The Light of the Word

I've been missed!

2005-05-20T15:02:00.000+01:00

It's always nice to be missed. I had a manuscript to get out, and of course I got tangled up with displacement activities. Now I have a rewrite to do.

First came Geographing - the project to photograph every 1km square on the Ordnance Survey. First it's a matter of going through my archive to see what I can find, like this one from Willaston on the Wirral:

And then it's down to traipsing around Reading for the unglamorous places others dare not go, like the Park Lane reservoir in Tilehurst:

From there I got into the allied activity of Geocaching

You can see all my Geographs here. It's a form of treasure hunt with dead letter boxes. I make no excuses - it got me to dubbin my boots and get out into the country again. A cross between Treasure Island and Smiley's People

Which brings us back to writing, and the fact that I have to put my nose to the grindstone once more. Hey ho!

Photographing the nation

2005-04-09T21:59:00.000+01:00

Here's an admirable project - a website that aims to photograph every one of the 1 km squares on the Ordnance Survey of the British Isles.

It's been going for a little over a month, and already fifty or so photographers have submitted 2,000 images. That's barely scratched the surface, but I don't doubt that soon there will be an unprecedented photographic record of the country.

I have, of course, contributed my own two penn'orth!

A Writer's Work

2005-04-09T21:56:00.000+01:00

After all the excitement of earlier in the week, I'm now quiet because I'm up to my eyeballs in revision and editing.

The 1% of inspiration is behind me. The 99% of tedious sweat and burning the midnight oil is ahead. One day I'll look back on this and laugh. But for now...

Ho hum!

Ooo errrr....

2005-04-06T16:30:00.000+01:00

There I was, this afternoon, reading a book. That's strange in itself, because it's the same book - The Mermaids Singing by Val McDermid, that I was devouring on Saturday night. She writes a gripping thriller, does our Val, even if she does have an unhealthy appetite for the gruesome, so you can understand how it felt when i discovered that in the copy I was reading, page 132 was followed by page 213. In other words, the printers had put this together clumsily so that one batch of pages was missing and another batch was repeated twice. Bummer! So anyway, my Bookcrossing friends rallied round and a fresh copy hit my doormat this morning. Thank you Maureen!

But I digress. This afternoon I was sitting there reading it, and let's put it on the record that I was listening to Jethro Tull's By Kind Permission of..., when the phone rang.

Which outstanding bill was being chased this time, I thought. Which excuse do I have to follow up? I had to fiddle with the music so I could hear and be heard.

It was Teresa Chris, of the Teresa Chris Literary Agency. She liked the sample chapters of Cuckoo. She liked them a lot. She wants to see the whole manuscript. Exclusively. By next week.

I can't remember much else. I'm in a daze. I can't concentrate. I'm gibbering.

Pope Still Dead Shock Horror!

2005-04-04T13:26:00.000+01:00

He reigned for a long time and was a significant figure of his age. We know that. Now, do we have to be told this over and over again? He was getting on. He'd been ill for several years. He'd had a good innings. Surely his death wasn't unexpected?

Perhaps the media are still waiting to see if he rises again on the third day!

Still, it reminds me to get back on topic (but wasn't last night fun? Nothing I can add to that, really, those people are so good at debunking themselves). It also reminds me that for a couple of years now I've been wary of returning to Kraków for fear of being trapped there by the demise of Karol Wojtyła, the local lad made good and national hero. Now I can plan my return to the city I fell in love with some years ago.

Naturally, there are some photographs!

They say that Poland missed out on the twentieth century and is now rushing headlong from the nineteenth into the twenty-first. Kraków is getting there more sedately however; unlike its neighbour Katowice, an hour's drive away, which is sprouting shiny new office towers. The ancient religious and academic capital of Poland is hanging on to its roots. The old centre - a UNESCO World Heritage Site - has banished traffic from the old centre, surrounded by a garden called the Planty where the city walls and moat once stood. Along Florianska, the main shopping street, western shops are springing up under the watchful eye of the famous lop-sided church of St Mary. The shops are for show though, and feeling good - they charge western prices which most Poles can't afford!

Right in the middle is the Rynek Głowny, the largest market square in Europe, and in the middle of that the Sukiennice, the old Cloth Hall. After the fall of communism, McDonalds wanted to take over the Sukiennice for triumphalist purposes. The city authorities, bless them, would have none of it. Not only could McDonalds not have the Sukiennice but they weren't permitted to set up in the Rynek either. They were banished to the side streets and denied the scarlet background to the golden arches. The Sukiennice now has an art gallery on the first floor and a craft market - from which I bought the green amber and silver earrings I'm wearing right now - on the ground.

They haven't been able to stop all the usual suspects - McDonalds, Burger King, KFC - moving in, even though you can get excellent vernacular food embarrassingly cheaply. Still, the Poles are resourceful people and it was never going to be long before they came up with their own (rather pricier) chain of peasant-themed eateries for the tourists. They claimed that this was a kind of black puddding, but it seemed to me to be a close relative of haggis. With kiszona kapusta (sauerkraut) of course. Best not ask what's in the white pots (one of them is lard). The beer is Okocim from Katowice, which after extensive research I deemed to be inferior to the excellent Żywiec which can hold its own with the great beers of Europe!

