Muddling through changes - by Lu Hersey

 Life is all about change, when you think about it. As the year turns and early morning autumn mists form down on the Levels, I'm trying to get ready for a few changes I know are coming. But the thing about preparing for change is life often doesn't go according to plan...

Yesterday I went to see my father, who lives a hundred miles away, on his own. He's 96 this year, but manages to live independently and is in reasonably good health. He reads the Times every day and does the crossword. Every so often he has health scares and I spend more time there, trying to improve the levels of hygiene and discarding moulding things from the fridge, but mostly he manages perfectly well, considering.

Yesterday he'd told me he wanted to sort through family photographs and to give me a list of instructions for things I'll need to do when he dies. It sounded reasonable, though not a lot of fun - but I'd planned to visit him anyway, so whatever. I mentally prepared for a difficult, but necessary day.

What actually happened gave me an insight into my father's mind that left me so discombobulated I wondered which of us was losing the plot fastest. 

We started with lunch at 11.30 when I was expecting coffee - I'd wanted to bring lunch for both of us, but he'd insisted we had his favourite sandwiches, which he'd prepared the day before. Or possibly the week. It's hard to be sure with my father.  

I ate them politely and we talked about his new neighbour, who he likes. I asked a few questions about the family, but he forgets the names of all his nieces and nephews and muddles them up. Sadly. He likes his surviving brother, but he's not really a family person. He didn't ask me about mine, so instead I  asked about the photographs. "Follow me," he said.

"They're in here, somewhere." 

We were standing in what was once a very organised dining room when his last wife was alive. Now it's a sea of dead electrical equipment, piles of papers, books and unwanted things that harbour life forms I find scary. "Do you know approximately where?" I asked. 

We stood for a while, silently surveying the chaos while he thought about it. "What am I looking for?" he asked. I reminded him. "Oh yes," he said, and found a box that held a few photographs of his last wife and her family, and a copy of Debrett's Peerage from 1987. His last wife was some kind of aristocrat, and she liked to see her family listed.

I told him they should probably be given to her children, who might appreciate them. 

"You don't want them, then?" 

"No thanks."

He decided he needed to go for a walk. He does this most days when he's not driving across town to visit his current girlfriend. (She used to live around the corner, but is now in a care home.) So we walked slowly up the road to the open green at the top, and sat on a bench to look at the view. "Your mother liked it here," he said. He confuses his late wives quite often. 

"Did I ever tell you about the time I saved her from a krait?" 

"What sort of crate?" I ask.

"K-R-A-I-T. Deadly snake. I pushed her into a hedge and she was furious with me, but I saved her life."

I google krait while we look at the view. Deadly indeed, but only found in the Indian subcontinent. My mother never went there. In fact I'm not sure he did.

"Are you sure it was a krait?" (What I meant was, are you sure it was my mother - or if this actually ever happened)

"Quite sure! I hate snakes. Deadly. Did I ever tell you about the baby adder on our bed when we were on holiday?"

And so we walk slowly back to the house. It's not time for a cup of tea yet, so I wonder if I should mention the list of things he wanted to tell me about. But now he's decided we're going to watch some Michael Parkinson interviews with Peter Ustinov from the 70s that he recorded. I'm impressed at his ability to use his new video machine. I didn't know they still made them, but gave up trying to explain how he could use his Virgin Media box some time ago. The programme is an hour long. 

Finally we have a cup of tea and he tells me about his new neighbour. Again. "She was a doctor too, you know. Nice woman, better than that crook with the vicious dog who lived there before. She's about your age."

Ironically, as I'm leaving, the new neighbour shows up. She's at least 80. I feel depressed. But she's also very bright and seems to like my father, so that's good news. 

As I drive away, I wonder how long this can go on. I was hoping we'd come a little closer to preparing for things to come, even if I just took some of the rubbish in the dining room away. But instead, I've learnt far more about Peter Ustinov than I ever needed to know. 

I think that's why I like writing. There is a structure to a book - and an endgame. Along the way, you can resolve things the way you'd like them to go. 

Real life isn't like that. You just have to take each day as it comes. Maybe that's no bad thing, but sometimes it feels like my father's dining room. A big sea of chaos.

