WHY DO WE WRITE?

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Initially, for me, the answer is that I had a burning desire to put my heart on the page and write about something that began in 1966 when I met someone who was to have a huge impact on my personal life. The subject? Young love revisited twenty years later but at what cost?

I started writing ‘No One Comes Close’, in 1997, chronologically in longhand, taken from my original diaries. I filled three A4 notebooks. Initially this was a cathartic exercise. However, concerned that this story could upset the people closest to me, I hid these notebooks away in a cupboard hoping to do something with them in the future.

Cut to 2008. My husband and I had moved to Cornwall but instead of enjoying our new home and environment I found it stressful. One day I noticed a poster in our local post office window for a creative writing course. I decided to take the plunge and put my name down. In the back of my mind I was hoping that it would help me to turn my notebooks into a publishable manuscript. What I hadn’t realised was how much fun this course would be!

‘Finding Your Voice’ ran over six weeks and was a total revelation. Our tutor was a very inspiring lady, an author of many children’s books, who made our lessons exciting and playful. She covered a variety of genres, a different subject each session, and one of the things that came out of this was that I found I had a flare for writing magazine articles. I emailed This England and had my first article ‘A Day Trip to Ely’ published in 2010. I was overjoyed! Someone wanted my work!

During another exercise I came up with the beginning of what was to be my first novel, ‘Where There’s a Will’, although I didn’t know it at the time. I ran with it and after a few weeks I had written 50,000 words. A whole new world had opened up and I forgot about my problems.

Having been bitten by the writing bug I joined three writing groups. One of these was extremely helpful when it came to my memoir. We were invited to talk about our writing and to critique members’ work and I learned a lot. I transcribed my memoir into Word, printed off some extracts and gritted my teeth. I hadn’t anticipated their reaction. I felt like a schoolgirl who had been given a gold star! It initiated a lot of stimulating discussion – should I publish it in its present form or turn it into a novel? I decided on the former; I changed the names and wrote a disclaimer and left it once again on the backburner.

In 2014 we were going through another house move and to take my mind off the exasperation of the conveyancing I embarked on NaNoWriMo. This is a competition to write a novel in a month in November each year. I completed 50,000 words in the given time and received the certificate. One of the prizes was to have your novel bound in a hardback book for free. It’s a lovely keepsake but I have since redrafted the story to become my family saga ‘Bay of Secrets’. This novel is set in my favourite part of Cornwall and inevitably has some autobiographical elements.

But my memoir was still tapping me on the shoulder. I went through it again, played around with the format and talked it over with my editor friend who gave it the once-over for which I was immensely grateful. Next I approached some literary agents, none of which were prepared to represent me. I finally self-published ‘No One Comes Close’ in 2017. I have some very favourable reviews.

Having got that one under my belt I went on the self-publish my rom-com ‘Where There’s a Will’ in 2018. This is a rags to riches story set in SE London and the Yorkshire dales where elements of my family history come in.

Last but by no means least I published my family saga ‘Bay of Secrets’ at the start of the Coronavirus pandemic. Perhaps we writers produce our best work during stressful times?

Delighted to be Featured

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Delighted to be featured on Lizzie Chantree’s blog today.

MUSICAL MEMORIES

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The first memory I have of any kind of music is of my nanna singing to me and rocking me on her lap – ‘We’re two little sheep who’ve lost our way’. She also played the piano, ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’ and ‘The Wedding of the Painted Doll’. I loved my dad playing the piano on a Sunday morning; the boogie-woogie and ‘Walking my Baby Back Home’ were my favourites. When I was seven he bought a Pye black box hi-fi and his first record, a ten-inch recording of Beethoven’s fifth symphony. The sixth and seventh symphonies followed along with recordings of Bach, Mozart and Vivaldi. My dad also liked jazz; names such as Fats Waller, Earl Hines and Louis Armstrong. We children had our own record player, a Portadyne. The first record I bought with my pocket money was an EP of The Temperance Seven for 11s 6d. I played it constantly and drove my mum mad.

At senior school there was much talk about pop music.  I bought a few records by Cliff Richard. Then came The Beatles. I bought every new release and stuck posters up in my bedroom, but I wasn’t allowed to stick them on the wallpaper! So I stuck them on every surface I could: the fireplace, the wardrobe and the door. Both my dad and my uncle liked The Beatles, my dad saying their music was close to jazz. I had a school friend whose father was in the police force. He was given two tickets for a Beatles concert at the Lewisham Odeon in 1963. I was over the moon when he gave them to us. Wow! But I was very disappointed when the whole cinema was filled with screaming girls. I wanted to listen to the music.

