A Boy From Baghdad, by Miriam Halahmy - reviewed by Sue Purkiss

 

It's very important to twelve year-old Salman Shasha that he is what it says in the title - a boy from Baghdad. But in 1951 it's not easy to be a boy from Baghdad - especially if you're Jewish: because the Iraqui government has given the Jews of Iraq a year to get out of the country. They will not be allowed to take anything with them apart from one suitacase, and they will not be allowed to take any money with them. Up until now, Salman's family has had a comfortable life in a pleasant house. His mother is a marvellous cook - there are luscious descriptions of family meals, and they want for nothing. Salman's only problem is that he oves swimming, but he knows his father would not approve of his ambition to be an olympic swimmer, so he has to train in secret - he swims as often as he can in the River Tigris, with his cousin Latif keeping time for him.

He knows about the government edict. The fledgeling state of Israel has agrred to take in the Iraqui Jews, and finally, the family has a place on a plane which will take them there. They are told that it will be a land of milk and honey, with jobs, houses, and prospects for all. Salman doesn't care about any of this: he loves Baghdad, it's his home and he wants to stay there.

But go they must. And when they arrive, they find that their new home is a tented camp, and there is little prospect of work for Salman's father. Conditions are harsh, there is little food, and Salman's mother, in despair, sinks into depression and takes to her bed. As his father looks for work in the nearby city, it's up to Salman - and Latif - to find food for the younger children.

And that's not all. It turns out that prejudice exists here too. The Ashkenazi (European) Jews had arrived first, and they look down on the Jews like Salman, who are from Arab countries. Salman is told he must only speak Hebrew, and he must change his name to a Hebrew one - Shimon.

At first he resists, determined to hold on to his identity. He still holds on to his dreams of becoming a swimmer - but how is that ever going to happen now?

But gradually, Salman and his family find friends who help them: friends who come from all the different groups now living in Israel, including Ashkenazis and Arabs. They find hope again, and eventually - spoiler alert - Salman finds a way to get his swimming back on track. But really, the lessons Salman learns about how to live are the important ones.

Apologies if I've related too much about the story of the book (which is based on Miriam's husband's family): the book only arrived yesterday, and I sat down and read it in one go, and I'm rather full of it.

But also, more importantly, it has a very clear relevance to the terrible things that are happening at the moment. I have only a fairly hazy idea of how Israel came to be. This book isn't an explainer of that (if you want a brief, but very clear explanation of that, try Rory Stewart on The Rest Is Politics podcast). But what it does do, very clearly and vividly, is take us into a small corner of that time: and by allowing us to enter the lives of this family, it enables us to see just how it was for the people living through that time - how complex were their circumstances, how difficult the decisions they had to make. (And indeed, that sometimes, there are no choices to be made: the Shasha fmily had no choice about whether or not to leave Iraq.) 

It's a very, very good book, and I strongly recommend it.

More Books Please by Savita Kalhan

Happy New Year!

Last year I did my usual reading challenge. It used to be to read 55 books, but for 2016 I decided to up it to 60 books. As usual, the mix of books I've read range from middle grade to teen to young adult to adult, and they include a vast range of genres.

I read the middle grade and teen books for the library reading group that I run in Finchley Church End library, which now also includes some pre-teens as well as 13 to 15 year olds. Here are a few of our favourite reads for 2016. These books made the kids laugh, cry, hold their breath, or cheer. They have held them captive and made them seek out the authors so they can read more by them.

Some of the older teens in the group are now interested in reading young adult books, but I remember when they first started, just under two years ago, when all they wanted to read were older middle grade and young teen books. Some of them only managed to read a book a month then. Now they're are all taking up to four books a month to read for the reading group. It has been so satisfying to see the kids' reading habits develop and their love of reading increasing month by month.

The only thing that's holding us back is the budget for teen books. I'm sure the problem is the same for all libraries. I would love for my group to have more choice available to them. 

So if there are any publishers out there who would like their teen books read and reviewed by a teen reading group and would like to donate some books in exchange, or would just like to donate teen books, then please feel free to get in touch with us!

