History

My bookshelves groan with the evidence of a full and varied education in History and English Literature coupled with a love of reading.  Much of my free time lately has been spent delving into my fat, well-used volume of The Complete Works of Shakespeare.  This has been for research purposes and to help find inspiration for my guest blog. I thumbed my way through Othello, trying to make sense of the notes I’d pencilled in the margins.  Neat, perfectly formed tiny writing from years, nay, decades ago, using a sharp, probably 3H pencil,  page after page.  And my underlining of some text, that must have been significant at the time.  It is lost on me now and the only thing I remember is sniggering inwardly at Shakespeare’s use of the words ‘tupping’ and ‘tupped’. These farmyard words and their meanings are the ones that stick in my childish mind.

I confess, with head bowed in shame that I haven’t always got on with the work of Mr Shakespeare.  I struggled with Hamlet, couldn’t get to grips with Henry V and I’ll never believe that Richard III was the tyrant that Shakespeare made him out to be. This might sound like blasphemy to fans of The Bard and I apologise, for what do I know? I tried my best, backed up with a fair amount of ‘fudging’ and help from caring classmates.  Many years later, something came into my possession which made a world of difference … a boxed set of DVDs with Laurence Olivier playing the lead character in six Shakespeare plays.  His ‘Heathcliff’ had taken my breath away when I was eleven and ever since, I’d had a soft spot for him.

“Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York…” There was Olivier as Richard III, spitting out the words with venomous, clipped delivery. He looked menacing as he stooped and limped, dark eyes glaring from a twisted face. The make-up department had excelled. I was smitten.I wanted to know the truth about Richard III. I didn’t want to believe he was a cruel, vindictive king who ordered the murder of his young nephews and had an incestuous relationship with his niece. Apart from genealogy facts and succession to the throne, his life seems shrouded in a mystery of contradictions. Written accounts by others bearing truth or fiction. Perhaps Shakespeare had it right all along and, was he given information from Elizabeth I or is that another rumour?Laurence Olivier’s acting brought Richard III and other difficult characters to life and helped me to find an acceptable level of understanding in the history plays. It won’t improve my grades, but it’s never too late to learn or improve. I think a visit to Leicester Cathedral is in order, to pay respect to an English king who set me on a knowledge seeking journey that hasn’t ended.

A short poem:

Warwickshire gentleman known as Will

Looking thoughtful with parchment and quill.

Filling the hours of endless days

Composing sonnets and writing plays.

Clever and witty, word after word

But what was his spin on Richard III?

Thank you for reading, Pamela Winning.

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Bless you, Enid Blyton!

The first story I ever wrote was my own version of a fairy tale, loosely based on The Three Bears and Little Red Riding Hood. It was written in my best handwriting on two sheets of my father’s pale blue Basildon Bond paper, folded in half to make a book. I was seven years old and this was a farewell gift to the head teacher of my infant school. She was sad to lose me and I was sad to go, but my parents were taking on another pub in another town so we were moving.

In our new home, a box of old children’s books had been left ‘for the little girl’. What treasure that box held for me! There was a book about ballet, a girl’s annual that introduced me to ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, some junior encyclopaedias and a stack of hard-back books by someone called Enid Blyton. When I looked at the beginning of a ‘Secret Seven’ book, I discovered that not only could I read and understand it, I loved it. The story was about children playing and having fun making up their own games. They were children like me and the friends I had in my new school. It was tons better than ‘Janet and John’ or ‘The Green Reader’. I still have those special books.

Throughout my childhood and early teens I read and re-read Enid Blyton. I would reach the end of ‘The Ring O’ Bells Mystery’ and go straight back to Chapter One and start again. I loved the characters so much, I had to keep them with me. I couldn’t get enough of The Famous Five and all ‘The Mystery of…’ stories. When I read the school stories of Malory Towers or St Clare’s, I longed to be at boarding school with those girls.

All this reading did something else. It developed my desire to create characters of my own and I have continued to write stories and poetry for most of my adult life.

Despite her success as a wonderful storyteller, Enid Blyton’s books were not considered suitable for the school library and, I quote from an article in The Telegraph from 2009, “Enid Blyton, the best-selling children’s author, was banned from the BBC for nearly 30 years because executives thought her a ‘second-rater’.” Also, in the same article, Jean Sutcliffe, named as head of the BBC Schools department in 1938, wrote: “My impression of her stories is that they might do for Children’s Hour but certainly not for Schools Dept, they haven’t much literary value.”

To me, this is an opinion that shouts out academic snobbery loud and clear. I like to read a good, well-told story. The aim of my fiction and poetry writing is to offer enjoyment. My carefully written gift to my head teacher was received with delight and many years later, long after her retirement, I was thrilled to learn she still had it amongst her teaching souvenirs. And, I’m sure, not for any literary merit.

Thank you for reading.

Pamela Winning.

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Winter

Pick up any book or poem by one of the Bronte family and more often than not, there will be a winter scene described or winter weather referred to. Strong, icy winds blew through the parsonage, constantly chilling the inhabitants deep into their delicate bones from autumn until spring. Great, sash windows overlooked the church and the graveyard, framing a cold, grey, unwelcoming aspect. It was bleak, to say the least, more bleak than ‘Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone’ in Christina Rossetti’s ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’. Warm, summer sunshine must have been a rare happening in 19^th century Haworth and surrounding areas.