It's always worth looking up - dig the spider on this gable in Karmelicka!

A sombre place - this is the ulica Jozefa in the Kazimierz district. This was the Jewish quarter, dating from the days when Kazimierz, a separate city in the mediaeval period, was granted to the Jewish people who had been evicted from elsewhere in Europe. In the 1940s they were evicted again - those who have seen the film Schindler's List will recognise this area as it was filmed there.

Kazimierz was home to a number of synagogues of course. Only one is still in use, but several others like this one stand as a solemn memorial to the fate of the Jews of Kazimierz. The walls and doors remain scarred by bullets to this day.

The Poles know they were not entirely innocent of the massacre of the Jews. Afterwards they erected a memorial fountain in Kazimierz.

Still, the Jews are returning to Kraków in numbers now, after the population had fallen from 60,000 before the war to fewer than 100 only ten years ago. Jewish food is readily available in Kazimierz, and the sound of klezmer music echoes in the streets of the awakening quarter.

There's even a café called the Four Shops, which from the outside looks like a row of Jewish shops and inside has been knocked together into one room, with the shop accoutrements on show. This is the tailor's.

No set of Kraków pictures would be complete without a shot of the Wawel, the ancient royal castle. This isn't the usual tourist view though, it's the locals' view from the park by the Wisła (Vistula) where few tourists venture.

In this most catholic of countries it's not hard to find a shrine, even out in the Las Walski forest to the east of the city. Not sure who this represents. I keep thinking of Jonah in the whale but that's just being fanciful.

I'm just very fond of this chap, even if he's not particularly Polish. I call him Jerzy and he lives in the Kraków zoo in Las Walski.

We have guests!

2005-04-03T21:53:00.000+01:00

Oh my! All those frootloops dropping in to see little ol' me!

Come in! Take your shoes off (it's the carpet, you understand!) Sit down and make yourselves confortable.

Don't mind Tosca - she only being playful, it's just that she likes visitors, especially minced up with a little Marmite mixed in. I know her jaws are poweful and her teeth and claws are sharp, but she's only nine months old.

Now, what can I offer you? There's some Duvel and some Chimay, and some kriek beer. I do like Belgian beer - best in the world. Same with the chocolate - would you like some? Laphroaig? Old Pulteney? No, I think this calls for some Champagne. There's some cheese too - a nice ripe Munster? Pont l'Eveque? That would be topical.

Who do you fancy for the new pope? I like that guy from Honduras - Oscar Maradiaga. What do you mean, he's an idiotarian moonbat?

Leaving already? Such a shame. Well, it was nice to see you. I hope you'll buy my novel when it comes out! Oh, and I lurvvve your country - so quaint! ;)

Much ado about nothing

2005-04-03T20:35:00.000+01:00

My favourite frootloops at Little Green Footballs are getting into a tiswas about a "terrorist incident" at Heathrow Airport

They don't get it, do they? We have been used to incidents for many years and we don't go for hysteria - just quietly defuse the situation (or any bomb that may be involved). Most of the time you'd never know it was happening. Why give these guys publicity and scare the population, after all? Unless, of course, you had a motive for keeping the population fearful.

The Provisional IRA, after all, were at it for years. Brought to us by Noraid, who have not yet appeared on any list of proscribed terrorist-supporting organisations in the US. Many's the time a London journey was disrupted in the 70s and 80s because of a 'bomb scare'. We took it in our stride, along with the Bishopsgate bomb of 1993, which rattled my bedroom windows ten kilometres away.

Tonight's incident sounds like somebody being removed from the plane for questioning to me but you never know. It's not deemed worthy of a mention on the BBC radio news anyway - not because the BBC is biased but because this sort of thing happens more than you think and it simply isn't news.

In other news - I know I haven't posted for a couple of weeks but I've been busy preparing manuscripts to send out to agents, and I've been working on a new story which may turn out to be a new novel. I'll let you know what materialises.

Across the Atlantic - 1985

2005-03-20T20:48:00.000Z

I went to get married - to a real live American - in Verona, New York. Apart from skipping across a bridge over the Saint John River from St Stephen, New Brunswick to Calais (pronounced 'Callous'), Maine just to be able to say I'd been there, I'd never visited the USA before and there was lots to record. Not least the general store with a dusty forecourt and a kerosene pump, just like in all those movies!

And then there was another problem - not only stores like Bobby's here, but also the big ones like J C Penney at the mall and the drug store in Oneida with the counter and the cherry coke floats (oh bliss!) didn't seem to want to sell me transparency film. So it was in the US where I started shooting prints rather than slides.

There was so much to photograph too, like the wonderful paddle steamer on Lake George in the Adirondacks.

It was returning at Christmas when Verona came into its own though. Real snow, like we get in England once in a generation, only there's more of it and it comes every year.

