Home and away

 I have a new "toy" on my phone - the Merlin app from Cornell University that identifies birdsong. And I'm fast becoming addicted to it. On my walk by the river with the dog this morning, in a five minute slot it picked up twelve different birds, from a thrush and a robin to a chiffchaff and a blackcap. Before I would just have labelled what I was hearing as "birdsong" but now I'm learning to discriminate and - hopefully! - to identify. 

As writers we often use the natural world as a character in our writing, and to flesh out that character we need to be able to home in on the detail as well as taking the broad brush approach. I think earlier writers - nineteenth and early twentieth century ones - were more in tune with the natural world and it fed more convincingly into their work. There are exceptions now of course (the brilliant Robert Macfarlane for one), and nature writing is certainly increasing in popularity as a genre. But, in more general writing, breadth often trumps depth - and I know that's a danger I need to keep in mind in mine.

June has flown past and, interspersed with the writing, has certainly brought some interesting events. At the beginning of the month I was in Aberystwyth for a women's peace conference, a follow-up from the centenary events that marked 100 years since the Welsh Women's Peace Petition of 1923. Five years after "the war to end all wars" more than 400,000 Welsh women (both of my grandmothers among them) signed an anti-war declaration that was taken to the USA and presented to the women of America, in the hope that America would join the League of Nations. In Aberystwyth we were looking at the role women can, and do, play in our current, decidedly dangerous, world. I was immensely moved by many of the accounts we heard from war-torn countries. The poem below was written by an anonymous civilian fleeing conflict in Cameroon.

Staying with that theme - I've just finished reading The Displaced by Sharif Gemie (Abergavenny Small Press, 2024). It's the story of a young, idealistic couple in the aftermath of the Second World War who face challenges beyond all expectation whilst working on the continent with a United Nations humanitarian team. For me it was one of those books that you can't stop reading until you've finished it. In particular the character of the wife, Eleanor, is so well drawn you become really invested in her story. Historical fiction though it may be, there are so many parallels with present day conflicts and their aftermath too, so it makes salutary reading.

Poetry readings, a workshop at Cardiff Tramshed and a research trip to St. Davids have eaten into a lot of writing time this month though, so it needs to be back to the desk for most of July I think. But I will be glad when the current heatwave abates - I write in the garden room, where the temperature today has hit 39 degrees so I've retreated with the laptop to a darkened living room. I always find this sort of heat completely enervating so I'm really glad that my only deadlines at the moment are self-imposed. 

"Open a book, open a new world"

 How depressing it was to read two articles this week - the first about a forthcoming State of the Nation in Adult Reading 2025 report and the second concerning the dwindling number of parents who read to their children at bedtime. In a decade the number of adults reading regularly has fallen by 5% and many people questioned for the report said that they frequently don't finish a book they've started; a much offered explanation for this was an inability to focus because of external distractions. And a lot "Gen Z" parents say they don't read to their children because they don't have time, dislike reading the same book over and over again (and what child doesn't have that great favourite?!), they don't like reading themselves or find it boring.

It's all too easy to judge, all too easy to criticize, and obviously everyone's personal and family situation is different. But I find these trends deeply saddening. As a working mother I had to carve out time to read to my children - but I wouldn't have missed those sessions, curled up on the settee or on their beds, for the world. Neither would their father who, when he was working locally, continued sharing reading time with them way after they were able to read for themselves. It was an integral part of family life, and a much valued one on both sides. 

There are so many competing demands on children's time and attention now and on parent's energies and finances. We're blessed in this country with several excellent reading support charities - Book Trust, Read for Good, Bookmark Reading, Doorstep Library amongst them - and they do great work, especially with disadvantaged children. But it seems that we have an uphill task ahead to ensure that every child not only has access to books but to the encouragement and support to read them. And that may be far more challenging than simply putting the books in their hands.

In and Out

 I was very glad not to be at home much of last week. Domestic chaos ensued after the breakdown of the freezer and the jamming of the electronic garage door - and a Bank Holiday ensured that no-one was available to deal with either and that everyone then had a backlog to work through. How dependent we are on others to keep our lives ticking over smoothly! And how easily domestic mishaps upset carefully drawn up plans.

But the downs of last week were definitely outweighed by the ups. I spent a thoroughly enjoyable day helping at a Hands on Harp event. Forty children had the opportunity to work with professional harpists under the auspices of the Lady Llanover Society and the short concert they gave at the end of the day was delightful. Then I visited the national arboretum at Westonbirt and did a lovely walk in memory of Dave Laycock, the writer Rona Laycock's late husband. The rhododendrons were in full bloom, giving spectacular splashes of colour, and our guide was a fount of information on their history, their care and stories about them. Dave had been a volunteer guide at Westonbirt for some time and it was so appropriate an event through which to remember him.

                                        

But the highlight of the week had to be my visit to the Temple of Peace in Cardiff. In the year I've been working on the pilgrimage project I've visited some amazing places and had some wonderful experiences. But the few hours that I spent at the Temple of Peace were special indeed. The building in itself is lovely - an Art Deco construction dedicated to the cause of peace in 1938 and now housing, amongst other things, the Welsh Centre for International Affairs. In the Crypt is the Book of Remembance. in which are recorded "the names of the men and women of Welsh birth and parentage and of all the men belonging to the regiments of Wales who gave their lives in the war 1914 -1918". I was invited to read the welcome that precedes the daily turning of a page. In the years after the opening of the Temple bereaved families would make pilgrimages to hear their loved ones names read out; I found it immensely moving to be reading the words which they would have heard in those circumstances. It felt a real privilege to be doing so.

