I've Not Been Around Recently...

For the second time in less than a month, I've missed my regular blog posting this Monday. Once is excusable; twice is getting to be a habit! So I thought I'd better say a word about what's kept me from writing for the past few weeks.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

At the start of this book, we see Harold Fry sitting at the breakfast table “freshly shaved, in a clean shirt and tie”.

Elizabeth Chats With...Tank Sherman

[My guest this month is one of the people I've really enjoyed meeting since moving to the South West. He's a funny man, both on and off stage. Even when he seems deadly serious, you just know there's a punch line coming and his joke phone-calls catch me out every time. But he's also extremely generous with his time and his talent, and a great supporter of the annual Variety Concert and other entertainment we run in our little town of Chudleigh. I am delighted to welcome Devon comedian Tank Sherman to Elizabeth's Page.] 

Hello Tank; good to see you. Let's start with a memory test. What is your earliest memory — and how old were you at the time?

I was  about 3 years old. My mother would take me to St Thomas Pleasure Park in St. Thomas, Exeter, where we lived, and my earliest memories were of a beautiful warm summers evening being pushed across the grass by my beautiful mum.

And I bet you were making them laugh event then! Moving on a few years, what was your favourite subject at school — and which was the lesson you always wanted to avoid?

I loved history, something that has stayed with me to this day (big Time Team fan!!) But I always wanted to avoid Cross Country. Never saw the point of running 3 miles through fields, mud and stream to return back to the start line!! My own fault though, healthy eating didn't exist for me back then.

If you had to escape from a fire, what three things would you take with you?

I would hope that my pets would run out anyway, but I would have to take my wife Julia, my son Chris and my daughter Amy.

Well, I can see the dogs running out on their own, but I suspect your other pet might need a helping hand?

Tell me, Tank, how do you relax?

It used to be Sea Angling out in a boat, but due to work commitments, it is now watching the television, feet up on a pouffe, eyes wide shut!!

If you could change one thing about yourself or your life so far, what would it be?       

To have looked after my fitness (diet and exercise) a lot sooner than I did.

If you were a car, what type would you be — and why?

I would be a Ford Prefect E493A. The reason's quite simple. It had a large chassis (ditto) an engine that plodded on (bit like me) and needed constant servicing (no comment) and love and attention!!!

Ford Prefect E493A (Photo: Jason Vogel)

Watch a film, go to the theatre, read a book or talk to friends — which would you prefer?

Watch a film.

If you could take part in one television programme, which one would it be?
       

The Royal Variety Show (well, we can all dream xx)

Would you describe yourself as left-brain (analytical), right-brain (intuitive) or a mix of both?

Definitely a mix of both.
      

Tank, I've set the earlier questions. Now it's your turn. As they say in job interviews, what question should I have asked and how would you answer it? 

My question would be 'What do you love about your chosen career?' I love to go out on stage and make a difference to people's lives. Laughter is the best medicine and to know that for an hour that I  have made someone forget the rubbish that is going on in their lives and to have lifted their spirits - it's a priceless feeling.

And having sat with tears rolling down my cheeks at more than one of your performances, I can testify that it's certainly a great tonic. Tank, thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to come and talk to me. 

If you want to find out more about Tank, his website can be found here.

Going Away To Get Away

"Have you booked a holiday yet," friends have been saying all year. "When are you going away?" "We're not," I reply, "at least not in the sense you mean."

 We're fortunate to live in a beautiful part of the country (Devon), we work for ourselves, so have no bosses to get away from and, having travelled internationally for many years on business, have nowhere we are burning to visit. As my husband says frequently, if ungrammatically: "what would we be going away from?"

However, I’m in the middle of my own, very special, summer holiday at the moment. For 17 days in July, our small town has a summer festival, Chudfest, followed by CarnivalWeek. I am one of the organisers of the festival and also take part in some of the Carnival events. Since 5th July, I have: marshalled at a rock concert; danced at the Summer Ball; applauded the entrants of Chudleigh’s Got Talent; served squash to more than a hundred toddlers at the Teddy Bears’ Picnic; assisted the question masters in the Quiz; sold books, listened to workshop leaders and other authors at the Literary Festival; marvelled at Nicholas Parsons’ memory for Lear’s poetry; laughed until I got stitch at the Comedy Club; supped at the chocolate fountain, drunk pink fizz and taken part in my first ever Karaoke session at the Pink Pamper Party; finally got the hang of line dancing at the Hoedown; sold programmes and won on the ferret race at the Fete; marshalled for the 6 mile road race and walked in the Carnival Procession as part of the Chudfest entry (we came third in our class and the fact that there were only three entries did not dim our pleasure one bit!).

  

In addition, I’ve slept in the marquee three times (on security duty, not because I couldn’t find my way home) and learned: it gets very cold at night, even in the middle of the hottest summer for years; the church bells ring out the hours every hour, throughout the night; and we have owls, seagulls, pigeons and crows in the playpark - all of whom can be very noisy!  I’ve also been part of the team that liaised with the local press, put up banners and delivered brochures to every house in town.