The locals whinge like mad about it, and some are so disgusted that they flit off to Florida every winter to avoid it, but that's their loss - what's a bit of shovelling in exchange for riding around on a ski-doo! And it's so beautiful.

Lights Under Bushels

2005-03-18T12:31:00.000Z

Ceres Wunderkind, aka Peter Kendell, is a seriously talented writer, in my humble opinion. The trouble is, he doesn't know his own strength. So far he has mainly and modestly confined himself to writing fan fiction, but I keep telling him he should write original material for publication. He can do it - have a look at this wonderful fragment in his Live Journal

Hitchin Remembered, 1983-84

2005-03-17T21:32:00.000Z

I lived in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, for just one year from the spring of 1983 to the spring of 1984, but that time was an important crossroads in my life. When I was about to leave I walked round the town with the Canonet and recorded it for my memories. I'd tried this kind of photo travelogue before, when I was about to leave Hull, but in those days I was literally just recording buildings and features without any thought for composition. Later I did a similar study of Cambridge, behind the tourist traps and recording the old Kite district before it went under the bulldozer. I was still working mainly with transparencies in those days, but this session was an early one that got recorded on film.

Hitchin isn't an especially beautiful place, but it is an interesting one. It goes back a long way - it was itself a crossroads where the main route from London to York cut the ancient Icknield Way at a gap in the chalk ridge. It was important enough to have the largest parish church in Hertfordshire, praised by Niklaus Pevsner, in its old market place:

Until the nineteenth century, however, Hitchin it was secondary to nearby Ashwell - which the world has now passed by and left to wealthy commuters. What happened? The railway came, of course, and Hitchin grew rapidly. It grew so rapidly that it didn't bury its old open-field agricultural system, and the ancient field boundaries remain marked by the narrow ginnels that criss-cross the town:

By this time I was making some effort to make a photograph tell a story rather than be a simple record, and I tried to catch the flavour of the William Ransom & Sons pharmaceutical factory, rather than simply record an industrial site.

I had become particularly interested on one building: the Bowman's flour mill that dominated the area around the railway station. It was derelict and scheduled for demolition. All that was keeping it standing was a dispute over the second-hand value of the Arlesey White bricks of which it was built.

It wasn't a thing of great beauty, as you can see, but it was characteristic of the town and representative of its heritage. Its state of filth and neglect didn't help much either. Perhaps ten years later it might have been preserved as loft apartments, so handy for commuters to London and Cambridge. At the time I favoured a centre for small workshops with shared resources, and I told the Hitchin Comet so, but to no avail. A B&Q superstore stands on the site now. Maybe that's what people want. I don't know.

As I was saying...

2005-03-16T19:54:00.000Z

Where were we? Oh yes, I'd just introduced the Canonet, the camera that served me so faithfully for more than twenty years.

In 1980 I was still mainly interested in taking transparencies and I have no easy way at the moment of scanning my archive. But I was starting to use print film for some record shoots.

Since in my last post I touched on the matter of demonstrations, I'll now post this trio of shots which recorded a demonstration outside the Cambridge Shire Hall in the Autumn of 1982, when the Cold War was at its fiercest. I can't remember what the issue was, to be honest, but probably something to do with the civil defence budget for the county.

Nobody is baring their cleavage - this was a bright but chilly day in wind-blown Cambridge after all. Nobody's looking particularly glamorous, but everybody, I think, looks pleasant, just as ordinary people do. Nobody is waving fists in the air, everybody is good-humoured. In the background, families are flying kites from the Castle Mound.

Not that I'm trying to make a point. This is not a war blog, after all!

Hello to my visitors

2005-03-16T18:40:00.000Z

It's nice to see that Mrs Coulter has dropped in here from The Republic of Heaven (not to be confused with The Republic of Heaven, which is a discussion forum for fans of Philip Pullman's masterpiece, linked to the excellent fansite BridgetotheStars.net). I enjoy Mrs Coulter's brand of political discourse.

I see I've also had a visit from Robert Tuminello, the Expat Yank. Welcome, Robert. I hope you are enjoying the good old British hospitality in here. There's a copy of The Guardian on the coffee table and BBC Radio 4 is playing in the background most of the time, except for when I switch to BBC Radio 3. They're very good, you know, as a source of calm, dispassionate news and intelligent and informative entertainment. How different from the rantings of Clear Channel or the Murdoch Empire!

Anyway - I digress. I don't know for sure if I've had a visit from my friends at Little Green Footballs but I'd just like to say that they've given me hours of amusement over the last eight months, and also scare the bejaysus out of me with the thought that rabid rantings like that are the common currency of the most powerful nation on earth.

But certainly, both Mr Tuminello and the reptiles of LGF have taught me something new this week. It's not how astutely you can analyse the affairs of the world that matters. It's how big your tits are. It follows, I suppose, from the incisiveness of their critiques of the French ('don't shave their armpits'), the British ('bad teeth') and Michael Moore ('gravitationally challenged').

So that's what I'm doing wrong.#

Anyway - Hi Guys!