Savita's WEBSITE

Savita on FACEBOOK

Twitter @savitakalhan

About 'Stories From The Edge' by Savita Kalhan

The first books I read as a child were collections and treasuries of fairy stories, folk tales, myths and legends from across the world. They were short stories, perfectly formed, each very different and enthralling, and I loved them. Somewhere along the line, I began reading chapter books, and then quickly moved onto novels. I think the same is true for lots of kids, but not all. 

There are lots of teenagers who only read what they have to read for English at school. They often don't have the time or the inclination to read novels for pleasure. I am aware of a few schools where kids are not allowed to bring in their own books to read in school. The school prescribes what they can read for pleasure - in one particular school books are pre-loaded onto kindles and those are the only books the kids are allowed to read. They don't have a choice. Part of the pleasure in reading is surely in being able to have some say over what you read for pleasure - even for kids!

I read lots of short stories - and I enjoy writing them too. Short stories are similar to novels in some ways, but they have their own identity. Edgar Allan Poe, in his essay "The Philosophy of Composition," said that a short story should be read in one sitting, anywhere from a half hour to two hours. Short stories developed from the traditional art of oral story-telling from fables and anecdotes, which are present in every culture, so by definition they have to be short. Modern short stories often focus on a pivotal moment or emotion or mood, whereas in the past they were more rooted in parables and ethics with the stories having a beginning, middle and end, but both usually focus on one main character with one central theme. There is also more experimentation in the prose and style of a short story, which may not work in a novel.

I have always read short stories, and I have wondered why there were so few anthologies for teenagers. Well, I have been involved in a project that brings a new anthology into schools.

Apart from being a member of the amazing Scattered Authors Society, I also belong to a small collective of teen writers. There are eight of us: me, Sara Grant, Dave Cousins, Miriam Halahmy, Keren David, Katie Dale, Paula Rawsthorne and Bryony Pearce, and we all write edgy fiction for teens and young adults. We call ourselves The Edge. We blog together, and often do school and library events together, and last year we decided to write an anthology together.

It has been an interesting process. Our only remits were that the stories should be up to five thousand words and be suitable for teens and young adults. Because we all write edgy fiction, we knew the stories would all have an edge to them - and they do. They range from stories about doping in sport, online grooming, racism, gender, terrorism, grief and loss, love and life, to name some of the themes in the stories.

What we're hoping for is that the stories inspire reading and discussion and debate amongst teens and young adults. To aid teachers and school librarians, we've also written discussion guides with suggested topics for discussion and creative writing exercises.

My short story for the anthology is called Aladdin's Lamp. It's a story about a sixteen year old Indian girl called Priti who doesn't want her best friend to leave India and doesn't want to be married and settled. Her parents have other ideas and so a suitor comes to the house. Priti wishes she had an Aladdin's lamp so that she could wish the suitors to go away, but in the story she finds out that you have to be careful what you wish for...

I will tell you no more so I don't spoil the story for you!

The stories in the anthology are accessible, diverse and thought-provoking, and that's the wonderful thing about an anthology - you can dip into it and find something different each time. I hope our teen readers will dip into the anthology and find something they like, a story, an author, or just some pleasure from reading something different.

“The short story is a very powerful weapon in the hands of a librarian or teacher . . . I guarantee that these stories will leave readers gasping for more. But most importantly they will get teen readers thinking and talking.” — Joy Court, Chair: CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Medals; Reviews Editor: The School Librarian 

Stories from The Edge is out on Kindle, Paperback, and here for Educational and Library sales.

 

Savita's website, on Facebook, and Twitter

Peace and Tolerance in Paris by Miriam Halahmy

In January this year I was invited to Maurice Genevoix School in a Paris suburb near Porte D'Orleans to lead workshops on peace and tolerance. The teacher, Sarah El-Bouh, found me via my website because of my experience in working across divided communities and my writings on peace and dialogue. I speak some French, have lived in Paris and visited numerous times and was absolutely delighted to be invited. The school is part of a two year project on peace, with other schools in Europe as part of the Comenius Peace Project.

