Category: Writing

So here I am a day behind schedule (yet again!).  There is so much of Lewis Carroll’s White Rabbit in me lately, lost somewhere in Wonderland with a tendency to be playing catch up all the time especially where blogging is concerned.

 

So what’s my excuse?  Well the reason for the delay has been a good one.  My latest book had been going so well last week that yesterday with the words still flowing I simply could not stop -when the muse is with you, you simply have to stay with it!  This is my sixth book and I have to say probably the most enjoyable I have written.  Maybe that’s because it’s a fresh project.  The other five were a series all linked to the same family. However, it’s also got a lot to do with the way this current plot has come together  – like it’s meant to be.  It’s had the feel good factor since I first started typing and that has never left me.  I’m also loving these new characters I’ve created and this early on in the book that’s unusual too.

 

Write about what you know the advice goes so my stories have always had their roots in village life.  Having grown up in one it’s familiar territory, not only from a landscape point of view, but from kind of characters you find there. Of course since my childhood days things have changed dramatically. When I was growing up in rural Wiltshire there were very few ‘incomers’ from the town. People in those days weren’t interested in living somewhere they perceived as being miles from anywhere. These days, however, it seems country life is the ‘must have’ for a good many people.  The area surrounding Bath has appealed to many with that dream. With good rail and road links to London there is the ability to have the best of both worlds: highly paid jobs in the capital and an enjoyable life in a pleasant village outside it.  There are some, however, who have gone the whole way and chosen to work as well as live here, deciding on a complete overhaul of their lifestyle.  This migratory trek west has been going on since the mid-80s and I think in some ways is responsible for the city we have today. When I came to Bath in 1981 it was a different place, provincial and quiet.  Now it’s opened up tremendously; it has great shopping, excellent hotels, amazing restaurants, two universities and a definite cosmopolitan feel. Alongside this, of course, are the things it has always been identified with – the Roman Baths, the Abbey and the amazing architecture of buildings like the Circus and the Royal Crescent.

 

Currently I live only three miles from Bath but if you look out of our windows in any direction you would never think you were that close to a city of  176,000 people. There are fields and woods all around.  A wonderful, peaceful place to live and only a short drive away from everything the great Roman City has to offer.

 

The Abbey

Pulteney Bridge and The Weir

 

 

Roman Baths

 

The Royal Crescent together with some of the Bath Lions

The Circus

Back to my WIP. For this new book the location has changed.  Saying goodbye to the West Somerset setting of my Little Court series, I have now moved to South Devon.  It’s a place I know really well and somewhere I never tire of coming back to.  Dartmouth, which actually featured briefly in my last book, is in fact one of my favourite UK holiday destinations. I love that mix of boats and the water.  We stay right on the marina and the apartment has a huge window which gives great views of everything that’s happening on both the river and the estuary. There’s an amazing atmosphere there at night too.  Walking back from dinner at one of the many excellent restaurants in the town I never get tired of seeing that magical blaze of lights across the water at Kingswear.  This part of Devon is known as South Hams; a beautiful part of the British Isles and a perfect setting for this  new book.

Kingswear at night from Dartmouth

So that about it for this week.  Everything is going well I’m in a good place. I’m working on a topic for this coming weekend too so currently I’m ahead of the game. However I’m not sure with all the things I seem to pack into each day the White Rabbit tag is going to be one I can shake off very easily! I am trying very hard though, believe me!

See you  next week.

Jo x

Please note: this post has also gone out on Blogger.

 

Days out in the car always involve a bit of a tussle over whose music gets played.  We’ve now come to a deal that one of us will have their iPod playing on the outward journey, the other on the return.  Problem sorted, right?  Well not quite; you see neither of us really like each other’s music!