I spent two wonderful days working with the local primary school, putting together a Chudfest special edition of Chudleigh Phoenix, our community newsletter. Our Junior Press Team were a credit to the town, the school and their parents.

 

What I haven’t done is write. I normally try to write everyday and set myself goals on a monthly, weekly and daily basis. I don’t always keep to them, but they provide a structure which this scientist and former production manager needs. At the back end of June, I started feeling guilty that I was not able to spend enough time writing — and I knew it would get harder as we moved into July.

I ‘gave up the day job’ to write full-time in March 2012. In fact, writing is now my day job. I love being a writer; I enjoy it especially when the words flow and the word count grows. I don’t want it to be a chore, although I realise there are times when one stares at the blank page or screen — and it just stares back! And I certainly don’t want to end up feeling guilty when other things have to take priority.

 

So, I gave myself a month off! I made no plans to write during July (although there has been an occasional burst, like this posting, which would not be suppressed). My notebook is brimming with ideas for new stories. An old friend visited us last week and left me with a brilliant plotline I can’t wait to get written. I am keen to get back to the novel and implement the advice I got during the Winchester Writers Conference. In a couple of weeks I will be heading to Derbyshire for this year’s Swanwick Writers’ Summer School, which is the traditional start of my writing year and we’re launching the fourth annual Chudleigh Phoenix short story competition. It’s going to be a brilliant year.

But first, I have a few more fun things to do before the end of the month and I’m going to enjoy my holiday to the full.

 

What are your views on holidays? Do you have to go away to get away?   

Saying Thanks: For The Generosity Of Friends and Neighbours

This is the last time I’m going to mention our flood; it’s all water under the bridge now (both pun and cliché definitely intended) and I realise many people, both in UK and elsewhere, suffered far more than we did. But before I finally move on, I’d like to say thanks to the wonderful people in the town of Chudleigh who showed us what it’s like to live in a small community (a novelty for this pair of city folk).

When we arrived home and found our house sitting in the stream, rather than picturesquely on its banks, I texted a couple of friends with whom we’d spent the evening. As we sat in our neighbour’s house drinking tea and trying to take it all in, there was a knock on the door — and then another. Groups of friends arrived, knowing there was nothing we could do at that point, but just wanting to give us a hug. They left behind flasks of hot water, coffee — and, bizarrely, a couple of novelty pens presented to us by the town’s local comedian.

First thing the next morning, with the water subsided, the mop-up brigade arrived. I found one friend on his hands and knees scraping up the red Devon mud covering everything; he called in his mate, an electrician, who sorted out the power supply before joining in the mud bath. Another couple of friends, with two children in tow, formed a human chain to move the entire contents of our ground floor up to the spare bedroom. We put one of the children in charge of stacking everything neatly on the bed and the floor. He did a wonderful job, bless him, although I’m still finding things now that were neatly hidden away that morning.

Someone arrived with a dehumidifier, piles of old towels — and advice on where to buy decent mops. One brave soul spent two days in our kitchen, drying soggy papers in the oven.

My two sisters visited from afar the following weekend and helped us clear the mudslide from the garden. They also recognised our need for a nest, somewhere we could go and hide when it all got too much; sitting on the landing with a picnic table just wasn’t good enough. They sorted out our attic library, installed the TV, and made sure we had comfortable chairs to sit on. It was so homely, we’ve decided to keep this nest, even though the house is now back to normal.

And then there was the food: people arrived on our door-step with cake, quiche, a beef casserole; and offers of meals out. If anyone so much as breathed the words “you must come round for supper one evening”, we would grab our diaries and start reeling off the dates we were free: “tonight, tomorrow, in fact any day this week!” The owner of our local sweet shop gave us free chocolate. We spent many evenings eating with our neighbour who lost much more than we did, but still had a working dining room. Her wonderful brother spent the day after the flood clearing her basement on his own and then cooked a huge curry for all of us. We took pickles, poppadums and dessert — plus a bottle of champagne to celebrate the fact that: nobody died; nobody got hurt; and it’s only stuff!

Maybe it’s the British reserve, the desire ‘not to be a bother’, but when someone offers to help, the natural reaction is to say “no thanks, we’re fine, we’ll manage”. We learned very quickly that there are times when that is NOT the right thing to say; times when every offer of help is accepted with open arms. We lost count of the text, emails and phone calls we received in the days after the flood, but I wrote down every offer of help and called on people when we needed them. Clearing out the garden room / office / writing room at the bottom of our garden was a task I’d been dreading; we had to wait three days for the water to disappear but then, another group of friends formed a human chain and we shifted everything in less than an hour.

For a couple of months afterwards, every person we met wanted to know how we were getting on and give us a hug. Sometimes we were able to respond; sometimes it was one explanation too many and I’d ask them, eyes welling, to change the subject. For weeks, every time it rained heavily, we would get texts asking if we were OK, if the stream was behaving itself.

And finally, we were heavily involved in preparations for the town’s Christmas Fayre, held just ten days after the event we christened Chudflood. My wonderful organising committee took the whole thing away from me and just got on with it.

So to our friends and family, especially the people of Chudleigh: a huge thank you for your generosity and support. Now, shall we change the subject?