Sarah El-Bouh teaches English at the school and is supported by Anne Berelowich who teaches English Lit and Drama. Their commitment to the peace project is inspiring and uplifting.

Like the UK, France is wrestling with its political and social views about ethnic minority groups, immigration and left versus right. A couple of weeks before I travelled, the controversy about the footballer, Nicolas Annelka and le quennelle, an anti-semitic gesture, was all over the media. As an Anglo/Jewish author, whose great uncle had been deported from Paris to Auschwitz and who had written a novel ( HIDDEN, Albury Fiction) about Muslim asylum seekers, how would I be received in a Paris school? I needn't have worried - I had the most amazing time!!

I worked with three groups of students, aged 15-17 years and all of the work was in English. The students read out my poems and drama scripts, spoke, listened and wrote their own pieces all in English which was very impressive. I told them that I belong to English PEN, "literature and human rights," and that PEN's motto is, "The pen is mightier than the sword." They understood straight away and translated into French, "La Plume est plus fort que l'epee." That became our catch phrase for the day.

My aim with the work was to ensure that the students felt that they could all individually contribute to promoting peace and tolerance in their everyday lives. I therefore chose poems and texts which would inspire them to write their own views and feelings.
The first poem I presented  was 'Sorry' by a boy from Bosnia. I had asked the author Hilary Freeman if her partner, Michael, could translate the poem into French for me, which he kindly did. One of the students volunteered to read the French as I read the English.

The students written responses speak for themselves. Here are two examples :-

I have also written my own poems about peace and tolerance and one of the poems asks, What can you do for Peace? The opening stanza gives you a flavour:-

Sunbathe for Peace

go to bed for Peace

strike for Peace

pray for Peace

talk to your son for Peace

love your daughter for Peace

weep for Peace

roll your wheelchair for Peace

strap on your prosthesis for Peace

walk down to the Post Office

and buy a stamp for Peace

swipe your Oyster card for Peace

unpoint your gun

sink your difference

wipe up blood

defuse a bomb for Peace

© Miriam Halahmy

The students loved this idea and of course had plenty of ideas of their own :-

They discussed their writing in groups, wrote in groups and also wrote on their own. But their commitment to expressing themselves in English, despite the difficulty of the subject matter, was outstanding.

Speak with your friends for Peace/grumble with your family for Peace/Ask your teachers for Peace/ Act Now! by Hippolyte Quentin
Do everything for Peace.../Be tolerant for Peace/ Help for Peace/ Don't be racist for Peace/ Pray for Peace/ But you must believe in Peace. by J. Samia
Be different for Peace... by Moulin Emeline
Give some of your time for Peace... by Maxime M.

One of the students, Sami, came to France from Homs in Syria only three months earlier with his sister and knows how hard it is to start again in a new country. I read an extract from HIDDEN and the students then read a drama script at the point where my teens, Alix and Samir, have saved an asylum seeker from the sea and now Samir is trying to persuade Alix to help hide the man to save him from being deported and possibly killed back in his homeland. Alix is faced with an impossible choice.The students discussed the choice in their groups and then fed back to class. Sami felt that as an asylum seeker he could not put himself at risk and would not be able to help. Others were divided as to whether they would help or not. I pointed out that there was no right answer to such a difficult dilemma.

Alizea Girand wrote, "Hidden is my favourite because we see the evolution of Alix. At the beginning she knows nothing about racism but because she becomes friends with Samir, she discovers how hard it is for a foreigner... Peace is something really important in my opinion. We had all the poems before but we didn't know they were as powerful and meaningful as Miriam showed us."
Chloe D wrote, " Getting involved in this peace project is really important to me. In this way meeting a writer too is a good experience because you've more experience that us."

We looked at a poem I wrote after an incident in my 'Corner Shop'. The students read the text before my visit and were curious about its origin. During the Gulf War, in the queue one morning at my local shop run by a Muslim family, there were local people from the orthodox Jewish community,  my Japanese hairdresser, a group of Hindu ladies, an elderly man and some children. Someone said something about the war. The owner spoke up, saying,"Well, we won't let that come between us," and everyone agreed, nodding their heads and saying, "That's right!" As I told the students, Peace broke out in my Corner Shop that day.
The poem ends :-

We are the peace process, the moderate,

the mother, the brother.