It’s a crazy thing because when I met my other half one of the things we found we had in common was that our music tastes were quite similar.  In fact when we moved in together and our record collections were merged we found there was quite a bit of duplication.  Time, however, appears to have completely turned that on its head.  I do have quite an eclectic taste – ballads, R & B, even occasional electropop but guitar driven rock music is my main love.  My other half acknowledges that some of my taste is good but a lot of it gets a definite thumbs down and at times a sort of ‘Are you kidding me?’ look.   But then why complain when my feelings about his choices are just the same?    So every trip out listening to his iPod becomes a bit of a travel lottery.  Can I cope with it all?  Should I take ear plugs?  The reason for the latter comment is because one of his favourite bands are Yes who were very big in the seventies.  Now I can cope with one or two tracks, but if I’m trapped in a car for any length of time with Jon Anderson’s falsetto voice I’m likely to want to open the door and take my chances with the tarmac!

Today as we drove down into Somerset for lunch with friends my other half’s music was playing.  I was supposed to connect my iPod for the return journey but for whatever reason it didn’t happen.  Usually I would have been a little miffed but on this occasion the music wasn’t bad and I felt fairly relaxed – probably helped by the large amount of wine consumed over lunch!  The sun was out the sky blue and we sang along very loudly like a couple of twelve year olds to things like Yellow Submarine, Can’t Buy Me Love and Ticket to Ride as the Beatles came up on the shuffle.  The Killers, Coldplay, Keane, Kasabian  and similar followed with not a Yes track in sight! It’s obvious the shuffle fairy was on my side (thank goodness!). There have been times, however, when I’ve had to sit through track after track of the most uninspiring stuff which left me wondering ‘how did these guys get a recording contract for heaven’s sake?’

Still, like beauty I guess it’s all in the eyes (or in this case ears) of the beholder.  As far as I’m concerned Reggae is a non-starter.  Artists like Bob Marley. Desmond Dekker, Aswad and Steel Pulse completely bypassed me.  Then there is Country Music.  Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers doing Islands in the Stream is guaranteed to bring out the worst in me as is Tammy Wynette’s Stand by Your Man – or should I say Mayun?  ‘Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman’ she drawls and for me it’s like someone dragging fingernails down a blackboard.  Yes it is I want to tell her; men can be very difficult, support is one thing but sounding as if you are turning yourself into an accommodating doormat is bad, very bad Tammy!

Seriously though such a blanket statement about my dislike of Country Music is a little OTT, it’s simply the twee stuff I don’t like.  I love  Jude Cole and Shania Twain, especially  her single It Don’t Impress Me Much because there’s a verse in that which aptly describes my other half.  It’s the bit about kissing his car goodnight that really hits the spot with me because he’s absolutely passionate about his motors.  Whenever I hear the song it always makes me laugh out loud and think ‘now that is so true!’ The kissing goodnight might be a tad far-fetched but there is no denying  he does lavish a lot of attention on his four-wheeled ‘ladies’.

Well this lady has come to the end of her blog journey for today and will now leave you with some music to enjoy.  Strangely I’ve found the choice this time very difficult, although I’m not sure why.  There’s so much music out there which I really love and this time around because I simply could not decide what to choose I’ve done a blindfold and pin job instead.  This really is a case of big production – melody and loads of energy.  It’s U2 and of course with The Edge you have that brilliant guitar work as well.  Enjoy or not as the case may be.  Next time around I’ll try and post something a little less dramatic – Spanish guitar maybe or those wonderful Corrs  – it’s a promise, but for now, till next week…

Apologies for the YouTube video not appearing – please click to view

Yes I know, I blog on Sunday and I’m a day late.  The Promo Blitz kind of threw things off course but now I’m back into my routine.  Today I managed to kick start the manuscript.  With all the other stuff going on I’ve missed it and it’s good to get back to something you really enjoy.  The book’s about 85,000 words in and it was only having to shelve it and return that made me realise I needed to develop the story beyond the framework I had given it.  Because of  this we’re probably looking at two books now.  The Other Side of Morning was the largest  novel I’ve written and I don’t plan to travel this road again – small is definitely the new big.  Big books become so unwieldy – goodness knows how George R R Martin copes, but then like Terry Pratchett he’s probably working with multiple screens which makes life a whole lot easier.  I worked with two screens in my last job and loved it -think I’ll have to give it some serious consideration.

