round this!
It’s a bit like someone telling you that you’ll have to wait another 700-odd YEARS before you can celebrate 1million DAYS since the birth of Christ…
Somehow, I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it.
Note: I’m aware that, in the past, “trillion” has meant difficult things in the USA and in the UK. Apparently, these days, they mean the same (one million million) – it used to be one million million million in “British English” (according to Wikipedia).

war graves… yes, war graves

I’ve just finished reading a book about war graves of WW1.

It was brilliant.
Yes, I know what you’re thinking: “sad café man hits all time low in his quest to find new interests”.
Actually, you’d be SO wrong!
In this centenary year since the start of WW1, I’d already done a fair amount of research into my grandfather’s war experiences and so this book provided wonderful, fresh insights into the devastated and grief-stricken world of that time.
My grandfather Frank Walker was just 17 when joined the King’s Royal Rifle Corps in April 1914 (the minimum qualifying age was 19). He transferred to the Royal Field Artillery on 1 July and entered the “Theatre of War” in France/Belgium on 19 August as one of the first members of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) – just a fortnight after Britain had declared war on Germany.
He survived.
The book (“Empires of the Dead” by David Crane) tells the extraordinary (and forgotten) story behind the building of the British+Commonwealth war cemeteries – largely due to the efforts of one visionary, 44 year-old, volunteer ambulance commander called Fabian Ware. He had been horrified by the ignominious treatment of the dead in 1914 and began to record the identity and position of each grave.
He was born in Clifton, Bristol (there’s a coincidence!). He was “a social radical in conservative clothing”; for five turbulent years he’d been the “erratically brilliant, ‘warmongering’ editor of the right-wing, imperialist Morning Post”.
I’m not so sure I’d have liked him (mild understatement)!
From arbitrary and adhoc (and purely voluntary) beginnings, Ware was able to become a driving force in the origins of the Imperial War Graves Commission. I have to admit that, whilst I’ve always been impressed and rather humbled by the images of immaculately-kept war cemeteries, I hadn’t actually given any thought to how they came about. But then you (suddenly, in my case) realise that, of course, there were thousands of soldiers dying and someone had to organise things in a proper and appropriate manner (in the event, there were over 580,000 British dead and the Commission had more than 23,000 burial sites under its control!).
Ware was a truly remarkable man. The book describes him thus: “For a fierce idealist and visionary, he was an unusually skilled politician; for a born autocrat, he was a smooth performer in committees… and a natural leader”.
Although I’ve seen a number of war memorials (in this country), I’ve never visited any of the numerous cemeteries in France and/or Belgium. After reading this book, I feel I need to do just that.
It’s hard to think of more potent advocates of peace and futility of war than the existence of the hundreds of thousands of massed graves of those who didn’t survive.
The author, Davis Crane, is an eloquent and very gifted writer (and passionate about the subject) and, at times, I found the story incredibly moving. The book contains some parliamentary extracts of the time (when politicians were arguing about policies for burying the war dead) and from various letters written by soldiers or grieving parents/wives.
I’ll end with this powerful extract from a letter sent home by soldier Roland Leighton, Vera Brittain’s fiancé:
“Let him who thinks War is a glorious, golden thing, who loves to roll forth stirring words of exhortation, invoking Honour and Praise and Valour and Love of Country with as thoughtless and fervid faith as inspired the priest of Baal to call on their own slumbering deity, let him but look at a little pile of sodden grey rags that cover half a skull and a shin bone and what might have been his ribs, or at this skeleton lying on its side, resting, half crouching, as it fell, perfect but that it is headless… and let him think how grand and glorious a thing it is to have distilled all Youth and Joy and Life into foetid heap of hideous putrescence”.
Roland Leighton, himself, was dead by Christmas 1914.
Photo: Tyne Cot Cemetery, Ypres

st kilda… and some more scottish coincidences

Last summer, I posted a blog about a book I’d been reading (“Sea Room” by Adam Nicholson) while on holiday at Drimnin, Scotland. There had been a number of slightly spooky connections/coincidences, including the fact that its author, Adam Nicholson, is married to Sarah Raven (gardener, writer, television presenter). Her brother Andrew Raven had studied with my architectural partner Matthew and later became “factor” of the Ardtornish Estate, Lochaline – just down the road from Drimnin and where (ie. Garden Flat at Ardtornish House) Moira+I plus daughters Ruth, Hannah+Alice had stayed back in the Easter of 1990(!).

