For those of you who missed my first interview with Sue Purkiss, (what on earth would you do that - luckily you can still find it on the archive on 16th February!), I'm conducting a series of interviews with fellow writers on the theme of 'a writer in their landscape'. But don't expect that to be the only subject we touch on, because this is merely a springboard for us to explore around the theme and the experience.
This month its my great pleasure to have Kit Berry talking to us, about her creation Stonewylde, her life, paganism, creative experiences - and somewhere in a wide-ranging interview, landscape gets a mention. Welcome, Kit and thanks for chatting to us.
Thanks for asking me.
Now, one of the things I wanted to
do with the people I interview, is to take the main theme of ‘landscape’ deeper
than just the obvious questions, each time focussing on something different and
personal to the author. On this particular occasion I’d like to go further into
the idea of the act of creation and how it is actually affected by the writer’s
love, (or not) of a particular landscape(s). Can we start by putting you right
in front of the first view you had of landscape which particularly affected
you, and could you describe it for us?
1 I’ve always loved nature and felt happiest when
outside in beautiful surroundings. I
grew up surrounded by woods, but always loved the rolling hills and big
vistas. I lived in Ibiza as a teenager
and really enjoyed the beautiful mountains and landscape there, and in my early
twenties moved down to Dorset (Weymouth) to go to college. Dorset really got to me – the amazing vistas
of hills and woodlands, the sea, the cliffs and beaches. Although due to my husband leaving us, I had
to bring my three sons up on a council estate there, I was very lucky that it
was surrounded by hills and woods, so it was a far cry from a built up
area. We walked regularly in the amazing
landscape, visiting hillforts, woodlands and the rolling hills. Dorset has to
be my favourite place, although I’ve seen many other wonderful places too.
Your Stonewylde series is about a
community which most people would call pagan, and which at times reminds me of
my own experiences of druid camps and the like – where time often feels
suspended and at the least a bit woolly, and it can feel odd if you have to
leave it to go to the supermarket. Can you tell us about your pagan journey –
if you would call it that – and how it might have led to Stonewylde?
My pagan journey was inspired by
a close encounter back in the year 2000 with a hare in the beech woods near
where I lived in Dorset. My mother had
just died and I went for a walk alone one sunny evening in the summer – and
literally came face to face with a hare, only about a metre away from me on the
path, basking in a pool of golden evening sunlight. We had eye contact and I couldn’t believe
that the hare was just sitting there, almost communicating with me. Eventually, after a few minutes, it quietly
turned and loped off into the undergrowth.
I felt so very honoured and touched by the amazing experience, and went
home and researched hares on the internet, discovering their links with
witchcraft and magic. This led me to
explore pagan beliefs and rituals – my mother had been a devout Christian but
of the rather hypocritical kind, who didn’t really practice what she preached
and was highly judgmental, and so although I was obviously devastated by her
death, it also kind of released me to a new type of freedom. I did a great deal of research into paganism
and the Old Ways, and with the idea of Stonewylde already brewing – a secret
community cut off from the outside world – it seemed the ideal way to go.
However, over the years, I’ve become a little
disillusioned with some aspects of pagan practices. After a wonderful term of evening classes run
by Oxford Continuing Education at Reading University on ‘The Anthropology of
Ritual and Religion’, I came to understand that human beings need to worship
something, need to have leaders in religion and deify things, and need to feel
they belong to some movement or other.
This compounded my disillusionment with some of the pagan groups I’d
taken part in various events with, and made me realise that actually, it was
nature itself that I loved, and not the rituals, chanting, crushed velvet or
antler horns, nor the egos of the people leading the rituals. So now I don’t ever attend anything like
that, but get my spiritual fulfillment from being alone, outside in nature,
watching the moon rise, gazing at the stars, the sunrise and sunset, watching
birds and wild creatures, and simply feeling part of this amazing creation. That fulfills a deep need in me that no
organised group could ever match.
Like Sue Purkiss, last month’s
subject, I know you to be a generous sharer of some wonderful landscapes on
facebook, often early morning and evening. How did your journey with
photography begin?
I love taking photos in nature and sharing them, and although
I wouldn’t in any way call myself a photographer (all my photos are taken with
my phone!) I did study photography at college in Weymouth as part of my degree
– English and Media Studies. We were
taught about composition and balance, and in those ancient days, had to develop
and print our own photos in the dark room!
So I’ve always had an interest in this, but mostly I just want to share
some of the beautiful sights I come across with others. I know a lot of my Stonewylde readers share
my love.
Let’s move on to your creation,
Stonewylde. Did the place come to you fully formed and was it based on an
actual place?
I used to drive past Charborough
Park in Dorset during the 90s, and this was at a time when there were all sorts
of secret cults being outed in the press.
The high stone walls and huge gates made me wonder what was behind and
within. It wasn’t till much later I
realised this vast estate was owned by the Drax family – and Richard Drax is
now the Conservative MP of the area!
After my encounter with the hare in the beech woods, I started to
imagine a secret pagan place, tucked away from the outside world and practising
the Old Ways, and of course thought back to Charborough Park. Stonewylde, the place and community, came to
me fully formed, as a relic of feudalism, with the elite living in luxury in a
great hall, and the humble workers living happy lives in an idyllic village.