So what am I thinking about this evening?  Well how about James Bond?  The BBC, bless them, have wheeled out the Bond series for Sunday afternoon viewing.  I don’t watch them,  but we tend to catch the last half hour sometimes.  The Connery Bonds shot in the 1960s look so dated now.  Taken from a time which one of my friends refers to as  ‘When men were men and women were glad of it’, Sean Connery bedded and shot his way through Dr No, From Russia with Love, Thunderball, Diamonds are Forever, Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice. Anyway, once Connery had gone off to do other things – disaster!  Ex-model George Lazenby stepped into his shoes.  Connery had sex appeal in spades full, George didn’t have a trowel’s worth.  That’s probably why he only lasted for one film.  You might think then that things would get better -WRONG.  The next Bond was Roger Moore chosen I think because of his connection to a drama he was in then with Tony Curtis called (I think) The Persuaders and also (again it’s a foggy memory) The Saint.  Anyway like it or not, we got Roger with his pale blue eyes and safari suits.  In The Man with the Golden Gun the villain was Scaramanger, a man with three nipples!  We had a car dealer in the village at one time called Julian Scaramanger and rumour had it that Fleming knew his father and liked the surname so used it for one of his novels.  Not sure how true this is so don’t quote me, it could be merely village folklore!  We caught the end of A View to a Kill last week.  Moore and Tanya Roberts were on the Golden Gate Bridge where he was in some sort of hand to hand combat with Christopher Walken.  Needless to say Walken suffered the usual villain’s death and ended up drowning in San Francisco Bay – here I’m hoping my geography is holding up, it was water anyway!

Currently we have the Timothy Dalton Bond.  This is where I actually begin to remember and I do know his films were shot at a time when the AIDS epidemic first broke.  Because of this (again this maybe hearsay so no quotes please!) Dalton’s Bond did not have the bed hopping  promiscuity of the others, he only ever slept with his main love interest.  He was a very quietly confident Bond too and very English.  Watching him yesterday I actually thought this was the beginning of the sensible Bond era but no, it was still quite silly in places.  I did love Dalton’s thick dark hair and as I said, he had that quiet confident air about him. So he ticked the boxes on two out of three of my ‘must haves’ where men are concerned.  He failed miserably in the eye department though as I do so love brown eyed men!  So what’s to come?  Well Pierce Brosnan’s films will follow on from Timothy Dalton and I guess he’s a fairly credible Bond.  And lastly we’ll get the reigning Bond Daniel Craig’s films.  He’s very much a 21st century man – sexy, deadly and very efficient at his job – all serious stuff with amazing special effects to  keep cinema goers happy.  And looking to the future who will be the next Bond?  Well your guess is as good as mine.  And talking of Who,  there is a parallel is there not between Bond and  Dr Who in that they all go through this regeneration process and this means there are many more to come!

 

So who is your favourite Bond?  And who would you nominate for Daniel Craig’s successor? When you read this Laurie, remember you can’t vote for yourself! LOL!

 

See you all next week.

 

Jo xx

 

 

 

It’s Sunday, one twenty pm and I’m sitting here contemplating being creative.   Usually this is the one day of the week I think about posting something on my blog.   I say think as I have to admit to being a dreadful blogger – irregular, leaving it for weeks on end before I actually summon up the energy (or enthusiasm) to write anything. This sadly is reflected in my trickle of followers, although each post does go out on all my social media links. I do envy those whose blogs are total works of art,  have so much to say and always come up with entertaining stuff at the drop of a hat.  Unfortunately I’m not one of them.  Sure I get ideas I feel worthy of airing and then just as I’m about to spend an afternoon typing up my thoughts fate takes a hand.  It’s a difficult balance blogging regularly and being an author and more often than not the book  has to take priority,  it’s as simple as that. Oh and I have a social life too and all sorts of other people making demands on my time.  Am I complaining?  Certainly not, it’s merely a statement of fact and I would not have my life any other way – honestly!