A Bibliophile's Paradise!

 I went for a day and could have stayed for a month; Gladstone's Library (previously known as Saint Deiniol's) in Hawarden in North Wales had been on my list of "must-do" visits for a long time but I shall certainly be back there again before too long. It's the UK's only Prime Ministerial Library. The collections were gifted to the nation by the four times holder of the office, William Ewart Gladstone, and the building was funded through public subscription at the beginning of the last century. It's a glorious red sandstone neo-Gothic design, with three reading rooms, 26 residential bedrooms and a restaurant, all set in beautiful grounds. It hosts a lot of interesting talks, courses and workshops but you can also just visit to do a mini-tour (check their website for details). I was fascinated by the collection of Gladstone's own books. To say his reading tastes were catholic is an understatement - and, according to his diaries, he read between 21 - 22,000 books in his lifetime! A lot of them were brought together in the 1880s and the average book in the collection is 150 years old - but they're all available to read there in the library. It feels just such an incredible privilege to have access to them.

I was in North Wales undertaking a couple more of my mini-pilgrimages. As I'd expected, the good weather didn't deign to extend to my time away! But it had begun to pick up a bit for a couple of days this week when I was walking the Ann Griffiths Way, another long planned expedition. If you're from outside Wales, you may not have come across the poems and hymns of Ann Griffiths; although she died aged only 29 in 1805 she became an enormously important figure here in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The walk takes in places significant in her life and passes through absolutely stunning, almost deserted countryside. Most of the path runs by the River Vyrnwy; riverside walks are always my favourites, and at this time of the year the woods and hedgerows are alive with violets, primroses and bluebells. A very special walk to undertake.

But now it's back to the desk and back down to some serious writing - just as the promised heatwave materializes! 

Out and about

 Since that last post winter has given way to spring; the snowdrops have come and gone, as have most of the daffodils, but the magnolias and azaleas are now in full bloom - this one is just outside my writing room and I can see it from the desk. Cowslips are beginning to give the fields that lovely lemon-yellow haze and the bluebells and anemones are out in the woods. I'm just about surfacing from a difficult couple of months to find the world alive and busy (though the least said about the political situation the better ...) Hopefully the trials that beset my research last year are well and truly behind me - so it's onwards and upwards.

The lovely weather over the last couple of weeks has been ideal for "travelling with intent to places of significance" as I'm defining the pilgrimages I'm undertaking for the new book. I've had fascinating visits to places as diverse as Dylan Thomas's old school, Coleg Trefeca (the home of Hywel Harris and the cradle of the 18th century Revival), several holy wells in South Wales and the Strike! exhibition at the National Museum. In the coming weeks I've got several mini-pilgrimages coming up further afield. I'm particularly keen to follow in the poet R. S. Thomas's footsteps and to undertake the Anne Griffiths walk near Lake Vyrnwy. I could do with the weather holding up for both of those, though I doubt that it will. 

A quick doodle on the magnetic board
at the Dylan Thomas Centre

Writing up the pilgrimages has had to fit in around the actual visits, but I'm very much looking forward to a block of undisturbed time to make some more concerted progress on that front. I'm also looking forward to running a couple of workshop days this coming term, one in the lovely Wye-side village of Tintern, in the shadow of the very atmospheric ruin of the Cistercian abbey. However, I'll be very much a learner myself before that - I'm off to the national language centre at Nant Gwrtheyrn again in a few weeks to battle on with my Welsh. I've been reading a lot of Welsh poetry recently - but let's just say that I can't see my own attempts there ever leading to an Eisteddfod chair!

Hints of spring

 I'm always excited by the arrival of the first snowdrops and I was delighted to come across a patch under a hedge in mid Wales last Thursday morning. But then in the afternoon I found a clump of daffodils in full bloom in a churchyard a couple of miles away - and came home to find my Christmas cactus (which had refused point blank to flower at the requisite time last year) just coming into bud, more than a month belatedly. Nature seems to be getting more than a little confused with things these days ...  

But my second Writing Our Lives group is well underway now and the eight participants appear to be enjoying it as much as I'm enjoying facilitating it. As with the first group, they come from very varied backgrounds and have very different life experiences from which to write. And their modes of expression are so individual, so personal. For those writing for generations coming after them, this is so important. A ghost writer (and I've recently seen several adverts from individuals offering such writing services) could certainly write their stories for them - but for their authentic voices to jump from the page, to bring their days and years to life demands so much more than such simple recounting. 

I'm now getting back on track with the pilgrimage project that was derailed by last years' health and family issues. I spent a fascinating, if decidedly chilly, weekend walking in the footsteps of the Chartist marchers in the Newport Uprising of 1839, finishing in the grounds of St. Woolos Cathedral at the site of the unmarked grave that is the last resting place for ten of them, cut down by soldiers lying in wait at the Westgate. If you're not familiar with their story - their contribution to the fight for universal suffrage and democracy -  do look it up. And a fictionalised account (but one based on very thorough research) is Requiem for a Patriot by Alexander Cordell, and that's a very good read.  

A new dawn?

                                                     

I've long since given up on New Year resolutions! In fact "The Photo I Didn't Take" has a poem in it about my singular lack of success with them - they've inevitably "gone AWOL - out with the empties" by mid-January. But I do look forward with good intentions at the start of the year - and a stunning dawn sky gets me off to a very positive start. I was fortunate to be have both a poetry collection and a prose volume published in 2024 but in other ways it proved a difficult year - as it did in the wider world for so very many people, for some in catastrophic ways. But perhaps the dawning of 2025 could offer hope of better things to come. Here's to a peaceful, healthy, happy and productive one for us all.