After going to the cinema to see Genghis Khan in 1966 I bought the sound track in our village music shop. I loved this music and my dad would listen with me and encourage my diverse tastes. Also in that year, I was introduced to our local jazz club at The Black Prince. I loved it. From then on I went every Monday evening with friends from work. We were treated to all the big names, Kenny Ball and Chris Barber among them. During the break pop records were played and this is when I got into Motown. ‘Reach Out’ by The Four Tops takes me straight back to those days. Sunday was R&B night when we had visiting bands such as The Shevelles, Gino Washington and the Ram Jam Band and The Ferris Wheel. It’s only now that I realise how fortunate I was to be able to see all these live bands so close to home.

DRUNK AND DISORDERLY

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Each New Year I am reminded of two occasions when I got very drunk. The first was when I was 16. I was invited to a New Years’ Eve party by one of the girls at the salon where I worked. I purposely went without any dinner that evening expecting there to be food at the party. There were two married couples, another apprentice I worked with and me. I made a real effort with my hair and make-up, caught the bus and hoped, not having been to this house before, that I found the right stop. They welcomed me with ‘What can I get you to drink?’ I asked for the only drink I was comfortable with – port. As the evening progressed it was obvious there was no food on offer. I was constantly ragged with, ‘Drink up! Don’t let the side down, Julie’, and ‘Sweet sixteen and never been kissed!’ All I remember is people hanging out of the window shouting, ‘Happy New Year!’ and being sick all over the carpet before I could reach the toilet. One of the married men ran me home at 2am. I was still drunk but I managed to give him directions to my house. Once outside he turned to me and gave me a very passionate French kiss. Then he escorted me up the path and asked for another kiss under the porch light. I had two feelings: one was that this kiss had stirred feelings in me I didn’t know I had, and the other was absolute shame. I stumbled upstairs to bed and was sick again in the night. In the morning I was too ill to go to work and my father thought my behaviour inexcusable. I was not only drunk but a married man had driven me home alone! In the coming weeks this man would come to pick his wife up from work with his mate, both of whom were at the party. While I swept the salon floor they would sit talking about me with their heads together, making me blush. I don’t know if he ever told his wife about ‘the kiss’.

The second time, four years later, I was in Scotland with my fiancé and his parents, aunts and uncles. Hogmanay, I was to learn, was a big deal. The scotch was flowing well before midnight. We were all having a good time, dancing to music and sinking the drinks. When the clock struck 12  I couldn’t stand up. They all thought this was hilarious – it’s what people did at New Year – and if you got off your head you were one of them. First footing was talked about and there were a lot of comings and goings but I was taken to bed, which I had to share with my mother-in-law to be. They all kept popping in to laugh and joke with me and I remember imitating their Scottish accent in my stupor. In the morning my fiancé was out for the count on the floor, with his finger stuck in the neck of a whisky bottle. Even now, I can’t abide the smell of whisky! Or port!

THE CARS IN MY LIFE

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In 1957 my father passed his driving test first time and bought a Ford Anglia 100e in Warwick Green. For me, at 8 years old, this was exciting! The open road beckoned and off we would go, my parents, me and my sister and later my brother, on days out on a Sunday to the Kent countryside and coast; Westgate and Broadstairs being our favourite resorts. Our first holiday in the Anglia was to Weymouth and I can remember my father bitterly complaining about the parking restrictions even then! When my brother was 2 months old we drove to Hayling Island and the Sunshine Holiday camp. I don’t know how my mother managed with a young baby bundled on the back seat with my sister and I sitting hunched up beside the carry cot! We had this Anglia for ten years. I passed my test in it in January 1967 but little did I know that three weeks later I would write it off and put myself in hospital. After the initial shock of my being involved in a road accident my father was devastated about losing his pride and joy. When he went to see it on the scrap heap it was ‘still shining like a new pin’. And I had to provide the £90 deposit for the next car, a second-hand Ford Anglia estate, yellow and white. Needless to say I was never allowed to drive that car!

In 1969 I bought a second-hand pale blue Ford Popular for £65. This turned out to be a mistake. My fiancé knew a thing or two about car engines but it caused rows between us when he could not keep it running through the winter. I finally sold it for scrap and received £20 for it. It would be many years before I owned another car.

My fiancé and I got married in November 1970 in a silver Pontiac Firebird. It was so wide that the gates had to be removed to accommodate it in the grounds of the Camberwell register office!