So what am I currently thinking about at this present moment in time? Well a few days ago I sent a shot of actor Aidan Turner via an e-mail to a writing friend who is a great fan of his.  She posted the photo on Facebook and Twitter and it caused an absolute flurry of activity.  That and something rather disturbing that happened to someone on Facebook/Twitter recently is pushing me in the direction of maybe putting some thoughts together about celebrities and the fans who follow them.

I’ve been a fan of someone or other for as long as I can remember, starting I guess with heroes from children’s TV programmes when I was a small girl.  But my first big adult crush, one which actually ran on for many years, was all six-foot one and a half inches of rock god Justin Hayward, lead singer with The Moody Blues.  Not only did I think he was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen, he was a wonderful songwriter.  I first became aware of Justin and ‘The Moodies’ in the late 1970s by which time the band was well established and the boys were taking time out on separate projects.  I was a regular at their UK concerts and bought their music.  I still have the vinyl versions of their albums here at home although I’ve since supplemented with CDs.  I think the Moody Blues and many other rock bands of the time had a different kind of following far removed from the more mid-stream pop acts which attracted screaming young girl fans.  OK in my eyes Justin was the best looking man around but like many others who followed the band it was also about the music.  I held onto my  fan worship for many years and when I started writing Justin naturally became the muse for singer/songwriter and eventually record producer Matt Benedict, one of the central characters in my trilogy and its sequel.

It all seems so far away now and the world we live in has become a totally different place.  Today the UK seems totally obsessed with celebrity, whether it’s becoming one and getting that fifteen minutes of fame, or simply following someone else.  And the definition of following?  Well it’s usually a 24/7 fly on the wall observation, fuelled by obliging paparazzi providing a succession of on-going photographs to fill an overabundance of celebrity magazines and newspapers. Phew what a mouthful!  It’s also a multi-million pound business; from teenage girls to aging matrons it seems we can’t get enough gossip or photos of our favourite stars.  Now I think if someone wants to open their life and are happy to be up for constant public scrutiny then that’s fine – it’s their choice.  What it should not mean is that those who do desire a private life are denied that all in the pursuit of public curiosity and the need for the media to make money.  It’s not fair and it’s not right.  This whole industry has developed at a huge pace too.  Back in the early nineties we had Hello and OK with their structured interviews and glossy shots.  Now they have been joined by others happy to delve into the more deeply personal side of celebrity lives.  Not sure I’d want my ‘weight agony’ or ‘love rat heartache’ in full view on the cover of something at the check-out in my local Sainsburys but sadly as long as the public have an appetite for it, like it or not, these magazines are here to stay.

And now the world wide web has opened things up even more. You can join Facebook or Twitter (or both) and follow any celebrity who decides they want a presence there.  A lot are merely fan sites but there are some celebs who are the real deal and are quite happy to respond to their fans.  That’s fine, but sometimes those who ‘follow’ or ‘friend’  take it a little too far and it can get out of hand and become an irritating intrusion or something far worse!  One young British actor’s Twitter account states he does not reply to tweets.  A sensible move as with 185,000 followers he’d soon be swamped – but I guess at the end of the day it’s down to the individual celebrity how much access they allow.

My take on all of this is that those who work in the entertainment industry do a job.  OK it’s not the regular nine to five like the rest of us, but at the end of the day it is a job.  Another part of that job is PR, to promote themselves and what they do and keep in the public eye. The fan thing is therefore something that goes with the territory.  However, I’m a firm believer that just as we have a private side to our lives so should they and we should recognise that.  Sadly in this media driven society we inhabit  it seems this is no longer an option – everyone it appears is considered fair game whether they are happy about it or not.  The current activity at the Old Bailey over phone hacking has certainly shown the lengths the media are prepared to go to in pursuit of what they judge is ‘in the public interest’.

