Celebrated and celebrity

“Have you ever interviewed anyone famous?”

That’s a question I’m frequently asked when I say that I’m a journalist and editor, and when I reply yes, the follow-up is invariably, “Who?”

Olympians, actors, MPs

At that point I usually list a handful of personalities who make regular headlines – MPs, Olympians, actors… then I blank. You’ll find a few of them listed in my character interview pages on this blogsite.

The truth is, I’ve interviewed so many people in the course of 30 years in the business that I’ve forgotten more of my interviewees than I can remember.

That’s not what my offspring would call a humble-brag. Genuinely, I can’t name names when put on the spot and in the early days of my career (when I interviewed the likes of composer Sir Malcolm Arnold, Monkees lead singer Davy Jones and Dr Who actor Jon Pertwee) it never occurred to me to keep a record. I can’t for the life of me remember the author I interviewed when I was in my first few weeks as a professional journalist. I do recall that it was at a barn conversion near Diss and I was especially impressed by his floor-to-rafters bookshelves.

On Saturday then, flipping through the Register section of my paper copy of The Times, it wasn’t the name that caught my eye, but an image. Sandwiched between the obituaries of The Earl of Plymouth and actor Bill Maynard was a third, that of a man standing on the deck of a ship wearing naval uniform and looking both proud and pleased – and I knew I’d seen the photograph before.

He went on to receive not one, but two knighthoods

Vice-Admiral Sir James Weatherall considered his time as Captain of HMS Ark Royal as a boyhood dream come true, he told me. But despite the fact he went on to receive not one, but two knighthoods, the first after a distinguished 37-year-long career in the Royal Navy, the second after serving in the Diplomatic Corps, our interview didn’t even make the front page of the magazine that had commissioned me for members of the Marine Society & Sea Cadets (MSSC).

Not even the Sir James Weatherall’s status as a former chairman of the Sea Cadets and a series of interests and distinguished appointments that made me wonder when he had time to sleep gave him the cover slot of Seafarer.

The Winter 2009 issue that featured him also carried an interview I’d done with poster-boy television broadcaster and now much-respected historian Dan Snow. So perhaps understandably, it was Dan who made the cover, his steadfast gaze and crumpled shirt a contrast to the super-smart uniform of a Naval officer standing on the deck of one of the most famous ships of the modern age.

Celebrated, not famous

Of course I also remember the interview I conducted with Dan. It was done over the phone as he shuttled between terminals at Heathrow, competing with so much background noise from baggage trolleys and tannoy announcements that I was fearful that I would not have enough material to create the feature I’d been commissioned to write.

On Saturday, I couldn’t help reflecting on a life well-served but not in the spotlight. To the wider public, Sir James Weatherall wasn’t a celebrity, and if I told anyone I’d interviewed him, I’m not sure they would have a clue who he was or be impressed.

You can read the obituary in The Times, March 31, 2018 (paywall) and a pdf of my original article in Seafarer is available to view here.

My career in journalism has led to brief connections with the hugely respected and celebrated, as well as the feted and famous, and for that privilege I’m grateful.

But it’s a funny old concept, celebrity – isn’t it?

I didn’t get to meet Roger Bannister…

But when I was editing Oxfordshire Life magazine, and the idea was pitched that we included an interview with Sir Roger Bannister to mark his 80th birthday, I jumped at the chance to give readers an insight into his latter years in Oxford.

Meeting your heroes

It’s one of the disadvantages of being the editor, rather than the writer or photographer, that you get stuck in the office pushing paper rather than getting to meet your heroes. Both Justin Bowyer, who pitched the idea, and Paul Wilkinson, the photographer, set up their own successful businesses and keep in touch via social media. Some articles, more than others I’ve commissioned as an editor, have stuck in the mind. This one because I’m a mad-keen sports fan, and because both Justin and Paul were thrilled to have met Sir Roger Bannister, and the announcement of his death on March 3, 2018 made me think of them.

The passing of one of our national sporting greats prompted tributes on all media channels and at the IAAF world indoor athletics championships in Birmingham, plus a celebration of his life. No-one lives forever. You can ask no more than you leave a good mark on the world, and tellingly, Roger Bannister rated the achievements of his professional and academic career at least as highly as his sporting successes. Had he been born in the era of professional athletics, he may have chosen to concentrate on his running for longer, once qualified, pretty much as veterinary student and double worlds medallist Laura Muir plans to do. But athletics was a gentleman’s hobby back in the fifties, and if you had to earn a living it couldn’t be through paid appearances.