We are the news, the ceasefire

pressed like coriander in a wrinkled palm.

We are the voice, the banner,

the handshake, brown on white on olive.

We are the ear, the eye, the promise,

prisoner released, girl unharmed, bomber stilled.

© Miriam Halahmy

This idea really captured the students. Here are some responses:-

We are the peace process/ The ones who give peace a chance/ We can change the minds/ Together against violence and war.  by H. Ouachek
We are the peace process/ We are the world/ We are the peace army, peace warriors.
by Sacha Verlac

Each of our sessions only lasted an hour or an hour and a half and we had a lot to get through. Poems, stories, drama scripts, questions, comments, but I used every single text I had brought with me and was constantly amazed and impressed by how much the students could absorb, comprehend and then respond to in their own independent way. These students had strong political and social views formed by their education, upbringing, reading and observation of the world around them.

Their teachers have sent me their feedback on our sessions :-

It was an honor to meet you - you're searching for peace and you want to share your fight with us. Thank you for coming, I enjoyed this moment. H. Ouachek

Miriam enjoys her work and defends a lot of the essential values like peace, tolerance and respect. She listened to us with an intensive respect. Benjamin

This meeting was very important ...Miriam permitted to us to develop her poems with our opinions. C. Julie

You made me learn a lot of things about the Palestinians resistance and I learnt that I have to be in other people's shoes to understand them. Aime B.

I didn't know what to expect with this meeting... I was very surprised I understood each word. I like the fact we don't only talk about peace but racism and tolerance. I lie if I say that it change my life, but it teach me a lot. A. Ashley

I was unable to include everything that the teachers sent me but I have learnt just as much as the students during our sessions and I came away inspired to continue writing on social and political issues for young people. They are clearly so interested and keen to widen their knowledge and formulate their own opinions. 

I hope that I can return to see the students again one day.

I will leave you with the words of Aime B :-

You don't have to be sorry because we are all human and we can live together.

With Sarah El-Bouh on my right and Anne Berelowich.

www.miriamhalahmy.com

Rock Climbing ; You're STUFFED!!

When I was younger I loved what we now call extreme sports : biking, motor-biking, rock climbing, skiing and generally taking physical risks. But my body has not been reliable for some years and so it is through my Y.A. novels that I revisit the adventures of my past in my imagination.

The third book in my Hayling cycle, STUFFED, will be published by Albury Books, Feb 2014. This is the outline :-

Jess is fifteen, Ryan is seventeen and they are falling in love. But each is keeping a terrible secret from the other.  On a weekend away rock climbing they move closer until a terrifying incident drives a new wedge between them. Can Jess save her family from Dad’s mistakes and will Ryan resolve his mess from the past? If not, then their loved is doomed to failure.

I wanted the third book in the cycle to focus on a teenage relationship, something I am quite interested in writing about. Ryan has an older friend, Max and it seemed quite natural to make him a rock-climber. As the character of Max developed I thought, why not send all the teens away on a climbing weekend and then make something memorable and life-changing happen?

Excellent! Just the kind of drama I love when writing a novel.

It's a very long time since I’ve been up a rock face and so I decided to consult the experts. I started with an indoor climbing wall where I met Mark ‘Zippy’ Pretty, one of the best climbing coaches and route-setters in the UK today. Zippy happily spent an hour going over possible scenarios and demonstrating moves for me on the climbing wall.

I realised how much I had missed climbing and the climbing community which is rather old fashioned, respectful and very supportive. So with a bit of persuasion I had a go. I did a simple climb up the wall and walked back down. I wasn’t prepared to repeat the experience – not with my joints! But it was a great reminder of how it feels to climb.