Beyond Facebook and Twitter there can be a deeper, darker element to fan worship.  A well-known British actor ended up in court a few years back when things with a fan got badly out of hand.  She became so fanatical about him that she camped outside his house, poured petrol through his girlfriend’s letter box and made a thorough nuisance of herself.  In court she admitted her obsession had got out of control but seemed to have no conscience over her actions.  The judge slapped a restraining order on her; she’s not allowed anywhere near him but I would think after an experience like that his life will never be the same, poor guy.  This woman wasn’t just an over enthusiastic admirer, she had serious emotional issues.  Although incidents like these are few and far between it did demonstrate how some fans can become far more than simply annoying .  Thankfully the only brush with weird people I’ve ever encountered is some male Facebooker wanting to friend me and telling me ‘you look nice.’  Needless to say I immediately  blocked him from accessing my account. I have to say though, I’ve met many people on social media who have become great friends but you have to be so careful.

So that’s about it on my thoughts concerning celebs and fans and I’ll now climb off my soapbox and disappear. I have deadlines and the need to get back to my new fictional characters who are probably missing me as much as I’m missing them.  As a writer whose work is inspired by music  I’m leaving you in the company of my first big crush and his co-band member John Lodge.  As it’s Sunday I’m toning down the music, no rock today, something far gentler. BTW notice how terribly precise and old fashioned the introduction to this song is – LOL!  Enjoy the rest of your Easter Break!

Next week there will an an early post from me talking about The Other Side of Morning and the inspiration behind the wonderful Marco D’Alesandro – yes, it’s a promise, no slacking as it’s an important weekend.  Saturday 26th April is the Promo Blitz for The Other Side of Morning which is being hosted by Brook Cottage Books on Facebook  so feel free to join us.

 

 

Posted at 7.10pm Sunday 20th April 2014

 

Hi Melanie, welcome back to Sally Lunn’s, it’s great to see you again.   This time around I’ve decided on a change of format.  I’m not going to ask questions.  Instead I’m opening the blog to you to talk about yourself and what has been happening since you guested here last.

Hi Jo. It’s great to be back here with you at Sally Lunn’s. I love this place!

I’ve not done much writing since I was here last. My WIP (sequel to A Shadow in the Past) is still sitting at just over 62000 words. I think I last worked on it with any degree of diligence was back in November.

I do have some exciting things to tell you about, though. Last August, I hosted a book launch in the Scottish village where my father was born, and did a reading at the Central Library in Aberdeen. Both events were huge successes. I was hoping that being back in Scotland where A Shadow in the Past is set, I would be filled with inspiration to write when I got home – especially when I visited the locations I used in my book, so I could finish the first draft of Shadows from Her Past, but five days into our trip, my website got hacked and I spent the first few weeks on my return getting that mess sorted out. Any inspiration I had went straight out the window.

Despite not writing, let me re-phrase that – very little writing – I did have another book published. I had a bunch of short stories on my computer that I’d written for contests and in writing workshops so I thought I would put them together, polish them up, and publish them under my imprint King Park Press. The book is called The Consequences Collection after the lead story, Consequences, which was written during my hometown’s one and only storefront writing contest about three summers ago.

In addition to the website hacking, hubby had a few health issues last year that I won’t go into detail about, but suffice it to say, it knocked my concentration for six. I dedicated my short story collection to him.

And speaking of my short story collection, isn’t this cover grand? (insert consequences collection cover image here). My cousin, took this photo on a trip to Pentille Castle Gardens and kindly allowed me to use it for my cover.

You can buy The Consequences Collection for the kindle from Amazon (change the .com to your domain) from this link.

http://www.amazon.com/Consequences-Collection-Melanie-Robertson-King-ebook/dp/B00FZYJ2FA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395178569&sr=1-1&keywords=the+consequences+collection

A Shadow in the Past is also available for the Kindle as well as paperback.

You can find me at

Author Website: http://www.melanierobertson-king.com/
Author Blog: Celtic Connexions http://www.melanierobertson-king.com/wp02/
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Melanie-Robertson-King/221018701298979
Twitter Account: @RobertsoKing https://twitter.com/#!/RobertsoKing

Thank you Melanie, lovely to talk to you and catch up again.  The Consequences Collection is currently sitting on my Kindle and I look forward to reading.