I grew up fascinated by the lives and works of the Bronte family. It began with my mother’s copy of Jane Eyre, the first book in her glass-fronted bookcase. She would read it to me. When I was a little older, she bought me the Dean’s Classics for Children version. Later, it was Wuthering Heights that became my favourite and remains so, despite ‘picking it to the bones’ in the name of study many years ago.

I don’t like the cold, but I have fond memories of winter, long past. I was cosy in the large, high-backed easy chair beside the roaring fire, with my feet tucked beneath me and my head pressed into a winged corner. I flicked ash from a Benson & Hedges into the hearth and turned a well-thumbed page of ‘Wuthering Heights’, for the umpteenth time. I made a few notes as I attempted to dissect characters and crossed out a selection of possible opening sentences. This was back in the day when I studied English, rather than enjoyed it and found the whole process a boring, tedious chore.  (Oh, I got where I was going in the end, but it would have been so much better with the teachers of today.) Distracted, I left the chair for a moment to watch the blizzard. The house stood alone, not in the Yorkshire Moors immortalised by Emily Bronte, but hidden in the hills of North Lancashire, not far from Ingleton. I leaned my elbows on the deep window sill as the world turned white and the wind whistled round the house and howled down the chimney. I wiggled my toes in sheepskin slippers and smoothed down the over-sized Fair Isle sweater I’d borrowed.

The afternoon sky was an eerie hue of beige, pink and grey. Snowflakes grew fatter and stuck to the window. I watched until the lane completely disappeared and only the tips of the tallest privet poked through where the drifts hadn’t yet reached.

The others came back just before the power failed. It was a common occurrence, apparently. We spent the evening playing cards by candlelight and cooking food on the fire. The generator, when someone got it working, was to keep the fridge and freezer ticking over.

At some point during the following few days, I completed my work. Looking back I’d probably given up, decided it would do and gone out to join in the snowball fight. Whatever, I haven’t suffered for it and I’m still in awe of the Bronte family.

The Night is Darkening Round Me

The night is darkening round me,

The wild winds coldly blow;

But a tyrant spell has bound me

And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending

Their bare boughs weighed with snow,

The storm is fast descending

And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,

Wastes beyond wastes below;

But nothing drear can move me

I will not, cannot go.

Emily Bronte 1818 – 1848

Thank you for reading, Pamela Winning.

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Games People Play

When I heard the announcement that Joe South had passed away, I felt personally bereaved. I remember the disbelief as I hurried to the radio at the end of my kitchen as if being in closer proximity to the source of information would change anything. It didn’t.

Joe South was an American songwriter and performer. His style has been described as country / soul. He wrote Lynn Anderson’s hit, ‘(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden)’ but the song I hold him dear for is ‘Games People Play’. I couldn’t get enough of that guitar intro, so rich and deep, then repeating through the song. I wasn’t listening properly to the words, just singing along without paying attention. It was 1969 and I was waking up to the music of the time and developing my life-long love of the blues and progressive rock. ‘Games People Play’ I thought was very bluesy. It was the best thing on the juke-box in our public bar.

I was brought up in an assortment of pubs. My parents, grandparents and other family members were licensees. There was always music on, somewhere. I spent my childhood to mid- teens being drip-fed the ‘Hit Parade’ from juke-boxes, the wireless, as it was known, and my mother’s record collection. It’s a legacy I feel thankful and privileged for.  1969 was a year of significant changes for my family. Those memories are wrapped in the music, including ‘Games People Play’.

Fast-forward a few years. Living in a house instead of a pub felt weird, too quiet and too small. I was working in my first proper job, which didn’t involve washing glasses or filling shelves with Britvic or Schweppes bottles. Sunday afternoons were for lazing around, listening to the Dave Lee Travis request show on Radio 1. He played good stuff. I decided to join in, so using a Parker fountain pen filled with turquoise ink and bright orange paper and envelope, (this is the early ‘70s), I wrote a letter to DLT requesting ‘Games People Play’ and was thrilled when he gave me a mention and played the record. My name on the radio! It was like being famous. My favourite DJ played one of my favourite songs for me. What a shame there was only me to hear it and no ‘listen again’ facility in those days. It was a memorable, special moment, none the less.

That guitar riff still stops me in my tracks and takes me straight back to those happy days. I’ve learnt to understand the poetry of the lyrics and when news of his death came through in September, 2012, I cried.
 

With thanks to Joe South, for what his song means to me.

Games People Play

Oh the games people play now

Every night and every day now

Never meaning what they say now

Never saying what they mean

While they wile away the hours

In their ivory towers

Till they’re covered up with flowers

In the back of a black limousine

Chorus

La da da da da da da

La da da da da da de

Talking ‘bout you and me

And the games people play

Oh we make one another cry

Break a heart then we say goodbye

Cross our hearts and we hope to die

That the other was to blame

But neither one ever will give in

So we gaze at an eight by ten

Thinking ‘bout the things that might have been

And it’s a dirty rotten shame

Chorus

People walking up to you

Singing glory hallelujah

And they try to sock it to you

In the name of the Lord

They’re gonna teach you how to meditate

Read your horoscope, cheat your fate

And further more to hell with hate

Come on and get on board

Chorus

Look around tell me what you see

What’s happening to you and me

God grant me the serenity

To remember who I am

‘Cos you’ve given up your sanity

For your pride and your vanity

Turned your back on humanity

And you don’t give a da da da da da

Chorus

Joe South, 1940 - 2012

Thanks for reading - Pamela Winning

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