Adrienne Dines

Duchas and the Elmbridge Literary Festival

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:51:47 +0000

Two nice things happened in the last week…

The first was a trip to Kilkenny in Ireland to watch my father, Tom Phillips, launch a book called In the Shadow of the Steeple. It’s a compilation of articles written by historians, storytellers and locals who make up the Tullaherin Heritage Society. This was number 10 in the series and it’s compelling – the sort of book that you read and you can feel your roots and know that they are strong. It’s societies like this who have the foresight and expertise to commit our stories to paper so that they can be preserved. Custodians of all our yesterdays – I felt very proud.

The other thing happened last night. It was the first prizegiving evening for the Elmbridge Literary Festival – the children’s evening. The other readers were the poet, Agnes Meadows and the writer Simon Cherry. I was first to read. It was a poem written by a six-year -old girl and I thought it might be nice (for her!) if I asked her advice beforehand on how to read it. Very seriously, I read the first couple of lines and said, ‘Is that right?’

She rolled her eyes and looked at me as if I really hadn’t had my Weetabix.

‘Noooo,’ she said, ‘don’t sing it – just say the words!’

Right so.

Later they lined the children up for photographs with the Mayor. To see a row of small kids, all clutching their certificates, with their chests stuck out so far they looked like chickens was a treat.

Tonight it’s the adults’ turn. I have to read a story by a talented writer called Terry Ryan. There are a lot of song titles in it. I will not attempt to sing any of them.

I will just say the words…

Real people’s faces…

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:51:03 +0000

It’s in the papers all the time. I read how this fellow or that has made a name for himself, really ‘got himself out there’ by blogging reguarly and encouraging a devoted following to hang onto his every word. Blogging is the way to go – if you’re not too busy twittering of course.

I like to get out there. I love the talks and the workshops and the people who walk up and say, ‘I read your book and I wanted to tell you something…’ and they do. They’ve read the story more recently than I have and although I claim a mother’s knowledge of my characters, they claim a lover’s – there are things I don’t know and they are determined to tell me. I love that too. Through the talks I’ve done this year I’ve met SO many people who don’t have computers, who think ‘blogging’ is a fancy name for bragging (and the answer to that one is??), who won’t ever read an ebook because they love the crack of a spine when you open a book for the first time and the smell of clean paper when the words are still on it, as yet unread.

And I chat to them – for ages. It leaves little time for blogging and it makes me look inefficient to you if reading blogs is your thing.

But it’s human. As one lady said recently, ‘Isn’t it nice that we can still do things are don’t require us to plug something in?’

Brockham WI and Peaslake Book Group…

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:50:09 +0000

On Monday last week I went to Brockham in Surrey to talk to their Evevning WI and on Thursday to Peaslake to celebrate the 10th anniversary of a Book Group and set them off reading Soft Voices Whispering. I was already exhausted when I left home on Monday to find Brockham.

They say ‘a change is as good as a rest’. Isn’t it lovely when things said are true?

Brockham turned out to be a gorgeous village, spread along both sides of green spaces with the hall in which I was speaking at the far end. The ladies were lively, friendly and so welcoming that I didn’t bother with notes and just stood and talked. Afterwards, two explained that they’d lived in the village all their lives and had their families there. I left feeling buoyant and more than a little envious.

Peaslake is another rural village but this time, one hidden behind high hedges. The house was along a lane that appeared to be leading nowhere. Eventually I found it and a group of women who lifted my spirits. Maybe it’s that I’m interested in people anyway but it seems that recently, the ones I’ve met leave me feeling vindicated in a long held belief that women are beautiful by virtue of what they possess and not what they lack.

The sort of vacuous polished faces that pout from the covers of weekly glossies leave me cold – It is in the vibrant, life-filled faces of the women I have met recently that real beauty exists.

I really ought to do this more often

Tue, 26 May 2009 20:49:24 +0000

I spoke to a friend the other day who is an avid blogger, Facebook groupie and general internet stalker.

She said, ‘I’ve been looking at your website, Adrienne, and I think it’s very nice but you really ought to update it more often.’

She’s right, of course, and I had every intention of getting right onto it and blogging something marvellously witty so that comments would flood in and I’d be innundated with things to say. And that’s where it all went wrong.

