Authors Electric

          There is one problem in living alone – you might hang your stocking up on Chrismas Eve, but all you’ll get in it is your foot in the morning. Things were different before my husband departed for the next life. He always filled a stocking for me. Well, it was actually a pillowcase, then when his health deteriorated, it was the plastic bag containing his purchases. But that didn’t matter. It was the thrill of investigating the bag, pillowcase or stocking. He would always put my favourite perfume in it, some lovely choccies, and of course a few books, because what is Christmas without some new books ?           Books have always been prominent among Santa’s presents to me. When I was a child there was always an apple, an orange, a two shilling piece (twentypence for the uninitiated), and of course, a book. Times were tough then, and Christmas stockings not as full as they are nowadays...

'Telling the Sea' by Pauline Fisk Three weeks ago I went down to Pembrokeshire complete with film crew to make a film about my writing life in general, and one book in particular – ‘Telling the Sea.’ We moved into the same cottage in which the book was set, and spent two and a half days filming it and its surroundings, which included  boggy marshland, pot-holed tracks, muddy cliff-paths and beaches that might be fabulous in the summer - and relatively easy to pick a way down to - but were perilously inaccessible in November at the end of a rainy summer.  Even so, we managed to get down to them [though it has to be admitted that the film crew weren’t quite as healthy by the end of the shoot as they were when it began] and the results were worth it.  Looking at the footage afterwards, I was thrilled by the view it presented of a wild and rugged coastline faced with remorselessly grey days - which is exactly how Nona, the heroine of ‘Telling the Sea’, experienced ...