Two Tiny and Precious Writing Memories

Did a very small amount of writing earlier last week.  Some very vague prompts produced these tiny writing memories, like small droplets in a pool, or small irregular stones in a flowerbed, hidden from sun.  Precious memories though.

Me: only younger…

 This from the brill website: www.oursindymuseum.com

Age 7.  I’m unsure exactly what I liked to do when 7, apart from writing.  I do remember that was the year I got the Sindy house for Christmas.  The one that was 2 bits of cardboard intersected to make a cross.  It made 4 segments, 4 rooms.  I had some furniture for the house too.  I remember an orange, dark orange plastic sofa.  It had pretend buttons and those indentations on fabric that come from pressed in buttons.  It was perfectly moulded.  It smelled incredible.  I knew, playing with it that Christmas, with mum and dad off to the right on the sofa in the background that this was a memory I had consciously ‘collected’: I would remember ‘this moment forever’, as it made me so happy.  Feeling safe, playing house, everything so orderly and simple.  And in telling myself that, I did.  I remember it to this day.

In this memory, I was still at that age where my dad and I got on like a house on fire.  I feel his love surrounding me.  His happiness that I am pleased with the present.  His pride in his little daughter and his ability to provide.

That Christmas morning’s totality completely escapes me.  But that moment I have so clear.

I used to love to write at this age.  I was writing something called ‘Jane and Baby’ stories for ages that year, as a sort of experiment.    They were a bit Topsy and Tim like – books I was (and still am) very fond of when younger, the first things I remember my mum reading to me.  They had a very definite structure, the Jane and Baby stories.  I think I must always have liked structure and order: I remember keeping my room very tidy and orderly too. 

The stories went like this: it would be 7 sheets of white paper, set to landscape, sideways.  They would be numbered 1/7, 2/7, 3/7 through to 7/7.  These were time segments of the day.  At 1/7 Jane and baby got up.  From 2/7 to 6/7 they would have breakfast, go out and go somewhere, have an adventure and come home again – having had lunch and dinner (important markers in the day).  By 7/7 they would be going back to sleep, tidily.  I arranged them on the floor in narrative flow order.  Pictures at the top of each page, neatly coloured in, and the words and story telling at the bottom half of each page.  I would show them to mum, who was always suitably proud and pleased.  Don't ask me why Jane, who appeared possibly about 12, was alone taking care of a baby sister.  I have no idea why I didn't feature parents - or any grown ups at all in these stories.  And no one ever asked the children where their parents were; they just went to The Tower of London, or on a picnic, or wherever else they went for their adventures, in their little matching colour co-ordinated outfits.  No questions asked.  The mind of the 7 year old me...

I went through a phase that year of writing little comics as well.  I would either fold over paper and stitch a seam in the middle with cotton, or I would staple the folded pages together.  There would be horoscopes, picture stories, craft articles, recipes, letter pages, a quiz – seasonal issues for Christmas and Easter.  Perfect little BlackberryJuniper mimics of the original comics I was reading (Bunty, Judy, Debbie, Misty, Tammy, Jinty etc). 

Incidentally, its often been commented, looking back, on the level of suffering the characters went through in these comics - Bella the gymnast in Tammy (you see her on the front cover there below), being used as a slave by her not-parents she was living with.  There was a great element of resilience needed, a sort of Victorian level of sentimentalism and stoicism needed to be a character in one of these comics.  I have no idea if this was to do with the fact that most (overwhelmingly, about 98%) of these comics were written by men (the same men who had the boy comic market sewn up, Dandy, Beano etc).  They put some of their more serious stories in the girl comics.  Apparently, the women  - I've seen quoted in interview, didn't want to come and work for the picture comics, as by the time the men got round to asking them, the world of Jackie and Patches etc was opening up, the next level comic - promising to be way more lucrative.  I've heard the women turned up their noses at the old sketch story girl comics, and went straight for the teenage love market comics.  This is partially because, the male authors said, that the women's stories were not 'hard-edged' enough; not 'cruel' enough, 'too soft'.  Hmmm.  I wonder why a good story is one that has to make you feel very depressed?!  So the women authors went away from the 'mere' comics, and went to Honey and 19 and the teenage love (read:soft) market.  Which did indeed prosper and outlast the picture comics.  But my main point in giving you this info just now was to note that when I did my BlackberryJuniper facsimiles of these comics, I (a) left out all the suffering in my stories - I gave the characters jeopardy and difficulty to overcome, which is different...but I didn't surround them with a life of grim slavery.  And (b) I drew very badly, except for several positions of iceskating and gymnastics, which I practiced relentlessly.  So in a way, I made the comics different, not perfect little mimics at all.

I would have harkback days to when I used to read Twinkle comic when even younger.  (Apparently I have had a tendency to nostalgia from the earliest age!)  To this day I collect them as I love the artwork and images of simplicity - and the countryside.  I would replicate whole issues but compose everything inside myself - I would just steal all the themes (spring, autumn, things to do on wet days, things to do when you're ill etc).