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Lyra's Oxford - a brief photographic tour

2005-03-15T12:16:00.000Z

I took these pictures on a visit to Oxford in the summer of 2003, when I was still entranced by Philip Pullman's epic romance (allegedly for children but who cares), His Dark Materials. Even as I write there's a feature on the boatyard at Jericho included here - it is threatened with being turned into a chi-chi residential complex. There is a chance it will be saved - we are more enlightened about planning regulations than the US - but if it is lost, maybe these pictures will record something precious that is lost. Wouldn't be the first time. These were all taken with the Nikon.

Anyway, on with the motley. For those unable to visit themselves...

1. Bodley's Library

2. "The Oratory of St Barnabas the Chymist", Jericho
(where Lyra and her friends look for Roger)

3. The Oxford Canal and Alchemy Boatyard, Jericho

4. The ruined nunnery at Godstow
(where Pantalaimon saw a ghost once)

5. The hornbeam trees in Sunderland Avenue
(Look closely. I expect the white notice on a tree is for a lost cat!)

6. The Covered Market
(where Lyra buys an apple)

7. The University Museum of Natural History/Pitt Rivers Museum
(where Lyra sees the trepanned skulls and gets ensnared by the sinister and oh-so-camp Sir Charles Latrom)

8. The Clarendon Laboratory (University Physics Department)
(where Lyra meets Dr Mary Malone)

9. The gate in the Botanic Gardens
(where Lyra and Will say their last goodbyes. Note the climbing roses that don't quite meet!)

10. That Bench

11. The Botanic Gardens, and a night full of angels
(That last page, sob sob!)

The Tools of my Trade - Part 5

2005-03-14T19:17:00.000Z

Now we're cookin...

In 1980 it was getting very hard to track down Rapid cassettes for the Fujica. My daughter was on her way, too, and a camera was needed to record that (although I found myself too preoccupied to take many photographs, unfortunately, and those I did in those early days were

I bought this Canon Canonet 28 rangefinder camera from the camera shop in Princes Avenue, Hull. Canon had already ceased production of this model, though I wasn't aware of that, then.

Also, I was past my first flush of enthusiasm for photography. Still, this 'poor man's Leica' was to be my workhorse camera for the next twenty years. We've been through a lot together, and mostly it's recorded those times faithfully. I still have it - it's still in good working order, altthough the foam light-seal needs replacing as it's now somewhat perished - a common problem with this camera!

From here on we can start seeing some photographs!

Caitlin in London

2005-03-14T17:41:00.000Z

Caitlin Firedragon, an Australian living in London and a fellow Bookcrosser, has an excellent blog, Caitlin in London, in which she shares her thoughts on literary and other matters.

It deserves to be better known!

Appreciation of Assets

2005-02-27T14:25:00.000Z

Here's another of my stories pitched at the women's magazine market. It's less dark than Home To Roost, more of a heartwarming story, although with a tinge of bitterness. Maybe this kind of thing isn't really my style, but see what you think.

Helen Withers, the office manager, would loom over my shoulder. "What are you doing?" she'd demand. I'd patiently explain that I was preparing a spreadsheet for the board meeting. So then she'd say "Well can you leave that now. I want you to sort out this stationery order" or "I need you to sort out the details for the sales conference." I knew that Mr Stone wanted his spreadsheet ready for five o'clock but I didn't feel I had any choice but to do what Helen asked, even though it wasn't my responsibility, because she was my boss and I couldn't risk losing my job.

Every time this happened I'd hunch over the computer, furiously applying myself to the work with a clenched jaw. I knew I was worthy of better things, and one day when I'd shown what I could do a door would open and I'd be able to fulfil my potential. Since I had to give up my college course after Mum died, to keep house for Dad and the twins I didn't have that all-important piece of paper so I was going to have to work hard to show my mettle.

At ten to five I'd find myself outside the door of Michael Stone's office with my heart pounding and beads of sweat cold on my forehead. I've always been confident and determined, but I'd be feeling so ground down that I'd knock timidly and then mumble an explanation about not being able to finish.

Michael was always kind. I'd been temping at Charnley & Loveless for about three months when I was invited to join them full time and it slipped out that it was the Finance Director himself who had asked for me to be placed on the payroll. We'd worked together preparing his board reports and we'd got on well. Although I didn't have a formal qualification I'd picked enough from my accountancy classes to know a thing or two about how a business worked, so that I made myself indispensable to him. Everything had been going fine. But I'd reckoned without Helen Withers.

A voice deep down inside me wanted to tell Michael how Helen was constantly distracting me from my work for him. But my confidence was low. I felt that there were eyes on me all the time, waiting for me to slip and make a mistake. I didn't speak up because I thought he would take her side and not believe me. But he never complained. He'd look at me with grey eyes full of sadness, and just ask me to stay behind to finish the work.

"He lost his wife a year ago," said Penny Mottram one morning as we were waiting at the sandwich trolley. "She had leukaemia. He's found it hard to get over it." The trolley was a welcome break in the routine of the morning. It gave us a few minutes to gossip, and it gave me a brief respite from Helen's constant interference. I picked out a chicken salad baguette. "The baguettes are good," I remarked to Penny, "but the chicken salad would come alive with some black pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice." That's one of the things Mum taught me, after she had her stroke and I had to cook for the family. She was such a good teacher.