3 minutes 59.4 seconds

Iffley Road running track

I smiled when I heard Sebastian Coe and Steve Cram discussing how many thousands of people would say they had been at the Iffley Road track in Oxford on May 6 1954, watching the historic scenes, when the real figure was around 1,200. Many people will be able to say they met him during his 88 years, but not me. But I am glad that Paul and Justin did. Meeting your heroes is one of the privileges of working in our business. Being a hero – well that’s a different story.

© All pictures and text used in this post are subject to copyright by the original authors, photographer and/or the publishing company. Design and layout in Oxfordshire Life by Louise White.

Sophie Grigson’s kitchen

Sophie Grigson portrait by Mark Fairhurst.

She’s a self-confessed cook rather than a chef and champions local food production.

Sophie Grigson explains what’s going on in her kitchen.

COOK Sophie Grigson has a personal sense of style more in keeping with an Eighties pop star than a chef. With her spiky haircut, dangly earrings and elfin features she could so easily have bagged a record deal or presented the cult programme The Tube during that era, you can’t help but feel as you talk to her.
Her lovely Oxfordshire farmhouse also has a slightly whacky feel. There’s the new dog, Ben, recently adopted, who currently has to be kept in one side of it while the cat, Spice, rather put out by the usurper, has taken refuge in the kitchen. The door between Ben’s and Spice’s territories remains firmly closed and it’s not clear, if it came to a bun fight, which pet would come off the victor.

Sophie is all smiles, welcome and hand waves, excusing the chaos and ushering me into the most obvious room for this interview the kitchen – or rather, Spice’s space.
It’s just the kind of kitchen you would expect Sophie to have. Not for her the pristine pans gleaming on a rack beside polished granite work surfaces. Instead, it’s a used, lived in, experimented in, sat in, chatted in creative kitchen. It was hand built by a local joiner and has a range down one end, while jars, bottles and packets line shelves all over the walls. The windows frame views over the valley beyond and the sills are packed with kitchen paraphernalia, including a stylish hand-juicer, which, I note, has dust all over it.
“I take it that’s not used much,” I venture.
Sophie, busy creating coffee for us, is unabashed as she replies that it looks good, which is why it won its place in her kitchen.
Sophie herself has lived an interesting life. Her late mother Jane Grigson was a highly acclaimed author, translator and one of the pioneers of the Sixties culinary revolution and her father Geoffrey Grigson was a poet and critic. Hardly surprisingly, Sophie has a string of books to her name and is a regular contributor to Waitrose Magazine. Easy to talk to and passionate about food, she regularly pops up on hit TV cookery shows and spent the run-up to Christmas cooking in Sri Lanka. She was one of the judges of the BBC Radio 4 Food Programme Food and Farming awards and uses her not inconsiderable influence and profile to champion local food producers, farmers’ markets and small food-related businesses. Indeed, it was at a local food producers’ festival that I first met her.

Such a good cooking pedigree

With so many strings to her bow, so many demands on her time, so many accomplishments and such a good cooking pedigree, it’s refreshing, if a little surprising, to her that she was slightly daunted on her Sri Lankan trip to discover she was cooking for around 50 guests.
“I’m a cook, not a chef,” she says, adding in the same breath that she really enjoyed the experience. “It made me realise how hard chefs work every day, especially in that heat. In the course of preparation we had several power cuts, the fuse box went up in flames and not all the staff spoke English – but we got it done on time and it was a really good evening,” she says.
I ask her if her children can cook and she assures me that they can, a bit, though se reveals that they think what Mum does is a bit boring.
“They can both cook their favourite dishes,” she says. Favourite means a Thai coconut vegetable and fish noodle soup and pasta with tomato sauce. They’ve also been known to supply peanut butter brownies to local fundraising markets.
“They get the idea and that’s good,” says Sophie.

“It’s important, as a food writer, to give my backing to people who are producing the kind of food I want to use.”