I was very pleased doing these also.  I seemed to spend a lot of time alone in the living room or my bedroom, but I was very nicely occupied, with these sorts of projects. These are sweet memories too – playing, writing, comfortable with myself.  Happy times.

I remember…

When I was living behind Oxford Street, in the office block at the top.  I used to sit on the balcony, that long concrete balcony overlooking so much of London, and write.

I don’t know what age I was, but I can’t have been too small though it was definitely before puberty proper, before BOYS ruined my focus and I started to feel hormone-led.  Maybe I was about 11 or 12.

Dad had given me a small fold up table that had been covered with a stick on wood backing.  Very tacky really; but easy to wipe in case of spills.  It was a bit ratty at the edges.  There was a small 3 legged stool I used to sit on[1].  I would sit out there, in the dry and airy spaciousness, six tall floors up, and fill exercise book after exercise book with my school stories.  Short stories.  A bit Enid Blyton.  A bit Trebizon.  There was a lead character called Kissy.

I was incredibly fluent with my writing in those days.  I was filled with hope and possibilities.  I had absolutely NO familiarity with an inner critic as related to my writing (though I was starting to feel an inner critic relating to the rest of me, shadows).  I could do plays, poetry, short stories.  I never finished a novel, but I was always writing one.  I never seemed to have the focus to finish; I was impatient and full of ideas and would move on to the next thing, happy enough.  I could work from almost any prompt, especially photographs.

I was regarded at school, by the English teachers, as full of brilliant potential, really talented in this one way.  I’m not being full of myself, it was so – I have never since been so validated on any subject by anyone; and their opinions mattered to me, they were talented people themselves, my English teachers.  Their obvious faith and pride in me made me feel confident and treasured.

I would sit on that balcony and the pen would write.  My hand would write.  I was written THROUGH.  It was as close as I have ever come to BLISS.  It was bliss.

It was good in a way, that I later discovered some of this early work, though a lot of it is lost.  I nowadays often tell myself I’ve lost my talent, have no ideas, burned out etc etc etc.  Finding this old work was a reality check.  A lot of it was – in hindsight – very bad.  Some of it was full of that potential.  And a lot of it was very very bad indeed: full of generic lazy writing, cliché and semi plagiarism.  Though one of my skills used to be that if I could absorb and submerge in someone else’s style of writing, I could pastiche it perfectly while the familiarity was still in my head.  (After I read Wuthering Heights, I wrote a huge short story cycle in the tortured style and mood of Emily Bronte – it was great fun.  For example.)

It was good to discover that early stuff of mine, because it means I understand that while I am pursued by demons when I write now, I actually – nonetheless and despite them – write a hell of a lot better than I used to!

The memory of sitting out on the balcony writing after school or on weekends, remains precious.  The enthusiasm and hope of this girl who knew she would grow up one day to be A Writer, and confidently just wrote whatever popped into her head…I love that girl.  I love how she felt; I love her pride and her verve.  I love her peace. 

I love the memory of the view.  On a clear day I could see St Pauls, the Post Office Tower.  I could see another office block a far way over, where another housekeeper’s daughter, older than me, would come out on summer days and sunbathe.  She wore a bright daffodil yellow bikini, she had a lush and curvy body that she was comfortable with (you could tell from the way she moved).  She would bring out a radio and listen to music while she lay there, huge RayBans covering her eyes.  From even as far away as I was, I could see she was glistening with oil or lotion.  If the wind was right, I could catch traces of whatever songs she was listening to.  I used to like it when she was out there, though far off.  Occasionally she’d wave at me.  It was like I had company, while my hand wrote.  The sun warm on my head, making my glass of water glitter.

 Someone was selling this lovely pic on etsy for $5, but its gone now, and I can't find a credit for it...I really enjoy the refracted light from the glass to the table; that cheap metal painted table; the cheap glass.  Things don't have to be top notch to provide enormous pleasure.

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[1] I recently found the twin of the stool, and a matching jewellery box in a charity shop.  I paid through the nose for these alarmingly crap 70s oddities, as I loved the memories they evoked so much.  They were really quite ugly: dark stained wood, bevelled and shaped and generally chipped into – I think they were supposed to look a bit distressed and nautical.  Big iron nails or bolts (?) sticking out of the convex lid of the jewellery box.  Varnished dully.  They spoke to me of so much of the past.  In the same shop I found a painting my dad used to have on the living room wall: cheap and mass produced and this one a bit faded, but recognizably still the picture I remember from our childhood living room: a sea scene, orange sunset sky and a ship in silhouette on a quiet ocean.  I wonder if I will ever be able to stop chasing the past of my childhood, trying to re-feel and sink into those memories of peace I have?  I wonder if it’s sad to collect odd relics of the past here and there?  (I have nowhere to put these things; until further notice they are all in storage in the garage.)  Or if it’s healthy: a sort of memory palace, a good place to go in your head of when things were calm, so when you’re more turbulent, you can reconnect with those feelings?  I suppose it entirely depends how much you buy of these memories of the past, how much trigger you need.  When does trigger become trying to cloak yourself in the past and no longer engaging with the present?  It might be different for each person.