Hooked

One Enid Blyton book was all it took to set me off on a life-time of reading. I’ve mentioned before about the box of books left ‘for the little girl’ in a pub we were moving into. The little girl was me, aged seven and the pub was The Boar’s Head in Blackpool. This was my introduction to The Broons and Oor Wullie, which enabled me to master a Scottish accent on paper. My teacher was not impressed, bless her. It was also my introduction to a love of Enid Blyton stories, with the donated hard-backs of The Secret Seven, The Ring o’ Bells Mystery and The Rilloby Fair Mystery. I was hooked. I read them over and over again. I remember finishing The Rilloby Fair Mystery and going straight back to the beginning. I loved it so much. A nearby newsagents sold toys and books. My parents knew exactly what to bring home for me. I still have most of the books. My children preferred Roald Dahl and J.K.Rowling. My grandchildren prefer activities on screens – a sign of the times – but Michael Rosen is loved by a grandson and Jacqueline Wilson is loved by a granddaughter. I was born in the ‘50s, thank goodness.

Another thing got me hooked, literally. My grandmother taught me to knit. My mother did, as well, but it was mainly Nanna. She crocheted a lot, making herself lacy tops that were like works of art. She had the patience of a saint trying to teach me. Watching her, deliberately going slow to show me, I would be confident that ‘I’d got it’. She would start me off by making a chain then handing me the hook and yarn to carry on. We were making a scarf. I was making a mess.

“Oh, give it here!” Another exasperated grumble as she grabbed the tangle of wool from my hands.

This went on into my teens and I failed to crochet anything except the foundation chain.

My grandmother passed away when I was nineteen. Something must have clicked because shortly after, I discovered I could crochet, after all, and I still do. I crocheted a fancy bedspread. That was the first thing I made. I have lots of blankets I’ve made from crocheted granny squares and I’ve managed to crochet teddy bears for charity. Yes, I’m crochet hooked.

Enid Blyton, known as a story writer, but less known as a poet. This is one of hers,

Fairy Snow

Yesterday, the sky was white,
For one big cloud was spread
From east to west and north to south
Above my head.

But in the night the fairy-folk
Began to wonder why
They saw no moon nor little stars
About the sky.

They didn’t like that big white cloud,
So up they softly flew
And tore it all to tiny bits
The whole night through.

And one by one the bits fell down,
Like feathers soft and white,
Until the ground was overspread
With dazzling white.

And now today that big white cloud
Beneath my feet is spread,
And all the sky is blue again
Above my head.

Enid Blyton  1897-1968

 Greetings from Dumfries & Galloway. Thanks for reading, Pam 

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Seashore - Beside the Sea

                                                    Isle of Vatersay, Outer Hebrides

I was so fortunate, as a child, to have a wonderful sea view from my bedroom window. My father had his wish granted, to run a pub on Blackpool promenade and the family had landed in paradise. It was the beginning of summer and I remember it as blue skies and a sun that turned orange and slipped into a shimmering sea. We went on the beach, a lot. My sister and I played there, all day sometimes.  I went out for walks on the shoreline at dusk with my mum. It was our time on a calm evening, quiet, thoughtful, listening to the gentle waves. We strolled between South Pier and Waterloo Road, not far, just in front of where we lived. We would look for creatures in the tangle of seaweed that marked the tideline, but we only found bits of dead crab. It was our mother-daughter bonding. Moments that became special memories to treasure. Even now, many years later, I still think of that stretch of beach as mine.

Although born inland, I’ve always been drawn to the coast. Any coast will do. When our children were young we had family holidays in Pembrokeshire where every seashore is stunning. There are lots of sandy beaches to play on, also the fun of finding a way over the boulders to poke about in rock pools at Wiseman’s Bridge, or skimming stones at Amroth. We covered the English East Coast between Redcar and Withernsea, where the North Sea claims a bit more of the land each year. On a returning visit to Skipsea we were shocked to discover how much land had broken away, including a road that we had used.

The Scottish seashores are breath-taking. I could spend all day looking at Ailsa Craig from the Ayrshire coast. We stayed in a caravan at Embo on the Scottish North East coast where we stepped out directly on to the beach and walked along the shoreline every day. It is somewhere I hope to return to. The most stunning seashores I have found so far are in the Outer Hebrides. At South Uist, the sand shines silver and white, shells are bleached white with the sun – I brought some home and keep them in a jar.

I’ll be on my travels again soon. It’s time to breathe some Scottish air.

Here is Simon Armitage,

 

 

The Stone Beach

 

A walk, not more than a mile

along the barricade of land

between the ocean and the grey lagoon.

Six of us, hand in hand,

 

connected by blood. Underfoot

a billion stones and pebbles-

new potatoes, mint imperials,

the eggs of birds-

 

each rock more infinitely formed

than anything we own.

Spoilt for choice - which one to throw,

which to pocket and take home.

 

The present tense, although

some angle of the sun, some slant of light

back-dates us thirty years.

Home-movie. Super 8.

 

Seaweed in ropes and rags.

The weightless, empty armour

of a crab. A jawbone, bleached

and blasted, manages a smile.

 

Long-shore-drift,

the ocean sorts and sifts

giving with this, getting back

with the next.

 

A sailboat thinks itself

across the bay.

Susan, nursing a thought of her own

unthreads and threads

 

the middle button of her coat.

Disturbed,

a colony of nesting terns

makes one full circle of the world

 

then drops.

But the beach, full of itself,

each round of rock

no smaller than a bottle top,

 

no bigger than a nephew's fist.

One minute more, as Jonathan, three, autistic,

hypnotised by flight and fall,

picks one more shape

 

and under-arms the last wish of the day -

look, like a stone - into the next wave.

 

Simon Armitage

 

 

 

                                                       South Uist, Outer Hebrides

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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