Living with one foot in Oxford and the other in the countryside, it’s perhaps not surprising that Sophie is so passionate about supporting local food producers and retailers.
“I think there are issues that we do need to address… I think it’s important, as a food writer, to give my backing to people who are producing the kind of food I want to use,” she says.
“We are seeing a lot of changes in attitudes to food production. You can have a green hotel, for example, without compromising on quality; in fact by raising your quality. Hotels and restaurants tapping into local food producers get lots of things, not just fresh produce. They can have more say and ask local people to make things for them” she says. And there are so many human interest stories behind the food we eat.”

Community and rapport

Sophie is keen that we should be aware of what is available at farmers’ markets and in farm shops. She also points out that shopping regularly that way establishes a sense of community and rapport between buyer and seller or producer.
Other cooks are also lending their weight and voices to highlighting the way we produce food – recent programmes with Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall about the lives of British-reared chickens have had an impact on supermarkets and customers.
“The demand for free range chickens has gone up, which is also good for British producers – it’s very exciting,” says Sophie, pointing out that the ultimate aim was to improve the way that chickens were raised.
“Good for Channel 4 for being brave enough to do that. When I first started appearing on television programmes 15 or 16 years ago I wouldn’t have been able to do that sort of thing,” she says.
Sophie would like to do a series on meat and follow the progress and lives of beef cattle, because she feels that if we are going to eat meat we should know the process of getting it on to our plates.
“I love meat, as long as I know it has had a good life,” she says.
So, food apart, how does Sophie spend her time?
“I do a lot with the children. I like reading novels. I’ve been reading a Barbara Trapido book – I really enjoy her novels. I had this strange experience of sitting in bed one night, reading one of her books and there was my name. It was a conversation someone was having – it felt lovely!” says Sophie, adding that she has been a volunteer at Oxford Literary Festival. She enjoys amateur dramatics, recently playing the fairy godmother in her local village panto and taking part in the The Vagina Monologues in Abingdon.
Sophie makes regular visits to France and loves the way the French have remained so connected to their food production. She would like to travel more, especially if she could combine her journeys with discovering food. She was enchanted by Sri Lanka and would like to travel through South America.

“One of the good things about having an interest in food is it’s a common language.”

“I’d love to take six months out and go from top to bottom, or the other way round,” says Sophie. “One of the good things about having an interest in food is it’s a common language.”
It’s a language that Sophie has proved fluent in and our local food producers are lucky to have such an eloquent and dedicated champion for their cause. She’s not just another personality dreaming up recipes in the kitchen. Sophie’s choice to be hands-on in the food world is Oxfordshire’s – and the nation’s – gain.

This interview first appeared in Oxfordshire Life magazine on June 2008 under my former name, Sandra Fraser. ©SandraKessell
Image ©Mark Fairhurst

Why should e-readers be treated as second class?

I’m rarely moved to write reviews these days but having loved Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale for its setting, characters and evocative writing, the experience was marred by the poorly proofread copy. It jars when you have to stop midflow to check whether you should be reading ‘filing’ or ‘filling’ or when wordsareruntogether so you have to do a double take. It takes you out of the world you and the author have created together, that intimate setting or quiet haven. It’s even more annoying when you’re reading, not a cheap imprint or self published novel, (when typos and literals are understandable and more forgivable, if no less noticeable) but one promoted through a large publishing house, written by a well-respected author, that was downloaded at the cost of £4.99. I buy e-books because I just don’t have any more shelf space but that doesn’t mean I’m prepared to sacrifice quality for slapdash. Come on HarperCollins, honour your readers, honour your authors, honour your good name and fine publishing traditions – proofread your e-imprints to the same standards as your hard copy prints.

The search for Gt Aunt Nica

This article first appeared in Cotswold Life December 2012

The fates of those blessed or cursed with wealth and fame have always enthralled and entertained – and provided headlines and schadenfreude when it all goes horribly wrong. Sandra Kessell talks to Hannah Rothschild about her book The Baroness.

It’s a fair walk between Waddesdon Manor’s car park and the house itself and today I have enough time to drink in all the fabulousness of the French Chateau-style building, the perfectly manicured lawns dotted with contemporary sculpture, the precisely planned floral displays and the coach loads of visitors ambling along the raked gravel paths.