However, I’m not used to indoor climbing and much prefer being in the outdoors. So Zippy suggested that I go up to Derbyshire and talk to the climbers and instructors up there. I jumped at the idea. I used to climb on the gritstone edges such as Stanage Edge and I was excited at the prospect of revisiting the climbs of my student days. Going back to Derbyshire let me observe many different climbers, including young people and reminded me of the fear and the adrenalin of climbing vertically up a rock face, defying gravity and the enormous exhilaration of reaching the top, however easy the climb.

Once I started my research I realised that equipment has changed so much since my day. When I climbed as a student we simply tied a rope round our waists and went up; no helmets or harnesses. Now I realise how dangerous it was. At least we wore plimsolls. The generation before us went up in their leather lace up brogues!

I had a brilliant time in the Derbyshire air, taking photos and talking to climbers and instructors. It was some of the best research I’ve done in years. The climbing chapters in STUFFED really came alive for me and they almost wrote themselves when I came home

I’m researching freestyle sprint Olympic swimming for my current work in progress. Sport will always play an important role in my Y.A. novels.

Albury books will be  publishing in physical and e-books all three books in the Hayling cycle and I am beginning a series of events all through this year to promote the books, while I finish my current novel.

You can find out more about my books and events on my website : www.miriamhalahmy.com

Nelson Mandela...Poem and Peace by Miriam Halahmy

In 1952, the year I was born, Nelson Mandela opened his law firm and became involved in  ANC defiance activities. All my life he has gone before me as a beacon of hope and reconciliation. In the 60s as my political consciousness was developing I became more and more aware of  apartheid.

As a student in the 70s I helped to swell the tide of demonstration in Trafalgar Square. 

In the 80s I took my seven year old son to the vigil outside the South African Embassy and we signed the demand to release Mandela and end apartheid.

I could never buy a Cape apple.

In 1994 I sat and watched Mandela vote for the first time in his life. The most extraordinary smile broke over his face, almost shy, yet beaming, as he posted his slip of paper into the slot. That smile lit up the world.

The next day I went to the supermarket and proudly bought my very first bag of green Cape apples. Now it felt safe. Mandela was not only free but he had cast his vote. 

I went home, dumped the apples in the sink, turned on the tap and as I began to peel off the stickers a huge smile spread over my face.

I sat down and wrote this poem :

Washing Apples

Like Mandela casting his vote, I smile

and peel Cape stickers from green apples,

reel back the years, vigil, marches,

taking my small son to sign.

He knows now why I said,

at street stalls and supermarkets, 'Not those or those'

why it was never just an apple.

 © Miriam Halahmy

 As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison.

Nelson Mandela   1918-2013

This is the mark of the man and this is his legacy. Peace and reconciliation can be achieved between neighbours, peoples, countries. We are all citizens of the world.

http://www.miriamhalahmy.com/

Sliding Doors - T. M. Alexander

What am I going to write? I thought. My first blog in the company of authors. I flicked through recent posts and there was Miriam Halahmy, talking about how she has always written. Bingo!

I was a sporty kid, most often found either hitting a tennis ball against the back of the house or walking on my hands. I liked to be outside not inside, and I did everything fast. Running was my favourite occupation,
writing my least, because my hand couldn’t keep up with my head. As soon as I could, I dropped all subjects requiring sentences, for those that relied on digits and symbols.
Ten years flew by employed in big companies, followed by another ten working as a freelancer so that I could be around for my three children. Writing was for shopping lists, birthday cards and cheques.

Then came Life-changing Wednesday.

I had rashly left my contracting job, bored with endless meetings of twenty or more suits. The children were all at school and, not used to being home alone, the days were long. On my way back home from the supermarket (oh the domesticity of it), I stopped to look in the bookshop window. There was a flyer for a creative writing course starting that day at Clifton Library, 10.30. I dumped the bags and cycled over.

It was hideous. They all knew one another having been meeting every Wednesday for years. Keen to hear each other’s news after the long summer break, they took turns around the room talking of their writing projects – books, poems, articles, plays. With every declaration of prowess my armpits grew sweatier. Finally, all eyes were on me.

‘I haven’t written anything since I was at school,’ I said, red-faced. ‘But I’ve got lots of ideas.’

