Authors Electric

  Alan Bennett’s Killing Time is a Covid fairy tale. It’s set in Hill Topp House (with two pp’s) a council home where residents pay a premium, the cuisine is ‘not unadventurous’ and a glass of dry sherry may be served on special occasions. The worst fate is probably not death but to be sent down the hill to live in the ‘sink’ council home, Low Moor.  Mrs McBryde, the refined, light-fingered, care home manager doesn’t hesitate to use the threat of Low Moor to keep her residents in line, get rid of anyone whose name seems common (Audrey is out, Amelia in) or whose relatives became unable to pay the premium. Then the pandemic strikes and the Hill Topp table top sale must be cancelled (though Cheltenham races need not). When Mrs McBryde develops Covid symptoms and is taken to hospital, she’s so sure that the virus belongs only in places like Low Moor (and will only affect ‘old people and the occasional Asian’) that her last conversations with the doctor are spent explaining why...

At the start of December 2019, I gave myself a gift of learning. I'd seen numerous ads for MasterClass while searching for interesting gifts for the holiday season.  If you're unfamiliar with MasterClass, it's a streaming platform of online courses that started in 2015 with a simple pitch: Famous people teach you about the thing that made them famous. At the time, the courses that interested me most were from writers: Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, Malcolm Gladwell, Joyce Carol Oates, just to name a few. MasterClass, however, includes instructors from all walks of life—from Dr. Jane Goodall who teaches Conservation to Helen Mirren who teaches Acting to Annie Leibovitz who teaches Photography.  You can either purchase a specific course along with its instructional videos and workbooks, or buy an annual membership which gives you unlimited access to all the classes, including new ones that are added during the year.  I decided to pick up an annual subscription and a second ...

Yesterday, I spoke with author Bill Kirton about another new experience in the slew of new experiences since lockdown. Over the weekend, my husband and I got tested for Covid-19. Neither of us was symptomatic, but we wanted some assurance that we were not carriers. As we are both fortunate enough to still have our mothers, we wished to see them them without the worry of infecting them. Of course, this goes for all family and friends, but in particular, for our parents. Initially, the test sites in Toronto, Canada, where I live, were not accepting patients unless they exhibited specific symptoms of Covid or suspected exposure to it.  In June, this changed.  First responders and employees of liquor stores were ordered to undergo testing, along with staff at certain adult correctional facilities, hospital personnel, and workers at congregate residential settings.  This was followed by “pop-up” testing centres in neighbourhoods hardest hit by the virus. We...

In August last year, I was right amid book launch mayhem for You Beneath Your Skin . Almost one year later, the world is irrevocably changed--there is a pre and post covid era, and we are all waiting for the shape of us when we emerge at the other end, when covid becomes a memory. Things are apparently not yet at their worst. Through it all, life has gone on, as it does. Last week, amid all the crazy anxiety for friends and family, I announced a piece of news that helped cheer us a little. Endemol Shine has optioned You Beneath Your Skin for TV screens, and the news emerged on Hollywood Deadline . This will hopefully take the book into new hands--and when the TV series gets made, I would get see my characters on screen. I'm equal parts excited and apprehensive, for obvious reasons, but it still makes for good news for the two nonprofits the book supports: Project WHY and Stop Acid Attacks . Meanwhile, the world still goes on. Everywhere I look, there's misery...

As we are all still in lockdown the list of subjects available to chat about seems smaller. None of us are getting out and about - except for the allotment. Walking down to the plot recently I spotted a clump of plantain and wondered how many people now derive fun and games from the plants that grow in the hedgerows? Here are things to look for on those family walks. I doubt there are many children who have not blown the ‘clocks’of  a Dandelion,  Taraxacum officinale,  to tell the time.  Or laughed at anyone picking the yellow flowers, on the grounds that doing so would mean they would inevitably wet the bed! Of course they are also well known as a salad leaf, or as dandelion and burdock fizzy pop. Its number of country names are only exceeded by it listed medicinal properties, from liver function to heart disease via diabetes and weight loss – but to the child? It is a fun clock! Holding a  Buttercup,  Ranunculaceae,  flower beneath  some...

When Francis and I got married last year we were careful to make no promises, exchange no rings. It shouldn’t have made any difference, except legally. Yet it did. We fell in love 27 years ago; have been together and happy ever since. We have children – two as a couple and three from my previous (failed) marriage. Our wedding was adorned by my grandchildren, our children, brothers & their families – and also by Francis’s mother, who was living with Parkinson’s dementia and has since died. (I am so glad that this was still in the period when families were welcome to keep a proper vigil with the dying person, not, as is sometimes proposed, pop in fo 15 minutes to 'say goodbye'. Our collective care of Patricia in hospital gave her an easier death, and also supported the nurses. But that's not my subject here.)  Why didn’t we marry before? For a long while it had felt important to me that if either of us wished to leave the relationship we should be free to do so – ...

In these Covid times, many of us are streaming or renting movies online. Last night, I watched  If You Could Read My Mind ,  the Gordon Lightfoot story. If you don’t know who Gordon Lightfoot is, here’s a brief intro. Before Canada produced stars such as Justin Bieber and Drake, we had bonafide legends like Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Neil Young. For a relatively small country (roughly 36 million), Canada has contributed some impressive talent to the music industry. Amongst this group is Gordon Lightfoot, whom I would consider one of Canada’s greatest songwriters. He’s a homegrown talent who continues to live here today.   Suffice it to say, he is an icon and a treasure. If You Could Read My Mind  was co-directed, co-produced, and co-written by Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni. Martha is a friend, and I’ve wanted to see this film ever since it first came out late 2019. For one reason or another, I was unable to get to it, but then my husba...

Watching the Channel 4 journalists every night, telling us about the wonderfulness of the NHS and woefulness of the government, prompts thought about earlier reporting in a time of crisis. I'm currently researching WW2 naval history and have felt surprised by the number of books (and films) describing active service which were published when that service was still active -- and the end of the 'story' not known.  The naval officers whose lives I’m writing about were volunteers so it’s probably not surprising that some of them took to their pens to try to make sense of their new existence – despite censorship and the Navy’s initial attempt to ban the keeping of diaries. These volunteers were not going to be dependent on the goodwill of the Lords of the Admiralty in their future careers so could afford some mild assertions of independence.  It wasn't long before the Navy  decided to make the best of this. Publication could be facilitated -- if the content was accepta...