I’m here to interview writer and film director Hannah Rothschild, the eldest of Jacob, Lord Rothschild’s daughters, and to hear of her fascination with her Great-Aunt Nica, a rebellious Rothschild who broke ranks to live among radical musicians at the heart of the bebop jazz scene.

In Nica’s youth this extraordinary family home was a playground for the rich and famous. She was brought up in similar luxury at nearby Tring Park, one of several Rothschild houses built around Aylesbury Vale and filled with treasures ranging from the gorgeous to the downright bizarre. At Waddesdon, priceless Sèvres porcelain, clocks and artworks were amassed, while at Tring, weird, wonderful animals were gathered either alive to populate the grounds or dead to be to stuffed or mounted and preserved in glass cases.

Today, Waddesdon Manor is in the hands of the National Trust, though the Rothschilds still play a major role in its management. Hannah is deep in conversation with one of the back-room staff when I arrive, too early, and guessing from my notebook that I’m her next appointment, she excuses herself momentarily to introduce herself and ask if I’d like a coffee while I’m waiting. Her easy manner and solicitude don’t come as a surprise. In my experience, people in Hannah’s position make pleasant interviewees.

According to Nica’s sister, the great scientist and ecologist Miriam Rothschild, our lives are shaped by genetics and chromosomes long before we are born. It was Miriam’s exasperation with Hannah that piqued her voyage of discovery into their forebears’ history.

“Nica seemed to have escaped,” explains Hannah. “I got more and more interested by her, I was making films and programmes for BBC Arts and I would see her when I went backwards and forward to America and it seemed the films were less interesting than she was.”

Then suddenly, Great-Aunt Nica died. Hannah thought she had missed her opportunity, then discovered she could still build a relationship, of sorts. She made a radio programme and a TV documentary about Nica, but feeling she had scratched only the surface of her life, and with stacks of material to explore and record, she started writing a book.

Discretion and secrecy are Rothschild watchwords, so when word of the book got out, the wider family viewed Hannah’s intentions with suspicion. They thought there were more worthy Rothschilds to write about.

“The family weren’t universally thrilled by this – nobody was,” says Hannah.

So what was her father’s viewpoint?

“He said, ‘Do you think you really need to do this?’ and I said ‘Yes.’ And after that, he never asked again. He was very supportive,” says Hannah. “Having raised the question he then accepted the idea.”

Hannah’s touching and candid account conjures up such well-drawn characters you feel as helpless as if you were watching King Lear repel his favourite daughter and divide his kingdom. As you read, pre-conceptions dissolve. Some aspects of Nica’s life were all-too-well documented but what lay underneath was unexplored or had been glossed over. So did the real Nica grow on Hannah as incomprehensible actions became understood?

“Yes,” says Hannah emphatically. “When I said I had a relationship with her it was rather like the cycles one goes through with friends, you know, love, and irritation and frustration and love again, I went through very similar things with Nica. For me, when I found out that she had decided not to live with her children, I got very upset with her… I felt disappointed in that decision.” But she realised in divorce cases of that era the father was always given priority over the mother, so Nica would have been unlikely to get custody, even if she’d fought for it.

Hannah delved into Rothschild history to start her story. Then progressed to Nica’s earliest years.

Named after a moth by her entomology-obsessed father Charles – Nica – full name, Kathleen Annie Pannonica – was the youngest of four children. Where her eldest sister and brother put their privileged but emotionally constrained childhoods behind them and found meaning, recognition and gainful employment through science, Nica lived her young adult life as a social butterfly, revelling in glamorous high society, marrying a handsome European Baron, flying her own plane, driving fast cars and generally following a path, if not exactly expected of her, then not entirely alien to her class.

During the Second World War Nica’s brother Victor was head of a small department at MI5 and her sister Miriam joined Alan Turing’s decoders at Bletchley Park.

Nica, whose French husband Baron Jules de Koenigswarter had settled his family in Normandy, remained with their children at their chateau, escaping to English safety just in time to avoid the horrors of the Nazi regime. Her married name and history caused distrust in England, but determined to help the war effort, she followed her husband’s lead, joined the Free French Army and smuggled herself on to a flight bound for Africa, repeatedly getting out of scrapes to put herself back on the front line.

It was said that when Nica heard ‘Round Midnight’ after the war, her world shifted on its axis. She left children, husband and scandal in her wake as she pursued and befriended the New York musicians who made it.