Joan, OBE, elbowed me in the ribs.

‘Better write them down, then, dear.’

Ninety minutes later I hopped back on my bike, homework assignment in my pannier. I wore down several pencils that week, working on my first memory of being alone. Arriving at the next class the teacher asked if I felt brave enough to read my piece aloud.

‘You try and stop me,’ I said.

Wednesday mornings became the highlight of my week.

Months later our assignment was to write the opening paragraph of a short story, setting the scene and casting the narrative hook. The example I jotted down in my black notebook from 2005 was, ‘With hindsight, he realised he had never meant to destroy London.’ And underneath, ‘A short story is a really good day out, rather than a fortnight away.’

Armed with the rules, off I went. I wrote the beginning, then the middle and then the end. After reading my first few lines in class, the teacher exercised her honed sixth sense.

‘Is there any more?’

I read the 2,000 word story. She said I should send it off somewhere.

Receiving first prize at the London Review Bookshop

The email arrived when I was playing tennis in Ilfracombe with my sister. My husband read it to me over the phone.

The winner of the Momaya Short Story Competition is . . .

‘Muchlove later’, to steal from Roger McGough’s The Icingbus, I asked Joan what splendid deed led to her being awarded an OBE.

‘Getting to Over Bloody Eighty,’ she said, slapping my thigh.

           

The thing is, if the flyer had advertised a pottery class starting Wednesday, 10.30, Clifton Library, I’d have gone there.

T. M. Alexander

www.tmalexander.com

A cycle of novels - not a trilogy, not a series.....by Miriam Halahmy

I started to write Hidden, the first book in my cycle of three novels set on Hayling Island, in 2007. At the time I had no idea that I was going to write three books or that I was at the beginning of writing what I would come to call, a Cycle of books. However, I do know that very early on a character called Lindy Bellows presented herself on the page and grew and grew until I knew she needed a book all of her own.

In Hidden, fourteen year old Lindy Bellows is an outsider at school, hostile to the other kids and the staff. And she has a nail sharpened to a spear point. The Bellows family are notorious on the estate near the school. Her older brother Terrence runs one of the worst gangs in town. The Bellows family don't live on Hayling Island.

But when the chips are down in Hidden, Lindy could have given away the asylum seeker that school fellows, Alix and Samir, were hiding in a hut near the beach. However she turns out to have a heart after all. She doesn’t tell the police or her brother  ( who guesses anyway and causes all kinds of trouble) and she actually protects Alix at a vulnerable moment.

Halfway through writing Hidden a story for Lindy began to bloom inside my head. I decided I would write a second book called Illegal. As an author I wanted to challenge myself to write something completely different. Hidden is written in the first person present tense. Illegal is written in the third person past tense. Both books are set on Hayling Island and the kids go to the same school. But new characters are introduced into the second book and the story is completely stand-alone.

 Illegal is the story of a teenage girl driven to take desperate measures when all other choices are taken away from her. It is a novel about growing up and gaining independence against the odds. Since Lindy’s baby sister died, her family have been caught in a downward spiral. Her brothers are in prison and her parents have turned to drink. Soon Lindy is out of her depth too, caught in the centre of an international drugs ring, with no way out. Then Lindy finds help from an unexpected ally: weird, mute Karl from school, and together they plan a daring and desperate escape. But when you’re in this deep, can you ever be free? 

As I was writing the second book I felt that two books felt uneven and there was a character, Jess, who had a minor role in Hidden and a bigger role in Illegal, who seemed to be asking for her own book. As Jess became more and more prominent, an idea for a story blossomed and so when I had finished the second book, it was quite natural to commence writing Stuffed.

Stuffed is told in two first person voices, Jess and her boyfriend Ryan, a new venture for me again. Jess and Ryan start to fall in love but both of them are keeping a terrible secret from the other. This is a story of secrets, lies, betrayal and responsibility. Will their love survive the pressure?