Lu Hersey 

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Into the blue again - Lu Hersey

 I was brought up thinking you had to visit bluebell woods in spring - because it was something we always did. And even back then, when going for walks with boring adults who walked much too fast, never seemed to notice things and weren't interested in anything you had to say anyway, I loved the colour and the smell of a bluebell wood. 

Our family walks were mostly centred around where we lived at the time and what was in season, so we started the year with snowdrops, moved onto primroses, daffodils, bluebells, foxgloves and orchids - ending the year with blackberry picking, mushroom hunts and autumn leaves.  

Sounds idyllic? It really wasn't. Yes, we were lucky enough to have a car to get closer to the countryside, but our vehicles were always ancient and unreliable, so a lot of time was spent walking along roads in the freezing cold (or blazing heat) looking for the nearest AA telephone box. (For those of you born since 1984, these were bright yellow telephone boxes placed at varying intervals along main roads, and if you were an AA member, you had a key to open them so you could call for help.)

The arguments or seething undercurrents of tension between my parents made any country walk quite nerve wracking. It was on family walks that I learnt the magical art of becoming invisible. It avoided a lot of trouble. I've since found it very handy when wanting to avoid the psycho on the bus or walking home after dark. If you want to know how to do it, it's simply a matter of walking fast and thinking yourself invisible. (A warning though - it's not infallible, which is how I know about the psycho on the bus.)

Time passed by, and years later I found myself taking my own family to bluebell woods each spring. No longer practising being invisible because now I was in charge (which basically just meant providing everyone with the right crisps and sandwiches to avoid any potential conflict) It was more fun because the children had each other, or brought along friends, so they always had someone to talk to. They probably didn't notice the bluebells much at the time, yet somehow they've grown up with bluebell obsessions of their own. 

Maybe this is because there is something intrinsically magical about bluebells, bringing with them a sense of the earth as a living entity, breathing blue into the spring woods. If you feel anxious or in need of inspiration, try spending time on your own in a bluebell wood, sitting down away from other people, absorbing the experience. The combination of the colour and the unique scent really lifts the spirits - or maybe it's down to some chemical bluebells release. Either way, I reckon anyone (even Richard Dawkins) can experience a touch of magic, simply sitting in a bluebell wood, allowing themselves a little bluebell immersion time.

These days, bluebells have become more precious to me than ever before - something to do with the years passing by. They've just started appearing now at Easter, a time which always brings to mind my mother's favourite poem, (from A Shropshire Lad by AE Houseman) - it's actually about cherry blossom, but the sentiment behind it could just as easily apply to bluebells:

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

Sadly my mother died long before reaching her threescore years and ten, but the closer I get to it, the greater the need to go out and soak up the beauty every spring. So if you haven't taken the opportunity yet this year, try and get to the woods over the next few weeks. Enjoy some bluebell magic. It works wonders.

Lu Hersey

Getting Rid of Mum: Books With Single Parent Dads in Children's Fiction - Emma Barnes

I wasn't sure why I created a family without a mother when I wrote Wild Thing. I've nothing against mothers. I've a very nice one of my own. Many of my best friends are mothers. Not to put too fine a point on it, I AM a mother. It wasn't something I thought about at the time. Kate and Wild Thing just didn't happen to have a mum. They had a dad looking after them instead.

interior from Wild Thing Gets A Dog - copyright Jamie Littler

I think a lot of the reasons writers choose something are unconscious. Afterwards, bringing a more deliberate analysis to bear, the reasons become clearer. So now I've no doubt that the reason I got rid of Kate and Wild Thing's mother was because I wanted as much mayhem as possible. I planned these to be funny, chaotic books. Although I hate to admit it, I suspect that's easier without Mum.

Single Parent Families featuring Dad have a lot of advantages to a writer. Somehow, it seems entirely natural for dad to be fun and quirky, to be a lousy cook, and to forget about things like the start of term, or a child's need for new socks. Of course, mothers are quite capable of forgetting these things too. (Well, I am.) But it strains the credulity of a reader more. (Or it's just harder as a writer to break that “responsible, boring Mum,” stereotype.) So maybe writing about a Single Dad is the best way of writing about the chaos and mishaps which are, if truth be told, absolutely normal in all families everywhere.

Here are some children's books featuring single dads.

Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl

Danny adores his dad, and together they have crazy adventures – would a fictional mother have been allowed to be so irresponsible, and yet so loveable?

