Sunday 24 March 2019

Joining forces


Last Thursday, March 21st, was World Poetry Day. Every culture on every continent has its own poetic tradition and it was great to see the day marked in countries all around the globe, and in so many different ways. Our own contribution to the celebrations brought two excellent local poets, Su King and Alyson Rees, in to the studio for The Writer's Room. Alyson was a returning guest on NHSound; a relative newcomer to the poetry scene, she has enjoyed considerable success in recent months and it was lovely to hear some of her new work. It was Su's first visit to us; she's a very accomplished performance poet and had us in stitches with her take on everything from hot flushes to seaside trips with Sunday School via the trials of looking after a demanding post-operative husband. As we discussed, in poetry nothing is off limits!

Alyson Rees
Su King

And yesterday I joined forces with a million other marchers from all around the UK. The People's Vote march has to be the biggest, friendliest, most orderly protest I've ever been on. It was a privilege to be there. Whilst I could wish it hadn't been necessary, in the circumstances I wouldn't have been anywhere else.

And it's for his generation
we needed to do it

Wednesday 20 March 2019

Learning from the masters


An interesting afternoon on Sunday at the National Museum and Art Gallery in Cardiff, where there's currently the Leonardo da Vinci, A Life in Drawing exhibition. I'm always amazed by the power artefacts from hundreds of years ago can have over me, the strange bond they establish with the long dead of vastly different ages and cultures, the acknowledgement of the common human concerns and aspirations across the centuries - and what we can learn from them.

Unfortunately, time didn't allow a long visit (though I'll certainly be back); but two things struck me very forcibly. The first was the diligence in preparation for projects, the tremendous amount of time and effort expended studying the minutiae of the subject matter before getting anywhere near execution. The second was the fact that nothing is wasted; da Vinci spent ten years preparing for a huge equine monument project only for it to be abandoned at the last moment, but the sketches and models he had made were fundamental to other, later creations as well as being works of art in themselves. Certainly a couple of lessons there for anyone in the creative arts!




Friday 8 March 2019

International Women's Day

I think it was Antony Sher who once said "Nothing is more interesting than human lives". I have an enduring passion for biographies and autobiographies; I'm enthralled by entering into another's world, seeing things from their perspective, going to places I shall probably never visit but experiencing them in another's shoes.

Looking through the books on my shelves, I'm very aware that most of the lives I read about are women's lives. So many of the best sellers, the supposedly "serious" biographies are of course about men, about the great and the good (or the not so good!) who have had major impacts on national or international situations. Women's lives, with notable exceptions, have so often been more private, often family centred affairs - more challenging to write about when there are fewer written or other sources from which to glean information. But I think it's this combination of the private and the public, the ability of the subjects to function on different levels in different capacities, that really interests me. Women's lives are often infinitely more complex than those of their male counterparts, and therefore, to me, richer to explore.

It was heartening to see the emergence of more "women focused" books during the recent commemorations of the First World War, with the vital roles women played at last receiving due recognition. And not just the famous ones - the likes of Vera Britten and Elsie Inglis - but the local, unsung heroines in towns and villages who nursed the sick, harvested the fields, manned the trams and stretched the meagre food supplies. Their more prominent sisters may be honoured on plaques and memorials but those stand as reminders too of all the women's contribution in such  desperate times.

The theme of this year's International Women's Day is "Think equal. Build smart. Innovate for change" - today's language perhaps, but those three principles were precisely those that motivated our predecessors a hundred years ago. In Newport earlier this week I was reminded of the women of my own home town to whom we owe so much. A mural in Commercial Street, unveiled during the WW1 commemorations, stands witness to their lives - all those who paved the way for the daughters and granddaughters coming after them, who had and have hugely greater freedoms and opportunities because of those women's stands.

The Newport mural followed from the publication of Sylvia Mason's book "Every Woman Remembered - Daughters of Newport in the Great War". The book not only recounts the lives of the seven women who died after "active" war service but pays due homage to the many others, my own grandmothers among them, to whom we owe so much. And it's far from a "trip down memory lane" - it all has direct relevance to what's going on in the contemporary world. The proceeds from the sale of the book (available from Amazon and Saron Publishers) go to Newport Women's Bursary which awards funds to help local women fulfill their ambitions today.

Our current concerns may not be those of previous generations but, as the saying goes, "you can only understand the present in the light of the past" - acknowledging it and learning from it goes a long way towards helping us into the future!


Sunday 3 March 2019

Community ventures

With the financial strictures local councils and charities have faced in recent years, so many really valuable community facilities that I've known have been axed. On the one hand the effect on local people can be devastating - on the other, it can be galvanizing, propelling individuals and groups into action to maintain or develop for themselves what they know they need and deserve. An excellent example is The Cwtsh in Newport. When Stow Hill Library was closed down in 2013, the site was taken over by a band of volunteers and re-opened two years later as an arts centre; it's now a thriving venue hosting everything from art exhibitions to ukelele classes via "pop up" activities and a film lab - and creative writing sessions.

On The Writer's Room this week I was fortunate enough to have as my guests members of the writing group which meets weekly at The Cwtsh under the capable leadership of tutor Angela Platt. Some of the group have written most of their lives, others are very much newcomers to prose or poetry, but they all share tremendous enthusiasm and dedication. Five members contributed to the programme, four in person and one in absentia with Angela reading her short story for her. It was a real pleasure to host such interesting and varied guests - hopefully we'll see, and certainly hear, more of them in the future.

Fay Jenkins
Angela reads a story by Barbara Hawkins



Alan Barrow
 Christine Armstrong


David Rees