Three books, all set on Hayling Island - but not a trilogy where the story concludes in the third book; and not a series, with the same character in a different situation in each book. This is my Cycle of novels, taking a minor character from the previous book as the main character in the next and then putting them in a totally new situation. In a cycle of novels, the books can be read in any order. Each story is stand alone, but in my cycle the common thread is the school on the mainland and the wonderful landscape of Hayling Island as the backdrop.

In theory my cycle could continue. There are always more stories, more places as settings on the Island and more characters to emerge from the shadows. I have loved developing a cycle as opposed to a trilogy or a series and may well write a completely new cycle of novels set in a completely different place. But Hayling Island will always be my first love.

www.miriamhalahmy.com

A child's Jane Eyre by Miriam Halahmy

 This year is the centenary of the publication of The Secret Garden which the British author and friend of Frances Hodgson Burnett (FBH) called, 'a sort of child's Jane Eyre.' There are lots of interesting parallels; Yorkshire, an isolated house, an absent owner and a girl who turns up, orphaned and alone.

I’ve just been on a wonderful study day on The Secret Garden, held by the Children’s Historical Book Society.  I received my copy of the book as a prize when I was nine and someone else on the study day had exactly the same version with her, for the same reason.

I fell in love with the book straight away. We often visited Yorkshire as we had family there and I loved tramping over the moors. We also visited Haworth and marvelled over the tiny handwriting of the Bronte sisters, viewed through a magnifying glass.

I found Mary and Colin so strange and compelling, Martha was like the big sister I never had and I was probably in love with Dickon. The book has remained a favourite ever since.

On arriving at the Study Day someone showed me a handwritten, undated letter which had fallen out of a second hand book she had recently acquired. Here is the transcript :

Maytham Hall

Rolvenden

Kent

Dear Mrs Parkes,

I should come with the greatest of pleasure now that I know that I shall not be a pariah and an outcast.

Yours sincerely,

Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Two of FBH’s biographers were next to me, Ann Thwaite ( who also wrote a biography of A.A. Milne) and Gretchen Gerzina, from New York. The letter caused quite a stir and according to the experts, probably referred to FBH’s  unhappy relationship with her second husband, Stephen Townsend and the problems these caused her socially.

The day was filled with talks by some of the world’s experts on FBH and her books and was full of the most marvellous insights. Ann Thwaite had met members of the family as well as former servants when researching for her book, including a man in his 80s, Harry Millam, who was a 12 year old stable boy at Maytham. I asked if he might have been the inspiration behind Dickon. Both biographers responded with, Oh, interesting, yes, well never thought about it before. Afterwards someone said, ‘Well done for asking the best question, you electrified them!’ It was like winning the school prize all over again.

Ann Thwaite’s husband, Anthony Thwaite, edited Larkin’s Letters to Monica and found a letter about The Secret Garden which Larkin read for the first time in 1953. He found the book ‘astonishingly good..calls on everyone to live life to the utmost....masterly ( about Yorkshire).’

Larkin observed how technically clever it was to depict two children, neither of whom had ever seen the spring. I hadn’t really thought about that before. Wonderful.

Snippets about FBH and The Secret Garden (TSG) you may or may not know ( taken from notes made on the day, so any errors are mine)

1.      FBH wrote 53 novels, mainly for adults, out of print now.

2.      There is a memorial to TSG in Central Park in New York.

3.      FBH wrote TSG in America where she lived for many years.

4.      FBH was considered one of the top five novelists in America and was ranked with Henry James.

5.      She crossed the Atlantic 33 times ( by sea) and was met by paparazzi every time, both sides.

6.      She was one of the highest paid authors, ever.

7.      The robin in TSG who showed the way came from Maytham, her home in Kent.

8.      Dickon was originally called Dick but FBH was told this was a silly name. She felt that Dickon was a good country name.

9.      TSG didn’t become famous until the 1930s after her death in 1924 aged 75 years.

10.   FBH would be most surprised at the celebrations all over the world this year for the centenary of The Secret Garden.

I could write more on Mrs Sowerby and the politics of The Secret Garden but I think that will be a whole new blog. I do hope you share my enthusiasm for the enduring fascination of this author and this book.