Her longest, closest and most personal friendship – there’s no evidence to suggest it was anything more intimate, despite speculation – was with the avant-garde pianist and jazz composer Thelonious Monk.

A giant of a man, both physically and in terms of his contribution to modern music, he wrote songs about and for Nica and she, in turn, adored and supported him, his wife, friends and family financially and in just about any other way she could. While he lurched from mental health crisis to fame and ultimately legendary status, she went into a tail spin, falling from the highest social echelons to a life of squalor and ill ease.

In the Fifties she sheltered the great jazz saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker when he was sick. He repaid her by dying in her hotel suite. She later insisted drugs found in her car were hers, sparing her less well-connected musician friends for whom a conviction would have meant suspension of their professional licences. She knew the trials of being a misunderstood white, upper-class Jewish heiress making international headlines were as nothing to being black, gifted and breadline poor in colour-conscious 1950s America. But she also knew the fallout would affect her family. An image of her at the time of her arrest shows not a devil-may-care socialite but a frightened and sick to the heart mother and sister aware she was about to inflict pain on her loved ones.

What emerges in The Baroness, The Search for Nica, the Rebellious Rothschild, is an affectionate portrait of an exasperating, naïve, brave and principled woman – an absurdity of contradictions, a mix of dog-like devotion and reckless  behaviour. Fiercely private, she drove the flashiest, look-at-me, open-top Bentley in New York. The girl who had spent her childhood dressed in pristine white lace living in houses of sumptuous luxury ended her dotage in a small apartment, surrounded by cats that ripped everything to shreds and left her home stinking. Born into wealth and possession beyond most people’s wildest imaginings and at her death worth $750,000, in her latter years she lived on a shoestring, satisfied by the ephemeral nature of music.

The Baroness is an oeuvre that has taken 20 years of research to complete, so now it’s done, does Hannah have another biographical project in mind? Is another family member sitting in her sights?

Hannah shakes her head and laughs. Her next project will be a work of fiction, she says.

Then she’s checking the time and working out whether she can show me the Manor’s latest exhibition before she has to honour another appointment with Candida Lycett Green to talk about a charity. We’ve over-run and can’t squeeze out another minute, and off she dashes, blonde hair flying, gold pendant swinging, duty and genes at her heels.

The Baroness, The Search for Nica, the Rebellious Rothschild, by Hannah Rothschild is published by Virago.

To find out more go to www.thejazzbaroness.co.uk or http://www.hannahrothschild.com

Cotswold Life December 2012 The Jazz Baroness

Reap the rewards of being a media-savvy business

I’m often asked to write about small businesses but I’m amazed at the contrast between those who are media savvy and ready for a journalist’s call and those who miss out on free coverage because they’re ill-prepared.

The very best are ahead of the game, they’re already using Twitter and Facebook and blogging, letting people know what they do on a regular basis. They’re not chatting inanely or describing their lunch – though this too could prove riveting if they’re a food producer – but even a few lines describing what’s planned for the day can be interesting and build up a loyal following. One of the very best proponents I’ve come across is Sarah Pettegree of Bray’s Cottage pork pies.

The worst, sad to say, don’t answer their telephone or pick up messages or they make it clear they’re uncomfortable talking to the press even when I do get through. I’ve written food articles for a coffee table book, for handbooks, magazines and guides, I’ve written business articles for newspapers and produced online features. I know, it’s the tail end of the holidays and everyone deserves a break from their year-round job, but tailor-made marketing opportunities to targeted audiences don’t land in your lap every day – and a piece of well-written editorial in a well-read publication can represent the equivalent of hundreds of pounds-worth of advertising.

So here are my thoughts about how to claim your free coverage and make sure you don’t miss out when a chance arises.

