Authors Electric

  Peter Duck  in early morning sun, Aldeburgh, October 2023 (Jane Russell)  Every year Classic Boat magazine puts forward its selection of yacht restorations and newly built boats in traditional style for public vote. The prize last year was a tasteful trophy and a bottle of gin for the owner. The shortlisted boatyards get an opportunity to display a Classic Boat logo, if they wish. It’s good for their business and local community awareness. I'm hoping that the public votes make the boatyard workers feel good too.  In 2023, traditional wooden boatbuilding was officially put on the endangered list of British crafts . Perhaps this is a little like removing the word ‘acorn’ from the Oxford Junior Dictionary : arguably it's recognising a truth – young people today don’t need to name ‘acorns’ -- or adder, ash, beech, bluebell, buttercup, catkin, conker, cowslip, cygnet, dandelion, fern, hazel, heather, heron, ivy, kingfisher, lark, mistletoe, nectar, newt, otter, pastur...

Several years ago I wrote a book set in an imaginary ex-USSR country, Karetsefia. It drew on my experiences in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine. It was called Beware of Men with Moustaches . I had a lot of fun with it, and it was shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Prize in 2013. The story concerned a group of poets who have been invited on a cultural exchange, but it turns out there’s a hidden agenda. As the daughter of a Polish refugee I have always regarded Russia with suspicion – it’s in my blood. Nevertheless, I felt the time had come to see it for myself. I have O level Russian, but I got that fifty years ago, and was pretty sure I had forgotten it all! I booked the holiday some time ago, long before the events in Salisbury, and was bitterly regretting my decision. However, everyone was very nice, and seemed rather unaware that there was anything going on elsewhere. Moscow seemed friendlier than St Petersburg, although the cabin crew on the BA flight said it...