My husband bought a Vauxhall Ventora in 1971. It was white with a black vinyl roof, but the car was too big for me to drive and I got into a few parking ‘scrapes’. One day after a shopping trip, when my daughter was 18 months old and strapped into her car seat in the back, I locked the keys in the car. I tried to tell her to lift the knob on the door sill but of course, she was too young to understand. I was beside myself. What was I going to do? I couldn’t leave her in the car while I tried to find a garage. Then along came a knight in shining armour who found a wire coat-hanger, hooked it inside the door and hey presto! Up came the release button. I never locked the keys in the car again.

In 1974 our next car was a second-hand Ford Cortina 1600e. I loved driving that car; it was sporty and made a nice throaty noise when I put my foot down and listening to Band On The Run on the 8 track stereo was well cool. We took it to Crayford Stadium one evening to watch the banger racing and when we came out there was a big gaping hole where our car should’ve been. We had to get a bus home. A fortnight later we found it parked in a road in East Dulwich near where I worked, unlocked. We bought an alarm for it but my husband never got around to putting it on. It was stolen a second time and the police found it dumped in the middle of the road in Swanscombe, totally stripped, as if it had just come off the production line. These cars were very desirable and known for their trim – many went the same way as ours.

I must add that during all these episodes, my husband had a company car but he enjoyed having a ‘nice’ car to go out in at weekends. We used the insurance money from the 1600e to buy a Ford Consul GT in Daytona yellow. We thought we were The Sweeny driving around in that! My husband was into custom cars at the time. We attended the Chelsea Cruise on a number of occasions where he got the idea to add sidewinder exhausts to the Consul.

We moved from London to Royston Hertfordshire in 1983. In 1984 I found a job in a salon in Saffron Walden and needed my own car. Someone my husband worked with was selling his grey Fiat Strada so we thought it was a safe bet. Needless to say it didn’t last long. The engine froze in the winter and seized up.

I started working for myself in 1985, mobile hairdressing in and around Royston, and I needed a reliable car. I saw an advert in the local paper and went to test drive an Indian Red Vauxhall Viva saloon at a garage in Royston. It was only two years old, 24,000 miles on the clock and handled like a dream. I bought it there and then and had it for twelve years. During this time I went through a divorce and remarried and moved to a village near Ely, Cambridgeshire. I loved that car but by 1997 it was getting tired. When I sold it it had 150,000 miles on the clock. I advertised it in the local paper for £200. One Sunday morning a man knocked at the door asking about the Viva and could I take him out in it to see how it performed? I gritted by teeth hoping the car wouldn’t let me down and drove him across the fen roads, after which he said he was pretty sure his wife would like it but was it all right if he brought her to see it?  The following Sunday she said it was ideal for her job – mobile hairdressing in and around Royston!! He gave me a cheque and they drove it out of my life.

My next car was a new silver Vauxhall Corsa purchased from a dealership in Bury St Edmunds. The unmistakable smell of newness wrapped itself around me as I drove it home. One day I took my young daughter to see my now married daughter and she told me that my old Viva had come back to haunt my ex-husband – the woman had crashed it outside his house!

In 2005 my husband bought a VW Golf persuaded by our 15 year-old daughter to have it in coastal blue. When he retired we bought a bungalow in Cornwall but our daughter wanted to remain in sixth form in Cambridge. To facilitate this, I remained in Cambridgeshire with her until she went to Sheffield University. During this time I drove the Corsa 300 miles to and from Cornwall for the school holidays and Christmas. I knew the route so well I could have done it in my sleep. I also drove many times to Margate to see my brother and to Eastbourne to visit an old friend.

One day I was driving along a narrow moorland road with high banks when a car coming from the other direction ploughed into me on the blind bend. Neither of us were hurt but my Corsa, now 15 years old, was badly damaged on the wing and a write-off.  It was a long time before I found another car I could afford but hated having to rely solely on the Golf. Eventually I plumped for a black Hyundai Getz but I never took to the car. It handled badly. We moved to Norfolk in 2015 and I sold the Getz to the garage owner in our Cornish village before we left. I didn’t fancy driving it 300 + miles to Norfolk!

I now drive the coastal blue VW Golf, now 15 years old, and my husband has a silver Skoda Octavia that he bought when we moved. We will keep the Golf until it falls apart but it shows little sign of this happening in the near future. But of course, this year 2020, owing to the pandemic we don’t go very far and I feel I am losing the ability to drive! Roll on next year and happier times when I can get my wheels back in motion.

SEPTEMBER 18th 2020

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My mother would’ve been 100 years old today and I would like to pay her this tribute.