• Check your voicemail regularly and call back promptly if you want to be included in a feature. Journalists on daily papers often work to the tightest deadlines and will swiftly move on if you don’t get back to them. If you’re helpful and co-operative you could be top of their list next time they need a quick response.
• Get a website set up – even if it’s just a front page. Make sure it’s optimised for search engines – it can make the difference between someone finding you and being able to contact you – or not. Don’t let your domain name expire – it’s so frustrating to be directed to a site, only to find nothing there.
• Commission a good photographer to take pictures of your products and key members of your staff and/or family – including you. Make sure the photographer knows you want permissions to use the results for all your marketing and media purposes. Get a shot of your shopfront or premises as well. If your budget is too tight for professional images get a relative, friend or employee with a good eye to do the honours. A picture provides a focal point for an article – and if your product (or your face) is featured it will be the visual prompt to the reader who wants to buy.
• Learn how to attach images to an email at maximum resolution (you’d be surprised how many people don’t know how to do this, which always gives me a sinking feeling as I attempt an over-the-phone instant lesson).
• Consider starting a blog, using Twitter and/or facebook. Keep this going with regular updates.
• Nominate a family or staff member who’s both knowledgeable and comfortable when talking to the press if you don’t like promoting your own business.
• Ask a specialist marketing company to do the job for you for an annual fee. The best are worth their cost several times over.
• Do all of the above and you’ll become known as the first port of call to media circles when they want to talk to someone about your line of business.

Christmas in summer

The summer holidays are almost over, the older children have dates for their return to University, school sites have been checked for the start of term and the last of the sunshine is doing its best to warm the river. Down the track, foresters are clearing the fallen chestnut tree robbing the most adventurous local youngsters of this summer’s playground and makeshift bridge across the water. The buzz and whine of a chainsaw is an interruption to the dreamy quiet in our corner of the world, but it’s a change from the all-night harvesting and baling that’s been going on in the surrounding fields for the last couple of weeks.

Not for the first time, I find myself spending the last summer days writing about Christmas food. Today I’m turning my mind to the groaning table, with particular reference to artisan cheeses and their accompaniments. Last year I learnt the word tracklements when I interviewed a local food producer for a Christmas feature – what lies ahead this year? Tomorrow morning, I’ll start an article about the Great British Breakfast before moving on, in the afternoon, to an interview with a Canadian health professional. My list of things to write includes delving into the consequences of a particular heart condition. I’ve yet to find an association between these commissions but they say variety is the spice of life and freelance writing life is nothing if not varied if you want to make it pay.

The Story Museum in Oxford takes on a new lease of life.

Last week I took my un-literary medic daughter and her friend for a tour of the Story Museum in Oxford. We arrived in true la-la fashion – in the maze of Oxford I couldn’t actually remember where Pembroke Street was, though I knew what it looked like – and after admiring the doorbells (see above), the work of resident artist Ted Dewan, we entered the magic kingdom of fiction, make-believe and all things creative.

It’s not that my daughter doesn’t read, she reads a lot, but her taste runs mostly to medical text books – she also has a medics’ anatomy colouring-in book, but that’s another story. She looks at me as if I’m a little odd when I rhapsodise about fiction. I suppose we need doctors as well as writers.

The Story Museum has found a home in Rochester House, supposedly built on the site of an inn frequented by Samuel Johnson when he was at Pembroke College (you can tell the stories here are going to run and run). It has served as Master’s lodgings and a Royal Mail, for which read GPO if you’re as old or older than I am, sorting office. Behind the main front door is another front door, with a sliding hatch and a circular counter, ideal for popping a head out of, if anyone felt so inclined. Everything about the house is “Just right” as Golidlocks might have said. There are stairs winding endlessly up to proper untouched writers’ garrets in the top of the house, creaky floorboards, wacky blackboards and odd signs on doors – which writer in residence Michael Rosen is keen to keep.

“Only dragons are allowed to smoke in the courtyard” proclaims one notice as we step into the world beyond the main Victorian building to a series of 1930s warehouse-like offices and rooms which flank all sides. One can feel (if one’s not a medic) oneself being pulled into the world of make-believe as posters and card-board cut-outs from the city’s last Alice Day stare out of windows.

“Who or what made the huge holes in the walls?” I ask Cath Nightingale, the museum’s press officer, imagining giant masonry-eating rodents still living in the corridors and roof spaces. The answer is much less poetic. Before taking on the lease, the Story Museum had to be sure the building wasn’t about to fall down and it’s structural engineers’ tests of the steel within the walls that have rendered the plaster and brickwork somewhat patchy here and there.