I can’t cope with iny more nnundations at the moment. ‘Innundated’ has become my default setting. It pertains to the plot lines of the book I’m workiing on (A Grand Illusion – that’s the title not a description of the work); it pertains to the state of my house; it pertains to the list of things I need to address. It also pertains to the list of people on Facebook who have invited me to be their friend.

I’m very flattered. Each of them is someone I would really like to sit down and have a chat with, see how they’re getting on and what they look like and what their families are up to but I know that if I accept their invitations, I will be consumed with keeping watch on all their cyberlives and lose track of what’s happening in the very real space around me. My innundation obligations will grow and grow and I will be swamped.

So, I will systematically call them all, one by one and arrange to meet them for coffee, tea, lunch, supper or a drink – or all of the above and enjoy time with the real person. I have made a list and filed it .

Under ‘I’.

ps. Had I had time to blog in the last few weeks, I would have commented on a luncheon I had recently. I was invited as guest speaker by the Walton and Weybridge Branch of Save the Children to talk at their 90th Anniversary Luncheon at Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Club. What a lovely afternoon. I met so many people who felt more like old friends than new acquaintances and was moved by the history and passion of this charity. I look forward to meeting them again.

In this together…

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:37:55 +0000

I had a date last week – Gillingham in Kent to talk to the Medway Stroke Club. I hadn’t been to Gillingham before but had a rough idea where to go. Last year I spoke in Rochester. The Sat Nav said it took an hour and a half so I set off early and was on the A2 in plenty of time. About three miles in I realised why there had been a message on the Sat Nav a month ago saying, ‘Please Update’: the road I was on did not appear on the screen and an increasingly Dalek voice was saying ‘recalculating, please take the next left, recalculating.’

Eventually the new A2 and the old Garmin were reconciled and I arrived in Gillingham. The talk was to be held in the Masonic Lodge in Franklin Road – a wonderful old building beautifully decorated and airy. The people were nice too – offered a welcoming cup of tea and plenty of encouraging smiles. The audience had a high percentage of men and I wondered how my opening gambit – an irreverent observation on male behaviour – would go down. Then salvation appeared. A lady who had heard me speak in Rochester all those months ago approached smiling and said,’ You won’t remember me but I heard you last year and straightaway recommended you to this group. I told them you were brillliant…’

What a sweetie – that was just the right thing to say and suddenly I didn’t feel so alone. We were in this together.

Then the audience began to take their seats. They looked like a discerning bunch. She could see that too. She caught my elbow and looked deep into my eyes. She wasn’t smiling now. ‘So,’ she said, ‘you won’t let me down will you?’

LIke I said. We were in this together.

John Lewis – never knowingly underprepared…

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 20:38:37 +0000

I’d ignored the signs for days. Everybody sneezes a lot in December and cold air makes for red noses. The chill that had settled between my shoulderblades was surely to do with the fact that sometimes even five layers of clothing* isn’t enough.

I was in the coffee shop in John Lewis just before Christmas, ostensibly to enjoy the atmostphere but really to get warm. Everyone around was shedding coats and looking cosy and I was shivering. The cold was now in my bone marrow and growing colder. Eventually I hit on a plan. If I could make it to the warm air driers in the Ladies I could pretend to have spilled something and just stand there till something thawed.

I made it halfway across the haberdashery department before passing out. It was only for a moment but when I came to a very determined JL ‘partner’ was trying to pull my coat off. ‘Quick,’ she urged her accomplices, ‘she’s burning up!’

I wasn’t – I was freezing to death. She grappled with the coat; I held on because my life, and warmth, depended on it. But JL partners on home territory are a determined crew. They got the coat and the scarf and were gearing up for the first wooly jumper layer when the exertions made them stop for a breather. One of them handed me beaker of water and the other fanned furiously. It wasn’t a real fan but what appeared to be a pile of knitting patterns.

Honestly, the things you can achieve without needles. Inside I warmed up; outside I cooled down and after ten minutes normality was restored to a fairly acceptable level – at least acceptable for her to let me put my coat back on.

I didn’t need the air drier. A wrestling haberdasher and a pile of knitting patterns did the trick.

Good old John Lewis, never knowingly underprepared.