Let me tell you about a remarkable lady called Joyce, who overcame suspected polio at age 7, who survived being stabbed at 18, contracted scarlet fever a year later and walked away from being knocked down by a lorry aged 23. During the war she cycled to and from work in the blackout with bombs landing each side of her, laughed in the face of cancer aged 66 and went on to recover from near-death experiences until her death in 2013.

One of her earliest memories was of her aunt dancing her around the room to the Charleston playing on the gramophone. This was the beginning of her love of dancing which led her to take part in a concert for the NAAFI during the war, and in 1946 at the Embassy ballroom in Welling, she met Leslie, my father. After a six-month courtship they were married in December and enjoyed a honeymoon in foggy Brighton.

Like many of her generation her motto was ‘keep calm and carry on’. Rationing meant that when I was born in the winter of 1949 she swallowed her pride and went knocking on doors begging for coal to keep me warm.

1950 saw the dawn of a new era. Leslie’s mother moved down from Leeds to open a boarding house with us in Bexley. This Victorian house was to be our busy home for the next 20 years. She always found time to make my party dresses and knit my boleros and joked that I was better dressed than Princess Anne! My birthday parties were glamorous affairs – a dozen children round the table and a snowman cake, a clock cake and a birthday cake, all made by Mum.

When my grandmother died in 1962 the business took a dive but Joyce turned her hand to other work including cooking in a staff canteen and selling Betterware door-to-door. In amongst all this she cared for me, my sister and brother, and found time to take us out in the school holidays. But although she was always busy she never neglected her appearance, always had her hair done and never left the house without her make-up expertly applied.

My father’s job came to an end which meant moving to a smaller house and finally my parents and brother moved to Margate in 1971 where she worked at the Sea-Bathing hospital, British Home Stores, and various school kitchens, never fazed by all this work. In later years she took on cleaning jobs well into her 80s. When asked by my brother if she should give them up she replied, ‘Oh, do you think so? But what would I do? I’d get bored.’ She was well known for her sense of humour and love of music and brightened up all our lives when trouble lay ahead.

HAPPY 100TH BIRTHDAY Mum. I’m sure you’re having a ball ‘up there’. xxx

A MOST UNUSUAL YEAR

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I’m sure that many of us, since the lockdown, have become more aware of the natural beauty that surrounds us. With the reduction in traffic noise it’s been uplifting to sit in the sun-drenched garden and listen to the birdsong. I for one felt it was almost like being on holiday.

But I have not been idle. I have written another novel, the sequel to my rom com Where There’s a Will, which I hope to publish later this year. I found having a daily routine helped to keep me focused on my writing and to block out some of the worry that goes with a pandemic. After breakfast I took a walk around the village, keeping to the social distancing guidelines of course, and came back to enjoy a cup of coffee in the garden. I wrote until lunchtime then continued writing in the afternoon until I broke for an afternoon cuppa whilst watching the daily Coronavirus update. This was followed by a glass of wine in the garden, listening to Mr Blackbird chattering away high up on a chimney pot, while the dinner was cooking.

One of the most entertaining pastimes has been watching the blackbirds foraging for food to feed their young which seems to be a full time job. The male blackbird in particular has been very active, gathering bugs and worms all day to take back to the nest in the laurel. Every time the soil was newly dug the blackbird was there, eager to see what had been unearthed. We followed the blackbirds’ progress daily, wondering when the juveniles would leave home, and came to the conclusion that the bird world has certain similarities to our own! Lately we have noticed the red kite winging its way across the sky; we are delighted because we haven’t seen it since last year. We’ve also enjoyed watching a pair of buzzards occasionally circling high above in the thermals until they disappear into the clouds. Another glorious sight is the swans and geese flying over in formation, squawking happily, the sun catching their wings.

Being prevented from visiting our family and friends has been one of the worst restrictions placed upon us. Our sons and daughters who have planned to get married this year must see some similarities with their grandparents’ weddings  immediately after the Second World War. Hopefully the ones who are getting married later this year will be able to go ahead with her plans, unlike others whose celebrations have had to be watered down or postponed.

Similarities to wartime include the food shortages, fearing for our loved ones and having to make do, but we are now fighting an invisible enemy which, in some respects, is even more difficult to overcome. We find ourselves in limbo waiting for a light at the end of the Coronavirus tunnel, and although our lives may never be the same again, we will look to the future and the New Normal.

Julie Newman

Email: julie3wwn@mypostoffice.co.uk

Facebook author page: http://www.facebook.com/J.A.Newman.author