A very generous anonymous donor put up the £2.5 million necessary to buy a 130-year lease from Merton College and suddenly, along with a vast quantity of pigeon guano, a set of keys that would have impressed a Victorian chatelaine was handed over. Other effects have been found in the building and put to good use by avid collector, inventor and artist Ted Dewan, who has set up a workshop full of the kind of things you’d forgotten existed.

A programme of clean-ups and running repairs has been started to restore the buildings to some kind of new life after the years of neglect and decay. Some parts remain appropriately spooky, others, cosy, warm and inviting. Some have an airy spaciousness, others have a dark intimacy. The Bodleian Library’s presses have found a home here, and print workshops are already being run on site. The Creation Theatre is using the space for rehearsals, prior to its next season.

With little twists of creativity and running commentaries from visiting writers present at every turn, the building is not only a receptacle of fiction but a giver of stories and ideas to its visitors. If it inspires a new generation of authors to rival Philip Pullman, JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and Lewis Carroll the money spent on the building will be an investment. If it offers children a run of imagination and riot of fancy in a world populated by exams, hoops to jump through and prescribed teaching, who cares whether they go on to be writers or doctors? As long as they let their parents accompany them, everyone will gain.

The Story Museum is scheduled to open fully in 2014. You can find more about it and the building programme here http://www.storymuseum.org.uk/the-story-museum/aboutus/ourbuilding/Rochester-House

Give World Book Night a Chance

It’s a little earnest, this post, but heartfelt, nonetheless.

Three weeks ago I was delighted to learn my application to be a World Book Night giver had been successful.

I’ve copied below the text I understood to be the essence of WBN, which all donors were asked to read before they undertook to be a giver and I’ve underlined the section I considered most relevant as I filed my application and stated why I’d like to be part of this big giveaway.

From today, 2 December 2010, members of the public are invited to apply to be one of the 20,000 givers of 48 copies of their favourite book chosen from a carefully selected list of 25 titles. Most givers are expected to be passionate readers who will take pleasure in recommending a book they love to other readers. However, World Book Night will also encourage givers to pass the books on to others who either may be reluctant readers or who are part of communities with less access to books, bookshops and libraries. 960,000 books will be distributed by givers and a further 40,000 will be distributed by WBN to people who might not otherwise be able to participate.

I stated in my “pitch” to the organisers (every potential WBN giver had to do this) that I wanted to give my books to refugees and/or asylum seekers living in my locality. Buying new books, for me, is better than any other form of shopping – clothes, food, shoes, jewellery, anything – and anyone giving me a book for my birthday will be elevated in my estimation – regardless of the book, regardless of the content, regardless, even, of whether or not I already have a copy on my increasingly groaning bookshelves. I hoped to pass on or renew that yet-to-be-read anticipation to people who might love reading but for whom a new book is, or has become, a luxury or to people for whom reading is a forgotten or undiscovered pleasure. I recognise the loss of reading material would have been the least of their worries as they fled from war, famine or persecution, but while sanctuary, food and shelter are primary needs, friendship and understanding are fundamental to well-being and books are gifts of the heart. Without wishing to appear patronising, ignorant or seeking to stereotype, books are an opportunity to escape real world troubles and slip into another place, even if it’s only for a chapter or two.

To be honest, I was dismayed to learn that some givers are viewing March 5th 2011 as an occasion to treat their mates to a freebie. As far as I understood it, World Book Night was never about giving readers a chance to donate the books they were allocated to readers who could easily buy their own copies and who may already support writers and booksellers. There have been some gloom-mongers, sellers and writers alike, who have moaned about WBN being a blow to book sales, but you could just as easily go and picket your local secondhand book shop or village fete book stall for all the same reasons. Or do writers receive a second royalty on a £1 book bought on a hot summer’s day by a sandalled reader slurping on a £2 ice-cream? Given Susan Hill‘s recent rants, I suspect not.

In line with my original pitch and the news that I’d been selected as a giver, I’ve been in touch with relevant Oxford charities to find suitable places to donate my 48 copies of Sarah Waters‘s brilliant writing. Whilst being sensitive about the content of Fingersmith, it’s less graphic, in my opinion, than say, The Finkler Question and less disturbing than Never Let Me Go.

