Authors Electric

Ullswater, Wikipedia I have written before about our yearly commemoration of a beloved friend whose gift of a little stuffed toy was the inspiration for Goose Anna, and whose legacy prompted me to take early retirement, set up the Clucket Press with Niall, and publish The Mud Maid for The Lost Gardens of Heligan. It’s just been that time of year again. How the years go by – it’s 20 since we all met at her funeral. She is in the churchyard at Dacre, beneath a Norwegian Maple and overlooking the fells with their stands of golden Larch. We visit her grave in the dark autumn evening, drink Bolly (courtesy of her lovely generous brother), pour a libation over her headstone and set off a rocket – in fact, two rockets now as another beloved friend left us 8 years ago. We stay in a cosy, well-appointed converted barn with the gang involved in the commemoration, a home-from-home for us for all the years. This year was possibly the rainiest yet – even for Cumbria. It also felt like an ending...

          This is a picture of the Mud Maid, a sculpture in the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall. It's here because it's one of the few times I have been directly and immediately inspired to create a story. In fact, the story created itself. It dropped into my head when I saw the sculpture and I sat down under a tree, excavated a pen and an old envelope from the depths of my handbag, and scribbled it down.           It very rarely happens like that. I remember watching the waves tumbling about in the Race off Portland Bill, and thinking, 'Cor! They do look exactly like white horses!' That experience, knitted together with the-baby-who-won't-stop-crying theme, courtesy of my firstborn child, begat Rory McRory.           A loving and crazy gift of a little soft toy goose engendered Goose Anna while we were tooling back down the M40. On the whole,...