Something about Michael's eyes touched me deep inside. He was a very attractive man, successful and still in his mid-thirties. But he seemed lonely. I knew he worked in his office every evening, long after everybody else had gone home. There was a lost little boy about him and I felt my heart reaching out. I wanted to look after him, just as I'd looked after Dad and the twins. I wondered if he ate properly. And then I had an idea - something I could do for him. I could make sure he had a meal while he was working late.

I spent that evening preparing a salad of salmon and penne and coriander with some little cherry tomatoes, and the following morning took it to the office in a plastic container with a fork and spoon wrapped in a napkin. Now and then during the morning I fell into daydreams, with shivers of pleasure at the thought of how much he would appreciate it.

Helen loomed behind my shoulder again, dumping a folder of papers on my desk. "Mr Stone asked me to give these back to you to correct," she said. Her lips were taut and her voice harsh and shrivelled. "These needed to be sorted out days ago. You're sloppy, you can't just leave everything to the last minute, you're going to have to learn to prioritise your work."

"I finished those on Monday," I wanted to blurt out, but the words wouldn't come. I could feel the eyes of the others locked onto me and my cheeks were burning with shame. My shoulders stooped over the computer as if to make myself as small as possible. I would have melted into it if I could. And yet I knew it wasn't fair, I was good at my job and those papers could have been given back to me for correction two days ago.

When the sandwich trolley came round I told Penny Mottram what had happened. "You're being bullied," she said. "Helen knows you're good at what you do, and she knows that Mr Stone thinks the same. You're a threat, because you're better at the job than she is and she's jealous, so she tries to put you down all the time. Don't worry about it, if it wasn't you it would be somebody else."

"I hope you're right Penny," I said. I took my baguette and something made me lift it to my nose and sniff it gently. "Mmm," I said, and unwrapped the clingfilm a little to make sure. "There's lemon in this, and black pepper too. Perhaps I'm psychic!

I know it's not good if you're on a diet but what would make it even better would be some chopped avocado in it to give a contrast of flavour and texture. That makes a real luxury sandwich, something to cheer you up when you're feeling down."

I kept my head down for the rest of the day. When Helen tried to interrupt me with a stationery order to be sorted I smiled sweetly at her. "I'm afraid I haven't got time for that," I said. "Mr Stone's report to the board is my top priority at the moment. Why don't you ask Adam to do it?." I watched her lips parting and closing but whatever poison she was preparing for me wouldn't come, not just then. She turned away and stalked to her own desk.

At a quarter to five I knocked on Michael's door. "Here you are Mr Stone," I said, handing him the sheaf of neatly printed papers. He looked tired, there were shadows under his eyes. "Thank you Sally," he said, but his voice seemed to come from a distance. "I asked Helen to pass these to you on Tuesday, has it taken you this long?"

I summoned as much confidence as I could find. "Helen didn't give them to me until this morning," I replied, but I knew I was blushing and my hands were shaking. The next thing to do seemed hard now, but I breathed deeply and produced the bowl of salad. "I thought you might like something to keep you going while you're working this evening" I stammered, but I couldn't look him in the eye. "I made it myself. I hope you enjoy it." I put the bowl on his bookshelf, with the cutlery on top of it. Then I mumbled goodnight and walked away quickly.

That evening I found it hard to eat myself, but I persuaded myself that Michael would really appreciate what I had done for him, and gradually I felt a thrill of excitement that made my skin tingle. After I'd gone to bed it took me a while to drop off to sleep, but eventually I slipped into a drowsy dream in which I went into the office to be met by Michael's grey eyes, no longer sad but full of warmth and thanks. In the dream I could see those eyes across a candle-lit restaurant table, his hands reaching out across to mine and taking my fingers gently...

Helen Withers was waiting for me when I arrived in the morning. I'd hardly got my coat off and sat down. I didn't need to see her, I could feel her shadow looming over my shoulder again. "Have you sorted the stationery order like I asked you?" she demanded. Oh no, I thought. I'm off balance, my eyes are still full of sleep, my head needs a cup of coffee to clear it, and I'm not ready for a fight. Keep cool, I told myself. Don't lose your rag. "I was busy with Mr Stone's report yesterday," I said. "You were going to ask Adam to do it, remember?"

"Adam's got other things to do, he's much too busy," she fired back. "I asked you to do it." She was shaking her head slowly, her lips clenched tight, like a headmistress faced with a hopelessly delinquent child. I felt a surge of rage boiling up inside my breast and I had to clench my fists so tightly that the knuckles turned white. I said nothing, but reached out for the green folder and turned to the computer screen, muttering murderous oaths under my breath.

There was one shred of hope for me. I waited until Helen was busy on the phone, then went over to knock on Mr Stone's door. "Have you got everything you need for the board meeting," I asked. Michael looked up from his desk. I looked hard for the warmth and appreciation in the grey eyes, but there was none. They were cold and distant and more than a little puffy. "Thank you," he said. "Helen will tell you if I need anything." He looked down again. No thanks, no appreciation, nothing. A cold aching despair began to well up in my stomach. The blood drained from my face and my eyes began to sting with tears.

