Authors Electric

 I didn’t stay to chat. I didn’t join the group which was heading for the pub. I left the meeting as quickly as I could and hurried down the beach. This year’s Peter Duck holiday had begun. There was already a game of cards in progress on the cabin table but I didn’t join in. Merely pushed my meeting notes somewhere far out of sight, ate my share of the supper and settled into my bunk. Nine nights of sleeping on board and waking early every morning to walk along river walls or beaches with the dogs instead of our familiar fields (lovely though they are). The saltings above Waldringfield Gwen, my oldest granddaughter joined the following day. I was impressed by her initial questions: did we have flares? where were they kept? Was there a VHF set and who was qualified to use it? You might think this implied some lack of faith in our ability to negotiate our very modest river to river passages but I thought they were good questions to ask on arrival on any new boat on which you we...

  'Sula' in Scotland ‘There’s little point keeping old boats alive if their stories are forgotten,’ said Robert Armstrong, when I apologised for my eagerness in inviting myself to visit him. Robert is a boatbuilder working on the west coast of Scotland. His home is Sula , a 24’ 5-ton Bermudan sloop, built in 1939 by David Hillyard in Littlehampton, Sussex (as Mistrale ). She’s his home, his mobile workshop and his transport.  When I invited Francis and I to visit them, Robert was immediately welcoming though he couldn’t be specific as to where they might be: ‘Everything I do is weather and tide dependant so planning beyond a few days never works out for me […] but wherever Sula is moored you're welcome.’ For me, Sula is Barnacle Goose, ‘Barney’, the yacht my parents owned 1951-1957, in the first years of their marriage.   They’d bought her in Rye, fitted her out in a mud berth, then sailed her home to the River Deben in Suffolk. My father was building up his business ...

'Sula' in Scotland  ‘There’s little point keeping old boats alive if their stories are forgotten,’ said Robert Armstrong, when I apologised for my eagerness inviting myself to visit him. Robert is a boatbuilder working on the west coast of Scotland. His home is  Sula , a 24’ 5-ton Bermudan sloop, built in 1939 by David Hillyard in Littlehampton, Sussex (as  Mistrale ). She’s also his mobile workshop and his transport.  When I invited Francis and I to visit them, Robert was immediately welcoming though he couldn’t be specific as to where they might be: ‘Everything I do is weather and tide dependant so planning beyond a few days never works out for me […] but wherever  Sula  is moored you're welcome.’ For me,  Sula  is  Barnacle Goose,  ‘Barney’, the yacht my parents owned 1951-1957, in the first years of their marriage.  They’d bought her in Rye, fitted her out in a mud berth, then sailed her home to the River Deben ...

Jon Snow (Wikipedia) Now defined by his dementia diagnosis?   Last Saturday I was tidying up PD’s cabin, preparing to row up the river in the rain, when I got a call from LBC. Would I go on a programme at 1330 to talk about Jon Snow’s Alzheimer diagnosis? I did a quick calculation: yes, I could be home in time. But what was this all about? ‘Jon Snow the broadcaster has written a book about his Alzheimer’s,' said the programme assistant.  Sorry, no. I haven’t read it. I can't help you.’ That was a relief. No need to worry about hold ups on the A12 or about poor internet quality for the call. I did feel worried, however, that there was some major new book about dementia that I hadn’t even heard of.  When I had got home and changed out of my wet clothes, I had a look on Amazon. No book listed. I googled ‘Jon Snow Alzheimer’s.' Ah! Channel 4 are showing a documentary  Jon Snow: the last big story on Saturday June 20 th .  It’s not all about his Alzheimer’s diagno...

  Margery Allingham was a May baby, born into this gorgeous month of fresh grass and leaves, when the air is scented by honeysuckle or wild garlic; peonies, giant poppies and alliums are bursting balls of colour; the annual miracles of lilac and wisteria cascade in elegant fragrancies. As a lonely child, moving from suburban London to Layer Breton, Essex, she learned to love the unkempt garden of a decaying country rectory for its wildness and sense of possibility.  As a successful adult, living in Essex once again, she and her husband gave parties in their garden, employed a full-time gardener and exhibited prize roses in the local horticultural shows. That was never the heart of its meaning. Margery’s garden remained a sanctuary, a place where she could achieve ‘ a momentary clarity of mind, which will give me a definite lead at least to the next step in whatever I may be about .’ (Oaken Heart p115). When she experienced breakdown in mid-April 1955 she was seen wandering t...

Tomorrow we meet in a pub, with no alcohol, to say goodbye to a friend. We first met Heidi when our children were at primary school together. It was a very small village school where I can remember being on first name terms with all the other parents. Some of us ran an after school club together. Heidi was part of this. She was musical, artistic, imaginative, affectionate, alternative. Sometimes her suggestions were a bit fey. Sometimes she didn’t turn up when we expected her. Heidi was a single mother with a single child, Oliver, who she loved dearly. He too was musical, artistic, affectionate, full of enthusiasms, never quite in the mainstream. Sometimes they were very late for school. Occasionally Heidi wasn’t there when it was time for the children to go home. Once or twice I went to Heidi’s house and couldn’t make her hear me. There was a day when she started to tell me how unhappy she was. People occasionally made remarks. I began to worry about her. I was also the school governo...

  Peter Duck in winter acrylic on board by Anna Mortimer There’s a phrase I like in the C of E communion service when we give thanks for bread ‘which earth has given and human hands have made’.  It’s one of the many phrases that can’t be taken literally. What one actually gets, in most churches, is a tasteless white wafer made of wheat flour and water, then stamped out by machine and packaged hygienically. Minimal intervention by human hands, it would seem (though I’ve now watched a couple of You Tube videos which show labouring nuns, smiling and thinking holy thoughts as they work some basic machinery.) The usual communion wafer is nothing like real, crumbly, hand-made bread. Even if one never makes it oneself (I don’t) homemade bread seems to retain some tactile evidence of fingers mixing; palms and wrists and upper arms kneading; a baker’s bodyweight leaning into the dough, lifting and turning and rolling. No doubt it’s tiring work for people who have to make it all the tim...