GRANNY'S EXPLODING TOILET, by Saviour Pirotta

Funny how things turn out!

When I emigrated to the UK in October 1981, I joined a group of artists working at the now long-defunct Commonwealth Institute in London. Authors, poets, dancers and actors, we visited schools all around the UK, introducing children to cultures from the commonwealth. I used to do an illustrated talk with slides called A Day in the Life of A Maltese child. This featured mostly my youngest brother Michael, who I photographed doing various tasks around the home and the village. It also featured my maternal grandmother, although I had no slides of her to show, because she resolutely refused to be photographed. (Actually, there is a grainy black and white snap of her in existence, and you can tell by her rebellious expression that she had been made to sit for the photographer.)

My grandmother was an irascible character. Married to a Maltese soldier in the British army, she moved house with every pay rise, although she stayed in the same street all her life. She was known to blow an entire week's pension on Sunday treats for her grandchildren. I remember with fondness sharing pan con olio on her roof terrace, eating out of a gigantic chipped enamel dish and watching red admirals sunbathing on her backyard wall.  We would pick mint and rosemary to put on the bread, which we rubbed with her homemade sundried tomatoes. Hers was a cheery smile in a childhood filled with austere faces. Grandma would let me dance around the terrace. She listened to my stories and blew eggs to make heads for my hand puppets.

The anecdotes about her soon started taking over my talks. The slideshow abandoned, I started creating narratives based on my granny and her coterie of female friends. Even when I started getting published, I continued telling her stories, although by now they were more fiction than fact.

Soon I had enough stories for a book. It was bought by Kingfisher, who had published two of my most successful folktale anthologies. But as my gran used to say, 'the devil has no milk but still manages to make cheese', meaning mischief happens when you least expect it.

Before I'd finished my first draft of the granny story, now called Gruesome Gran, Kingfisher was bought out by Macmillan, who dropped the entire fiction list. My agent at the time had just passed away and I never had the chance to sort out the ms for another publisher. I continued telling my granny stories in school, though, until one day -

'Sir, is your gran Gangsta Granny?'

It was the first time I'd heard of a certain celebrity's book but it was by no means the last. I couldn't believe my bad luck. The best idea I'd ever had and I'd let someone pip me to the post. Not that mine would have sold so many copies, of course. But still...

In disgust, I decided not to pursue the Granny project any longer. Gran seemed to have other plans, though. Last year I started doing storymaking workshops in Scarborough schools. They are part of an outreach programme organised by the Stephen Joseph Theatre. Hoping to write a play for the SJT, I asked for a meeting and spent a long weekend thinking up of stories that would make great plays for a family audience.  I needn't have given up that weekend. The children's feedback forms from the afterschool clubs were full of Granny stories. That's what the SJT wanted the play to be about.

So here we are a few months later, with a brand new story for the stage. Granny is taking to the boards in the autumn half term. With nine songs, the show is almost a full-blown musical. The booking opens at the end of July but there have been people asking for tickets at the box office already. Who'd have thought it?

And what's the moral of this rather long-winded rant, I hear you ask?  As Granny would say, 'the devil might make cheese but you don't have to eat if you don't want to.' Which means don't take defeat lying down. If you have a good idea, fight to make it become a reality.

Best words my nan never said, ever.


GRANNY'S EXPLODING TOILET premieres at the SJT on the 29th of October. Tickets will be available here. Saviour Pirotta's historical novel for 9 - 12s, MARK OF THE CYCLOPS, won the North Somerset Teachers' Book Awards 2018 in the Quality Fiction category. His new series from Maverick, The Wolfsong Series, launches with The Stolen Spear in August.  Follow Saviour on Twitter @spirotta.