Living in beautiful Dorset at the time, the landscape of Stonewylde was right
on my doorstep and this inspired me for a lot of the settings in the book.
So, at some stage during your
adult life, possibly earlier than that, you decide you want to write this
series, which might be deemed fantasy. What in the way of inspiration is behind
you? What are the other landscapes you loved and writers whose work you
revered?
I’d always wanted to write – my passion as a child
was reading, and at school my favourite thing was writing stories. But life gets in the way, doesn’t it? My degree was a step forward towards this,
although at that point I was more interested in TV production. I became pregnant during my last year of
that, which put paid to my dreams, and had three sons in four years. My husband then leaving us completely
scuppered any ambition, and I spent years doing very menial jobs, trying to
supplement our meagre income (cleaning jobs, working in the local shops,
etc).
My break came after helping at my
sons’ primary school in all three classes and really enjoying it. The Open University started a PGCE, and the
headteacher approached me and offered to sponsor me through it, as he said I
had a natural aptitude with children.
This completely turned my life around and I felt fulfilled and
happy. I recognise the power of story
and would read to my class every single day, and we did a lot of creative
writing too, crossing over (as you could in those days) to other subjects. So
in history I’d get them to imagine they were a person living in the period in
question and write a story. Writing has always been really important to me, and
the creation of Stonewylde was a dream come true! I prefer the term ‘magical
realism’ to describe the series rather than ‘fantasy’. As a youngster I read a lot of historical
fiction, and this is a genre I’m writing in now.
Do you landscape is important in
fantasy fiction? Are there tricks to writing it, or do you just set down what’s
in your head?
I think landscape is important in
any fiction – setting is vital to the plot.
I don’t know of any tricks to writing it – I just describe what I see in
my imagination. For instance, Hare Hill
at Stonewylde – the hill overlooking the sea with a single standing stone at
the top, the place where the hares gather every full moon to dance, cavort and
then moongaze – came to me fully formed.
I didn’t have to construct it. I think when an imagined landscape
becomes totally real to you, you just have to gaze around and describe what
you’re seeing.
So, you’re on one of your regular
rambles and quite by chance a door opens and you’re able to enter the
mysterious, closed community that is Stonewylde. We’re stepping silently behind
you, our guide. What are you going to point out to us?
If a door opened and we entered Stonewylde … I
would point out Hare Hill, the moongazy place, Mother Heggy’s cottage, the
Village Green and the Stone Circle. All
very special, magical places to me.
Something I’ve developed a recent
love for is the sections in wildlife documentaries when the landscape is
revealed from above. Imagine you’re flying over a place you’ve always wanted to
go and you’re going to land in a few minutes. Where would it be? What would you
see?
I’d love to fly over Norway and land there! Or any
part of Scandinavia really. I’m half Danish and my father took us on a driving
tour of Norway, Sweden and Denmark when I was 12 years old. I remember a lot of
it but would really love to return now. I love the time my lovely second
husband and I have spent in Finland with the International Forest Therapy group
(it’s so very clean and underpopulated there, as well as being beautiful) and for
my 60th birthday present, my three sons took me to Copenhagen for a
long weekend – I love that place! But I
do recall Norway as being especially beautiful, so I’d love to fly over it and
land there.
Are you greatly taken with the
notion of worlds between worlds and liminal spaces which we can enter under
certain conditions? How do you see the world in that respect and has it
informed your writing at all?
Worlds between worlds – to me,
that sums up my feelings about nature and being outside. When I walk my two beautiful dogs every
morning in the open fields and woods on our doorstep, I often feel that sense
of something else being just out of sight, just round the corner. And I think that’s what imagination is – the
ability to open a secret door and enter another world, a liminal space. And hopefully take your readers with you! Two
of my favourite books as a child were ‘The Magic Faraway Tree’ and ‘Peter Pan’,
both of which transport you to a totally different but secret place.
I’d like to finish my asking you a
bit more about Stonewylde itself. How much do you feel it is part of you? Is
there any aspect of it you might change if you were to write it again?
Stonewylde feels like my fourth child - it’s very
much part of me. I’ve had some amazing
feedback over the years from readers, and most of them say that to them,
Stonewylde is a real place where they can go in their minds, walk the
landscape, dance with the hares and forget all their troubles. And no, I don’t think I’d change any aspect
of it if I were to write it again – it’s complete and just right in my
mind. I’m currently negotiating with a
production company to adapt the books into a TV series, and my big fear is that
they’ll spoil the wonderful world of Stonewylde by not portraying it
correctly. Hopefully I’ll get some say
in how it’s represented!
-
.Steve Gladwin - Stories of Feeling and Being
Writer, Drama Practitioner, Storyteller and Blogger.
Creation and Story Enhancement/Screen writing.
Author of 'The Seven', 'Fragon Tales' and 'The Raven's Call'
01938 500728/01485007189/imagepoet7@gmail.com/mrwilliamsromance@gmail.com
PS A re-focused version of my interview with Kit will be appearing in the first edition of 'The God's Shed' at the end of the month. For more details in the next week or so, go to the link immediately above, or direct to http://www.storiesoffeelingandbeing/thegodsshed
Thank you
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