I glanced at the bookcase and saw the bowl and cutlery exactly where I had left them, untouched. I took them to the kitchen and flung the lot into the bin. In the washroom I looked in the mirror at raw, bloodshot eyes with streaks of dark mascara trickling down onto pale cheeks.

My body felt like a hollow shell. There and then I began to draft in my mind the letter of resignation that I would hand in that day. My head was whirling and my mouth was dry as I rehearsed all the petty humiliations. But where would I go? What would I do? I couldn't count on a reference from Helen. There didn't seem to be any way forward.

When the trolley came round I whispered to Penny Mottram what had happened and how I was feeling. "Don't keep banging your head against locked doors," she said. "You'll only get a headache! You may find there's a door wide open where you're not looking." And then there was another voice speaking to me, a warm, chocolate-brown voice that was saying "I've got a chicken and avocado baguette if you'd like one. Something to cheer you up when you're feeling down."

I looked round to see the sandwich man taking something from the bottom of the trolley, and looking directly at me, his eyes - they were blue, I noticed - piercing directly into my own. I'd seen the man before, but I'd never noticed him. Now I saw him properly for the first time with his dark brown hair and smiling eyes, and I saw the badge on his overall - Don Greenway, Homestyle Catering. And I realised that he had been seeing me all the time, and he had been listening carefully to the suggestions I'd made. I was burning with shame for not noticing him, but it didn't seem to matter. Not now.

We called our restaurant The Two of Us. We wanted a name that suggested the intimacy we found with each other. Every evening, before we open, I make sure that there are candles on the tables, and a little vase of golden tulips, and people seem to like it, because we're full every night.

The Tools of my Trade - Part 4

2005-02-25T22:25:00.000Z

Please be patient - we're going to get to some pictures very soon. And even a story or two if you liked the ones I've put up so far.

When I was a sixth-former I didn't have much money, but I was keen to have an SLR camera, and I could just about manage one of these.

Not the prettiest camera in the world. It was entirely manual, so I needed an external light meter (but no harm done there.) Once again, no electronics and not a battery in sight.

It may have been the Lada of cameras but the optics were pretty good. I did a lot of my early experimental black and white work with it, and also shot a lot of Ektachrome. It's the camera that went to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia with me in the summer of 1974. Once again, I'll need a scanner before I can post pictures from that era.

Somebody must have thought it worthwhile. It didn't survive my student days - some scally broke into my student flat in Tuebrook and helped himself to it. Hanging's too good for the bastards, if you ask me!

Short Story

2005-02-24T23:17:00.000Z

Here's one of my short stories. It's one I wrote for the wornen's magazine market, but it's a little too dark for that, perhaps. All the same, I still like it. I hope you do to - let me know won't you!

Home to Roost

A Tale of Revenge

Bill would be home soon, surely.

Rachel stifled a yawn as she looked at the clock. Her head was as light as a meringue and the voices from the television seemed far off. She should have gone to bed hours ago, but she knew what would happen if she did.

Bill was late again. Her leaden eyes struggled to focus, but the wedding photograph on the mantelpiece seemed to shine through the mist. He'd been charming then, and she was beautiful. They were a lovely couple, everybody said so, and she had been proud of him.

She'd peeled and sliced potatoes already. It was best to do that, to be ready for his demands. The white sticks were waiting in a bowl of water ready to be plunged into the the sizzling, spitting oil.

How had she let him do this to her? She rubbed the tender spot on her arm, concealed by her blouse. How had she let it happen to herself? She stood up and looked at herself in the wall mirror. Her eyes were still bright, her skin still bloomed. But she never went out any more.

Tension seized her body as she heard his key grind in the lock. His trembling, drunken hand clumsily seeking the hole. Then his voice. The rich baritone that had thrilled her once; now it set every nerve in her body on edge. Who had he brought home this time? It had been floozies to start with. Then, as if her humiliation hadn't been enough, it had been young lads.

She slipped quickly into the kitchen to turn up the flame under the chip pan. As she looked at the bubbles that began to rise through the golden oil, she wondered how far she would allow herself to sink before she took the initiative.

'Rachel!' Bill's voice was a bellow. She could hear another voice too, a gentle tenor, though she couldn't make out the words. So she was to have a boy dangled in front of her again. She stepped out of the kitchen. Bill's bulky frame seemed to fill the width of the hallway, his face florid and glistening with moisture. One meaty hand was clamped around a can of lager, the other arm draped around the shoulders of a tall, pale-faced young man.

'I'll make some chips for you', she said. She swallowed hard to keep the tremor out of her voice. 'Will you want an egg with them too?'

'Aaargh!' Bill roared. 'Not friggin' chips again. Darren and I want a fry-up. Don't we Darren?' He inclined his face towards the youth and planted a slobbering kiss on his cheek. Rachel was sure she saw Darren's face tighten, though it was the subtlest of movements of that deadpan face. Anger welled up inside her. She yearned to crush Bill, to brush him aside. She sighed as she turned, hoping he was too drunk to notice.