The Summer House Loon by Anne Fine

Ione's dad Professor Muffett is an absent-minded academic, preoccupied with his research into “Early Sardinian trade routes”. He is also blind. An entirely sympathetic character, it is not surprising that a certain amount of chaos flourishes in their household in this witty, sophisticated book. A really fun read for a certain kind of teenager – the kind that doesn't want angst, but some comedy instead.

The Penderwicks  by Jeanne Birdsall

Another absent-minded professor, Mr Penderwick is left to bring up his four daughters when his wife dies, in a book which is a bit like a more modern version of Little Women, but with a dad replacing “Marmee”.

Rooftoppers by Katharine Randell

This prize-winning book features...another academic single dad. (Hmm, beginning to detect a bit of a trend.)   Charles is the foster father to Sophie, who is an orphan from a shipwreck. He is absent-minded and eccentric and he and Sophie eat off books rather than plates, their bizarre house-keeping getting them into trouble with social services. It's rather whimsical but also very appealing.

The Longest Whale Song by Jacqueline Wilson

And finally...you can rely on Jacqueline Wilson to be a bit more down-to-earth, and although she's written several books with single dads, I don't think any of them are absent-minded academics. What is especially nice about this one, is that it features the relationship between a girl and her stepfather, forced to work as a team when the mother enters a dangerous coma after her baby's birth. Ella's stepfather is far kinder and more responsible than her biological father, and once again Wilson shows that a successful family can come in all shapes and sizes.

Please tell me your favourite single dad stories...with or without absent-minded professors.

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Emma's Website
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Emma on Twitter - @EmmaBarnesWrite

Emma's Wild Thing series for 8+ about the naughtiest little sister ever. (Illustrated by Jamie Littler)
"Hilarious and heart-warming" The Scotsman

 Wolfie is a story of wolves, magic and snowy woods...
(Illustrated by Emma Chichester Clark)
"Funny, clever and satisfying..." Books for Keeps

Let’s Get This Out There…Liz Kessler

Last month, two things happened to make me realise how much the world has changed. The first was that I got married.

Why would that make me think the world has changed? Well, because I married a woman.

OK, officially, I got Civil Partnered. What I actually did was stand up in front of a room full of my beloved friends and family and make a legally binding commitment to my partner of six years. So, yeah, I married a woman.

Twenty two years ago, I went to my brother’s wedding. It was a beautiful and emotional day. I remember looking round at everyone in the room and feeling overwhelmed by the love and support for my brother and his new wife, and I remember being so happy for them. And then I remember having a fleeting feeling of sadness as I realised that I would never have that. It never occurred to me that one day it might be possible. And last month, I proved my younger self wrong as I found myself at the centre of a room of my favourite people and felt wrapped up in love and happiness as two families became one.

The second thing that happened last month that made me realise how much the world has changed was that my publisher offered me a new contract. A very special new contract, and one that is close to my heart – especially this year. It is for a book that I wrote over ten years ago and which has waited patiently for its time to come. The novel is about a teenage girl learning about love and life – and coming out as gay. Ten years ago, none of us could really see how we could publish this book. It felt like a risk in all sorts of ways and my publisher, my agent and I were all happy to put it to one side and get on with writing and publishing all the other books that I’ve worked on since then.

But in the last couple of years, all sorts of things have made me start thinking again about this book. Incidents of gay youngsters committing suicide after unbearable bullying hit the news in the states. Violence against gay people increased in Russia after anti-gay laws were passed.

Amongst the campaigning against homophobic bullying, a wonderful song was released last year by a group called the L Project which I played over and over again. It’s called It Does Get Better and ever since I heard the song, I knew that I wanted to be part of a movement that was telling young people that it didn’t matter who or what they were. They were OK and they would get through it.

So I looked at my book again. I dusted it down, polished it up and sent it back to my agent. This time, when she sent it on to my publisher, the answer came back very quickly. ‘Times have changed, and we are ready to move with them,’ was the reply. My publisher not only wanted the book but the whole team was ready to support it, celebrate it and get it out into the world with enthusiasm.