What, you might well ask, has all this got to do with St Kilda?
Well, I’ve just read “The Life and Death of St Kilda” by Tom Steel. St Kilda is the remotest of Britain’s offshore islands – lying some 40 miles or so west of Scotland’s Outer Hebrides in the North Atlantic Ocean. People have lived there for over 2,000 years (but the population has never exceeded 200), cut off from the rest of the world. The book tells the moving story of the last St Kildans. In August 1930, the remaining 36 inhabitants were finally persuaded to evacuate the island by the British Government – a decision the community reluctantly accepted due to sickness and the lack of enough able-bodied men to continue working on the land.
When these last islanders, and their few belongings, were transported to the mainland, twenty-seven of them disembarked at Lochaline – having accepted offers of employment on the estate at Ardtornish, Argyll.
Photo: typical men’s morning business “meeting”, St Kilda, 1886.
PS: Up until the mid-1800s, St Kilda’s inhabitants couldn’t read or write; they spoke only Gaelic; they had no knowledge of what was happening beyond their tiny islands; they didn’t know what a tree was (the islands were essentially a small group of towering rocks); the weather was unforgiving; communication with the outside world was virtually non-existent; they had some sheep, dogs and a few cows; although they were surrounded by the ocean, their main staple food is not fish (the waters are often too violent for fishing when they only had fairly primitive boats); they relied on the thriving birdlife for the bulk of their food… they were perhaps the only bird-eating community the world has ever had.
PPS: The irony is that the island’s lack of sustainability only came about after sporadic communications with the mainland had been established in the late nineteenth century/early years of the twentieth century… with occasional visits from tourists and the tentative beginnings of the postal service opened some people’s eyes to what they saw as “opportunities” to leave. Soon, it seemed they had only two choices: leave and survive or remain and perish from hunger, sickness and for lack of enough able-bodied men to continue working on the land, harvest the birds, mend the boats and do other chores “only men can do”. Many of them left willingly, some wanted to remain…

marinaleda: the village against the world

This is the title of a book by journalist Dan Hancox and I went along to Foyles Bookshop last night to hear him talk about the place, the people and, obviously, his book… as part of the excellent Bristol Festival of Ideas. I was intrigued/encouraged to attend after reading an article he’d written in the Guardian (highlighted by my mate Jon).

Marinaleda is a small, remote village in Andalusia which has become acclaimed by many as "a communist utopia". It started in the late 1970s from a position of abject poverty (with more than 60% unemployment) - a farming community with no land. Led by its charismatic mayor, Sanchez Gordillo (who has been re-elected at every election since that time), the village has, somehow, succeeded - through sacrifice and determination. In 1985, Sánchez Gordillo told the newspaper El País: "We have learned that it is not enough to define utopia, nor is it enough to fight against the reactionary forces. One must build it here and now, brick by brick, patiently but steadily, until we can make the old dreams a reality: that there will be bread for all, freedom among citizens, and culture; and to be able to read with respect the word 'peace '. We sincerely believe that there is no future that is not built in the present”.
It proved to be a highly-stimulating evening – half an hour of him talking followed by 30 minutes or so of questions+answers from the audience.
Absolutely fascinating.
Photo: Juan Manuel Sanchez Gordillo, the village’s long-standing, charismatic mayor.
PS: the audience was probably bigger than the one that had turned up at the Old Vic the previous night!
PPS: The one negative aspect of the evening was the T-shirted bloke sitting immediately in front of me… who had AWFUL body odour!!