She turned off the gas under the chip pan, which was starting to crackle and sizzle. She took the heavy iron frying pan from the shelf and slammed it on the hob. Then she flung open the door of the fridge and began to rummage for a packet of sausages and some bacon.

'I'm sorry Mrs Duncan', said young man, behind her. 'I didn't mean to...'. Rachel swung round and glowered at him, so that his voice tailed off. He raised both hands in supplication and took a half step backwards. His mouth hung open as if his words were stuck in his windpipe.

'How dare you!', she hissed. But her fury subsided as quickly as it it had boiled up. The youth's eyes, she noticed were of a sparkling pale-blue, knowing and bright.

'Look, I'm really sorry,' he said. 'I didn't know. Really I didn't.'

She wanted to scream at him to get out of her house. And then she felt a wave of compassion settle over her. He might have been the son she could never have. She sighed. 'Hadn't you better go back to him?' she said, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

'He's asleep,' said Darren, rolling his eyes. 'I'm not really hungry. Is there anything I can help you with?'

As if in confirmation, the sound of a thunderous snore came from the living room.

She tore her eyes away from his, scanning the kitchen before focusing on the chip pan. There would be time, she thought, with a rapid mental calculation. The house insurance was paid up; it was up to her to see to that.

'Yes', she said. Her eyes fixed on his once again. 'Yes, there is something you can help me with. Do you know any good clubs?'

He pondered for a moment. 'Yes,' he said. There's the Copacabana...'

'Will I be all right like this?', she said, smoothing her blouse over her full, firm breasts and moistening her lips with a flick of her tongue.

He grinned. 'You look great!', he said.

'Then we'll go and paint the town red tonight!', she said, kissing him full on the lips. 'Wait here a moment while I get some shoes and a jacket.'

As she touched up her lipstick in the bathroom mirror she smiled at herself in the mirror. There's life in me yet, she thought. I'm not finished. I can still turn heads. I can still dress to kill. I can still light a fire in a man's heart.

Back in the kitchen she flipped the lid from the chip pan and lit the flame under it once. Then she slipped her arm through Darren's and led him through to the hallway. 'Come on then, let's go,' she said.

The pair tiptoed through the front door, closing it carefully behind them so that they wouldn't disturb Bill's peaceful sleep.

© R C Mitchell 2003

The Tools of my Trade - Part 3

2005-02-22T19:43:00.000Z

This was my first real camera.

It's a Fujica Rapid D1, and it was a Christmas present from my parents in 1967, when I was 13. It took half-frame (18mm x 24mm) transparencies using the Agfa Rapid cassette system which was quite widespread at the time. You just dropped in the cassette and off you went, and for most of the time I was using it I don't remember ever having trouble buying the cassettes. Even in the little French alpine village of Saint-Etienne-de-Tinée they were readily available. By 1980, when I last used it, finding the cassettes was a treasure hunt although the camera was still in fine fettle.

That big chunky knob on the bottom - that was the 'motor-drive', that wound the film on automatically. Clockwork! It made a clockwork whirr when you took a picture and you wouldn't want to use it for surveillance or sensitive nature photography! You can see the selenium cell around the lens too, so we have a motor drive or sorts, and exposure metering, but no batteries.

Despite the fixed lens the optics were fine and I still have many images to be proud of. Alas, until I get myself a film scanner they won't be appearing on the web for a while.

Adventures in the Dark

2005-02-21T19:00:00.000Z

My father was an immensely practical man, and he had magical powers too. At least I thought he had. One of the magical things he did now and then was to transform the bathroom (for the benefit of American readers that's the room with the bath in it; the loo was separate). Once in a while the bathroom would stop being a light, airy room with a bath in it and become a dark and mysterious place bathed in red light and a bench where half of the bath was. My older sister and I were permitted to enter the magic cave only on condition that we promised to be very good, and very still, and not under any circumstances to open the door unless he said we could.

It was a place of strange lights and strange smells, bottles and dishes of potions, and one piece of very special magic: my dad put a piece of blank paper in one of the dishes and I could watch the change - random grey patches at first, then a picture emerging and consolidating. I've never forgotten that magic. It still thrills me. That's why I shall never be persuaded by digital photography.

I said my dad was a practical man. I can't show you a picture of his enlarger, because there never was one. It wasn't a proprietory thing, he made it himself from bits and pieces of wood from the shipyard where he worked or retrieved from jumble sales. The whole thing slid up and down on the tube from a vacuum cleaner.

Me, I'm not at all practical, but I know a bargain when I see one - and when somebody at my camera club had an ancient Gnome enlarger to give away for a modest donation to the club, I snapped it up. That's what I use - and more about that in due course.

Don't worry - you will see some more pictures soon!

Tools of the Trade - Part 2

2005-02-21T14:13:00.000Z

My first camera was one of these.