Read Me Like A Book will be published in the spring of 2015 – and I can’t wait. It’s been a long time coming and, in many ways, it is the most important book I’ve written. But I’m also quite nervous of what this might mean for me, personally as well as professionally and commercially. I write books that are mostly read by girls aged between eight and fourteen. I like to think that my books have strong underlying messages about family and friendship and love and loyalty. These things are close to my heart and judging by some of the letters and emails I get, they are close to the hearts of many of my readers and their parents, too. But people sometimes have different ideas about what they mean by these values, and publishing such a different book could possibly create difficulties for me. Maybe it won’t – I have no way of knowing.

But in the year that my partner had very serious major surgery that made both of us think about the fragility of life, and the year that I took a legally binding vow to love, cherish, honour, respect and be faithful to her, I think that it’s time for me to stop letting fear dictate what I am prepared to do publicly. And it’s time for me to tell anyone who needs to hear it, for whatever reason, that it is OK to love whoever you love.

After all, if Ashleigh, the seventeen-year-old main character of my new book can do it, then it’s about time I did, too.

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Find out more about the L Project and their work here
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All photographs by Mark Noall. Check out his website here

Choosing Your Battles - Joan Lennon

 It's been exciting, the Olympics - it really has.  All those amazing human bodies everywhere you look, doing all those amazing things.  But it's important to remember that not all competition is good for us.  Let me tell you a story ... 

Here’s how it is.  I have an older sister.  This is not unusual.  Many people do.  And many people find their older sisters irritating.  But no one has an older sister who is as irritating as mine.

            Because mine has done everything.

            Let me give you an example of how irritating this can be.

            When I was about to go to university, my sister came into my room and handed me a nice, leather-bound notebook.

            “This is for you,” she said.

            “Oh, thanks!  Is it a journal, for me to write my experiences with boys and men in?”

            “No.  It’s a journal in which I’ve written my experiences with boys and men.  Read it carefully, and you won’t have to make the same mistakes I did.”

            “Oh.  Well, what makes you think I won’t make my own, new mistakes?!”

            My sister just smiled.  “I think you’ll find I’ve already made them all.”

            Well, I wasn’t having that.  I went off to university and set out to make all the mistakes my sister hadn’t.

            I thought, I’ll date my professors – I’ll date my room-mate’s brother – I’ll date the entire football team – I’ll date the janitor … but when I checked, I found that every bad idea I came up with had an entry in my sister’s journal already.

            It was when I saw the sign called for recruits for the newly-formed Scottish Historical Re-enactment Group that I realised I’d cracked it!

            This she hadn’t done, I was sure!

            It turned out the Group consisted of two boys – Trevor (the president) and Greg (the co-president).  They were wearing Braveheart wigs and cardboard swords.

            “We don’t get a lot of girls,” said Trevor.

            “You don’t get any girls,” said Greg.

            “Yuckedy yuck.  Look who’s talking.”

            “At least I’ve had a date!”

            “Snogging my cousin when she was unconscious doesn’t count as a date!”

            Wow! I thought.  This has got to be the best mistake EVER – my sister won’t be able to hold a candle to this!

            “Anywho,” said Trevor.  “We’d better get started.  As you know, Historical Re-enactment Groups strive for absolute accuracy.  To that end, we will be performing the Battle of Bannockbuns wearing nothing but our tattoos.”

            “What?!” I said.

            “In the historical nuddy.  You, too, of course, Miss.  But don’t worry, it’s not as if we’ll be really naked.  Greg and I have painted ourselves with blue runic letters, just to make it decent, and we’d be more than happy to do the same for you, wouldn’t we, Greg?  Greg?”

            The co-president’s eyes had glazed over in a worrying fashion.

            “Never mind him,” said Trevor.  “Here, let me show you mine …” 

            As the president of the Scottish Historical Re-enactment Group began to strip off, I beat a hasty retreat …

            I phoned my older sister as soon as I got in, and told her about my experience.  I waited for her to say, “Well!  Now that’s something that never happened to me!” but I waited in vain.

            “Oh yeah.  I did that,” came her voice, as smug and superior as ever.  “I think you’ll find some pretty clear advice on the whole re-enactment thing, round about page 87.  Look it up.  Bye!”

            No way, I thought to myself.  No bloody way.  She’s bluffing.  She has to be!  But she wasn’t.  When I turned to page 87, there it was, my older sister’s warning, staring up at me in big, black, undeniable words:

BEWARE GEEKS BARING GLYPHS ...

