"Mind Above Water 2"

Russell Partridge with Anna Saunders

This evening I was involved in a reading at the launch of "Mind Above Water 2", a new book of poems and prose by Russell Partridge, at the Muffin Man in Cheltenham. Anna Saunders, the director of the Cheltenham Poetry Festival, met Russell at a drop-in centre where she teaches creative writing and hosted the evening for him. It was a real privilege to take part in his special evening and I wish him every success with his publication!

Several other local writers took part in the evening, reading both Russell's work and their own - here Howard Timms and Jennie Farley add their contributions.

Another move into the 21st century ....

I don't know why I held out for so long against e books. I acquired a Kindle about a fortnight ago and it's wonderful - so portable, so easy to use. The first book that I've read on it, a free download, is Emmeline Pankhurst's "My Own Story" - not a book I would probably have picked up in a book shop but one that has absolutely fascinated me. A very different style of writing, of course, a hundred years ago, but such a moving and inspiring story, outlining the desperate measures women had to resort to in the fight for the franchise. As she predicted, much has been written on the struggle for equality since, but I wouldn't have missed reading her own account.

Emmeline Pankhurst 1858 - 1928

"Other histories of the militant movement will undoubtedly be written; in times to come when in all constitutional countries of the world women's votes will be as universally accepted as men's are now; when men and women occupy the world of industry on equal terms, as co-workers rather than as cut-throat competitors; when, in a word, all the dreadful and criminal discriminations which exist now between the sexes are abolished, as they must one day be abolished ..."  and a century later we still have such a way to go ....

Music on a Summer's Evening

I may be Welsh and I have certainly heard Cwm Rhondda sung a thousand times, in chapels and concert halls, at rugby matches and funerals. But I have never heard it sung with such joyous enthusiasm, such sheer musicality, as I did earlier this evening. The Caring Chorus, the choir I wrote about last Christmas, composed largely of staff from our local health trust, were giving their second recital in Gloucester Cathedral - and it was again an outstanding success. Their range is wide - under their superb conductor, they tackled everything from Czech mourning songs to 1960s pop via "Over The Rainbow" and "A Gaelic Blessing" - and to see the enjoyment they get from making music is just so inspiring. What a tremendous evening.

Getting ready to perform - Lucy Matthieson (founder) and the Caring Chorus

A Touch Of Summer?

It probably won't last, but today the weather is glorious, bluebells and wild garlic are carpeting the woods, my sandals came out for the first time this year - and I've heard that my story "The Parish Priest" was the runner-up in the West Country Writers Association Short Story Competition 2013! In truth I'd forgotten all about it; the closing date was last November and, as I'd heard nothing, I'd assumed I'd got nowhere with it. I haven't written much prose for a while and have been thinking it's time to get down to another story or two - so this will certainly spur me on!

A Useful Family!

After a two week Easter break, my Exeter University course in Writing Family History has restarted. So much of my family background - and especially the social history in which it's encapsulated - has proved fertile ground for writing, often fictionalised but also as the basis for factual articles and essays. A lot of my poetry, too, has sprung from recollections of people and places from my past; a recent example was rooted in my grandmother's strong Baptist faith.

Remember the Sabbath Day

Nan and Pop c. 1950

There was something about that hat she 

wore -

Bible black, with netted brim

to catch the alleluias,

a trinity of purple flowers

that graced its band,

a pin to skewer Satan.

Her chapel hat. She'd ram it on

with prayer-booked hands in tidy gloves,

check the oven for the Sunday roast,

raise high the cross

and sally forth

to hymn her way to Zion.

(Copyright Gill Garrett 2014)