A Kodak Box Brownie from the 1930s. It was given to me to play with when I was very little, and I don't suppose I ever had a film in it so no photograph I took with it is extant. I was fascinated by its knobs and levers and its little ground-glass viewfinders, and the satisfying clunks and clicks it made when you moved the knobs and levers.

It did have its time of service in my dad's hands, though. It's just a cardboard box, really, a pinhole camera with a cheap leans instead of a hole, but it could do this:

That's me, by the way, when I was little. I think I'd just fallen over...

Photobucket

2005-02-20T15:08:00.000Z

This is a test post from Photobucket.com

The Tools of my Trade - Part 1

2005-02-20T13:13:00.000Z

I'm a writer, first and foremost, and a photographer second. That said, I have a great deal more money invested in my photography. That's not to belittle the art of writing; it emphasises something wonderful about writing - anybody can do it. It's accessible.

One of my favourite writers is Philip Pullman , who has influenced my own writing considerably over the last few years. Philip is a great proselytiser for writing. In his 2003 Isis Lecture (which should be compulsory reading for all education administrators), he talks of what he calls parity, by which he means that in appreciating art, there should be an equality of opportunity between performer and audience. The audience should be able to feel that they could take part too, not simply be passive. It won't be without hard work, of course, and there are matters of means too. Many people (myself included) would love to attempt to emulate the achievement of Ellen McArthur, but there is the little matter of a boat, which we may or may not wish to devote our time and energy to acquiring. But to write, all you need is some paper and something to write with. You can embellish this by using a typewriter or a computer, but they aren't strictly necessary to be creative with words. As Pullman put it:

And that's it. That's all you need. Pen and paper, computer or typewriter, is all Dickens and Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë had, all Nick Hornby or J.K.Rowling or Ian McEwan have, and once you've got them, you can write a book. When we do start to write we soon discover that it's very hard work, and that our talent is by no means as gigantic as we thought it was before we set it to work; but that very discovery gives us a measure of what we can do and what others can do with the same means, and of how far we've got to go, and tells us more about the game we're in.

Nothing, as Pullman likes to remind us, that is worth doing is easy. That, indeed, is one of the overarching themes of his allegorical Romance cycle His Dark Materials. But the opportunity is there. Even a child could do it - indeed, children love doing it, until we put them off by deprecating it and analysing it to death.

I like to get words on paper quickly, so a piece will start life in longhand, using a gel pen
and a pad of A4 paper, punched for filing . That way, I get the words on paper quickly, as my thoughts are flowing, without being tempted to correct as I go. As it is, Sometimes when the pen gets to the end of a sentence my mind has moved way ahead of me.

After that, and only after that, do I move to the computer for the first phase of typing up and revision. I use Linux on my computer, so I have the advantage of being able to open a text-only session and type directly into the Emacs text editor. In this way I avoid the temptation to check constantly for new emails.

Finally, the plain text version goes into Open Office for formatting and printing for proof reading. I find that reading from paper for proofing is so much easier than reading from the screen.

And that's it. Well, it isn't entirely it, because I have a love affair with stationery which goes beyond the purely practical. So, just to demonstrate the finished product, here's a chapter from my work-in-progress 'straight' novel, A Voice Less Loud. Alison Thorne, the protagonist, wrote a best-selling novel when she was a teenager, and has been struggling ever since to reproduce that achievement. Alison also has that love of the tools of her trade, as you will see from this recollection in the chapter called The Joy of Stationery

First Things First

2005-02-19T23:02:00.000Z

My name is Rosalind Mitchell, and I'm a writer and photographer.

At the instigation of my friend Esther Kiehl (semioticghost) I've decided it's high time I showcased some of my work. That means a photoblog, mainly, although I will be posting bits of writing from time to time: extracts from my crime novels; short stories, poems, bits of background natter and polemic. As I build the blog I'll also be building a permanent gallery of my photographs - watch this space!

Where to start. This picture always scores well in photographic competitions. It's been featured as a dcviews hotshot of the day, which is silly because it's a film shot (I'm an old git who loves working with film and will continue to do so until the last roll of film rolls of the production line). It's proved a hard act to follow in competition, which seems to me as good a reason to start with it so that it won't be an anticlimax later. That said, it's not my favourite, nor in my view the best, of my images.

It was 4 January 2003. The sort of bright, sunny winter day that so flatters London, so I took the Toy (my Minolta Dynax 5) and a couple of rolls of Velvia, which I'd only recently discovered, into town for the day. I had a lot of fun in and around the City, then down to the Isle of Dogs and through the foot tunnel to Greenwich for some real London pie and mash. And then, as twilight fell, I got reckless and tried things I'd never tried before. I did some night photography.

The day was getting late and I was tired by the time I got to Charing Cross, but I did want to see what I could see from the new Hungerford footbridge. There in the middle I saw this scene, so quintessentially London. I set up my tripod, gave it 30 seconds at f5.6 and hoped for the best. I hoped to get the bright moon on the water, but fate had other ideas - some light cloud went scudding on a brisk wind across the otherwise clear sky during the exposure, giving texture to the sky. I could not have predicted how it would turn out, but I was delighted when I saw the result.