"sea room" connections

The above image shows, on the left hand side, the cover of Adam Nicholson’s extraordinary book “Sea Room” – which represented part of my holiday reading while staying at the Old Schoolhouse, Drimnin. The image on the right is a photograph (not a particularly good one and taken on what was our only cloudy day!) from our holiday bedroom… overlooking the Sound of Mull.

It proved to be the perfect “holiday read”.
The book is the “story of one man, three islands and half a million puffins”. Adam Nicholson’s father had bought the Shiants (three small, inhospitable islands set five dangerous sea miles off Lewis in Scotland) over 70 years ago for £1,400. Adam Nicholson was given the islands by his father, Nigel, when he was 21 and subsequently passed them on to his son Tom when he turned 21 in 2005 (the book was written in 2002). It’s a beautiful, passionate book (“a love letter no one else could hope to write so well” according to a review in the Sunday Telegraph) and I loved it.
But the book cover and the view from our holiday bedroom window was just the first of a series of small coincidences…
2.    Initially, I hadn’t made the connection between Adam and his grandfather Harold Nicholson. I had read “The Harold Nicholson Diaries 1907-1963” (edited by Nigel Nicholson) in November 2011 – about his times as a diplomat and conservative MP. As I noted in my blog at the time: “despite his privileged background… and his smugness and snobbery (at times)”, I found the diaries gave a fascinating portrayal of British politics in the first half of the 20^th century. Harold’s wife was poet/author/gardener, Vita Sackville-West. Adam Nicholson is married to Sarah Raven – gardener, writer, television presenter (you probably know all this… certainly, Moira did!).
3.    A good friend, Bob, lent me Nicholson’s book after a conversation (over red wine, I suspect) when I told him our (then) imminent holiday in the western isles. He decided that the book would make appropriate holiday reading… and how right he was!
4.    I think this was the fourth time we’d spent a holiday at Drimnin over the past 15 years but, in fact, we first had a holiday in this area 23 years ago (Easter 1990, blimey!) when we stayed in the Garden Flat at the impressive Ardtornish House, Lochaline (Jon Snow was a holiday neighbour and he and I spent many a happy hour chopping firewood together… well, a few minutes anyway!). The opportunity to stay at Ardtornish largely came about due to my architectural partner, Matthew, who had studied with the man who later became “factor” of the Ardtornish Estate. His name was Andrew Raven (he sadly died of cancer in 2005, aged 46).
5.    And, wait for it… Sarah Raven was Andrew Raven’s sister.
Well, I think they're slightly spooky connections/coincidences, anyway!

richard holloway: festival of ideas

At Gareth+Alan’s suggestion, Moira+I joined them at the 2010 Louis Sherwood Memorial Lecture given by Richard Holloway as part of the “Festival of Ideas” at @bristol on Wednesday. It proved to be a hugely impressive and absolutely fascinating evening. Holloway was formerly Bishop of Edinburgh, but his interests and knowledge cover a massive range of things (from chair of the BMA Steering Group on Ethics and Genetics to chair of the Scottish Arts Council). His talk was on “Disloyalty” and explored the role of disloyalty in the creative arts (and also suggested that this was also an important virtue in religion): the disloyal mind refusing to conform to existing norms and allowing new values and understandings to come in from the future. He talked for about 45 minutes and touched upon the work of writers, artists, architects and then answered questions from the floor – with amazing insight and imagination. He was hugely impressive (extremely well-read, but practical at the same time). I’ve just checked and it seems that Holloway is 77 years old – but with the mind of a twentysomething intellectual. His talk ranged from Graham Greene to Nietzsche, from art to religion and much much more. These are a few of the things I scribbled down from his talk: “the artist’s disloyalty is the queen of virtue”; “loyalty confines us to accepted opinions”; “radicals create culture, conservatives defend it”; “the tragedy of many lives is that they stop being creative”; and “every great progress must be preceded by something that makes it weaker”.

A wonderfully stimulating evening.