There are some competitions you are never going to win, and sometimes even taking part is a bad idea.  Choose your battles, my friends.  Choose your battles.

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Batmitzvahs, Books and Beards - Liz Kessler

I attended three celebrations last week. The first was the 20-year anniversary of Orion publishing; the second was The Book People’s celebration of children’s books; and the third was my niece’s batmitzvah.

On the face of it, these events were all quite different. The first was about the dinosaur in the middle of the room (which we all hoped was in no way symbolic), the meeting up with friends and fellow authors, and the trying (and utterly failing) to say ‘no thank you,’ when asked if I would like my champagne glass topping up.

The not at all symbolic dinosaur

The second was mostly about being in awe of the amount of talent in the room, the collective wisdom, the inspiring speeches - and the Jamie-Oliver-designed cocktails. Oh, and the fact that I was out in a dress for the second time in a week. A fact which has not occurred since I was thirteen, so I'll 'treat' you to a pic, otherwise you might not believe it actually happened.

Yes, it's me in a dress

And the third. Well, the third was the point when I realised what the first two were really about.

As I sat in the synagogue, listening to my youngest niece singing – beautifully – her allotted portion of the Torah, and trying not to cry, as I wasn’t sure my mascara was waterproof, I felt an overwhelming sense of belonging. I’m not religious – AT ALL – so at first, I wasn’t sure exactly what I was feeling. But as I looked around me, at the packed synagogue, at the family members greeting each other as they came in, at the strangers turning to face those who had recently lost loved ones during the Kaddish, at the children plaiting the tassles on their father’s tallis, I realised what it was about – what it was all about.

It’s about community. It’s about being part of something with other people. And something that is in constant flux, like a river that we are all being swept along together.

As Katie continued to sing, it occurred to me that we were at the point where this river was ending, and would soon flow into another. The sixth and youngest of her generation, hers would be the last of these occasions for many years. The next bat- or bar- mitzvah in our family would be for the child of one of these six.

Once I’d made this connection, the mascara didn’t stand a chance. And as I looked at my older nieces, standing with their boyfriends who all suddenly seemed to look like grown men, with their suits and their beards, I realised that this day might not be such a long time coming.

One of the nieces, with two of the bearded boyfriends

When the Rabbi blessed Katie at the end of the service, his words took me back to my own childhood. The ‘Cheder’ or Saturday School, where my strongest memories were not of any religious teaching but of the times we sang happy birthday to someone, or played hide and seek behind the beautifully stained windows. And I realised how seamlessly the past flows into the present and catches us out when it gets there. Glancing again at my nieces and their beard-clad boyfriends, it occurred to me that before I know it, the present will already have flowed on into the future.

And then I was reminded of the book-related celebrations earlier in the week, and how those were about community and flow as well.

Just as Katie’s singing held the moment between this generation and the next, the two earlier events marked a pivotal moment in the world of books. As Orion Chief Executive Peter Roche said in his speech, 'The world of the written word has experienced its biggest transformation since the invention of the printing press'.

E-books have brought new challenges to everyone in the world of publishing. But as well as the fears that all of us must have, if we approach the situation in the right way, it has also opened up new possibilities. The 'right way' will be different for all of us. It might mean having a publisher who is forward-thinking, proactive and creative enough to thoroughly embrace e-books without deserting the world of paper and bookshops. A tricky balance.

Or it might mean having a serious go at self-publishing. Many are seizing the opportunity to publish or re-publish their own books. For some, this is a bold and exciting step forward. For others it may be a last resort. Either way, some authors are beginning to do very well from it.

Whichever way we face these new challenges, I believe we need community. Whether that means a loyal and monogamous relationship with a publisher, or a team of fellow authors setting out on an e-publishing (or blogging!) venture together - or any number of other possibilities - my point is that, as we travel from one era of publishing to the next, we need each other.

As with family, there will be squabbles – and possibly even divorces – along the way. But if I think now of my niece singing, my brother looking proudly on, and the warmth of their friends and family all around them; if I think of the chief executive of my publishing company telling his authors, 'Our future is in your words,' and if I think of the fact that, whilst I was with my family, thirty children’s authors were spending a weekend together in a hotel in Peterborough, sharing ideas and inspiration – that’s when I know that, wherever these rivers take us, our best chance of successfully navigating the waters is by joining up with others to share a raft.

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