I’m hopeful that someone enlightened is administrating these charities, someone who will see 48 free books for their group as a gift of friendship from a sincere book lover to a recipient (or 48) who would get a great deal of pleasure from the gift. I want these books to go to people who would not, in their current circumstance, walk into their local bookshop and buy a brand-new, world-class novel. Perhaps their uncertain status means they can’t yet join a library, perhaps they don’t have the money to buy books, new or secondhand, perhaps they don’t have the confidence to try – perhaps though, they’d really like to.

I’m hopeful that in future years, when those same recipients are settled here (assuming their cases are approved) and have become part of our society, one that has, over many centuries, been created from different cultures, races, creeds and religions, that they will have their own book collections, will be members of their local library and will be buying and passing on books themselves.

That’s not to discount the pleasure a middle class, middle income reader would get from the gift of a World Book Night book. But giving to the converted was never part of this deal, I thought. Encouraging a whole new community of readers was always at its heart.

http://www.refugeeweek.org.uk/simple-acts/

Oxford Women’s Festival

Simple Acts

A Christmas of Crime

I’m not usually a crime reader. In fact, I’ve had two books written by mistresses of the genre sitting on my shelves for years waiting for me to read them. They were mistakes from the days when I belonged to one of those book clubs which sent you the choice of the month if you were not quick enough to tell them not to. I’m useless at admin – ask my accountant – so they arrived and I stuck them on my “to read when I’m desperate” pile. Truth be told, I’ve long felt there was enough crime going on in the real world without fictional tales adding to the body count. But those of you who are kind enough to follow my blog will have noticed the summer brought me an annoying, nagging, idea which refused to go away. And so I started writing Fallen.

Set in my home county of Norfolk (I’m an exile, who has pangs of homesickness), it features a former journalist who has fallen from grace, (not me) married to a school teacher (not my husband) who finds a dead body (apparently fallen from nowhere) on Holkham beach (that’s never happened to me and I hope it never does). Urged on by a few friends who were kind enough to let me know they were enjoying the instalments, I’ve kept adding to it, though I have only a vague idea where it’s going.

In the run-up to Christmas and nursing an almighty cold (call it ‘flu it you like) I found myself looking for something unchallenging to read in bed. Bed is where most of my reading is done. It’s been a habit as long as I can remember. Because I was a sleepless and tiresome child, as soon as I was old enough my parents left me books and a nightlight to read by – sleeping draughts, cajoling and other efforts having failed. The last thing you want, if you’re reading in the hope you’ll get back to sleep, is a book that gives you nightmares.

I started my crime-quest with a return to Fingersmith. A crime story if you like, it’s more an historical literary novel in my eyes, but it did win the CWA Ellis Peters Dagger for historical crime fiction. Which reminds me, I had a bit of a soft spot for Ellis Peters in the Eighties, but then I was brought up in the shadow of an abbey in a Norfolk market town and could always imagine the monks going about their daily business whenever I passed it or saw its twin towers across the valley.

Thinking I could put my enforced period of inaction to good use I proceeded (not in a westerly direction – I haven’t taken up police speak as well as crime fiction) on to Ruth Rendell’s Chief Inspector Wexford novel, The Babes in the Wood, and then Fox Evil, Minette Walters. Both were un-gory enough for my tastes and just as I was wondering what to move on to next, my husband presented me with Philippa Gregory’s The Red Queen and Started Early, Took My Dog, by Kate Atkinson for Christmas. I last read Kate Atkinson around 10 years ago – I’d loved Behind the Scenes at the Museum, but didn’t get Emotionally Weird. Perhaps I was emotionally weird at the time, I had three small children to look after by then and so I didn’t bother reading anything more of hers. More recently, I’d seen that she’d mixed her literary writing abilities in with crime fiction, but I doubt I would have bought Started Early, Took My Dog, for myself, even though I love the title. I wish those editors or agents who change long book titles because they think something punchy and brief works better would think again. I bought Everything is Illuminated based on its title, not its content – other favourites include The God of Small Things; The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam; Astonishing Splashes of Colour; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

I received many lovely Christmas presents. An antique jewellery box, a chicken-shaped stapler, a wine bottle holder that counterbalances itself – don’t ask me how – it just does. But I think my favourite present this year was Started Early, Took My Dog. Perhaps it just hit the right spot at the right time. My only gripe is – how can I possibly go back to writing Fallen now? Honestly, I am trying, but Kate does it so much better.