Our school days are supposed to be the best days of our lives – right?  Well I guess that very much depends on who you are.  Certainly I enjoyed college a whole lot more – freedom to dress how I wanted, lecturers who treated you like an adult and a far more relaxed teaching regime.  Having said that, there were many memorable moments during those school uniform years – and after.

I grew up in a tiny Wiltshire village on the edge of Salisbury Plain which had no shop or post office, no pub and no school.  So from five to eleven years of age I attended school in the next village three miles away.  There was nothing remarkable about those first six years of schooling – fifty pupils, three class rooms and three teachers.  That same school today has a teaching staff of over 25, the building has been extended beyond recognition and in keeping with this, there has been a dramatic increase in the school roll.  The picture above is a very old one taken at the beginning of the twentieth century

When I passed my eleven plus my very small world expanded dramatically.  I had been used to either being taken to school by parents, or in the spring and summer cycling unsupervised with two or three other kids from the village  – something that would simply not happen in today’s world.  But, of course, those were far more innocent and gentler times.  Anyway, I’m drifting off course  – I’m now eleven years old and am attending Marlborough Grammar School (picture right) which means a daily thirty mile round trip, catching two trains each way; a huge challenge!  As you can imagine going from a village school with 50 pupils to one with ten times that amount took some adjustment too.  And, of course there was a complete new ream of subjects to learn, including French, Chemistry and Physics and for the first time, homework!

At the end of my first year we moved to the far west of the county and my maroon and black uniform was swapped for navy and gold as I joined the second year (Year 8 in today’s speak) at  Fitzmaurice Grammar School,  Bradford on Avon (below left).  This was a much smaller school – 300 pupils – and was a lot closer to home which made the daily journey (two bus rides each way) much easier. Class sizes were still the same, around 30 and for that first year our form room was at the rear of the school in a block of wooden huts which had been erected before the First World War!  Predictably, these huts were like freezers in the winter and saunas in the summer.  Thankfully, by the time we reached the third year (Year 9) we had moved up to classrooms in the newly-built Physics and Chemistry block.  It was in this class room that quite memorably the whole class of 3A found themselves in detention. We had this American exchange teacher for a year and I think the move from teaching in a US high school in Philadelphia to a small provincial grammar school was a bit of a culture shock for him.  I was never sure this was the reason why he appeared to have very little humour and even less patience.  Anyway on this particular occasion we were waiting for him to arrive from the main school building and a large black Labrador wandered in.  As two of the class tried unsuccessfully to catch it and put it out, he arrived.  He wanted to know who had brought the dog into the classroom and when he was told it had come in by itself he simply didn’t believe us.  He tried to get someone to own up and when no one did, the whole class was given detention!

The guy who taught us English doubled up as piano player for Music lessons in the gymnasium.     On the English front, The Merchant of Venice was our Shakespeare play for ‘O’ level and he made a magnificent Shylock, pacing back and forth in front of us all waving the text book in his hand –  the stage definitely lost a star when he went into teaching!   On the occasions we gathered for singing in the gym one or two of the boys’ improvisations on lyrics – I remember What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor being one  in particular – saw his hands come crashing down on the piano keys.  He took singing very seriously and would make us all sit and listen while he would pour himself into songs (in the same the way he interpreted Shylock) as if introducing the uninitiated to something very grand.    I saw him many, many years later while shopping in the local supermarket.  By then it appeared Alzheimer’s had begun to claim him and I felt sad that someone with so much energy and passion for all he did had ended his days in this way.

Another pre-requisite for teaching appeared to be a deadly aim with chalk.  Our Maths teacher in particular could have turned it into an Olympic sport.  We never did work out how someone with their back to the class scribbling away on the blackboard could tell exactly who it was talking, turn with lightning speed and score an accurate hit.   Today, of course, that would not be allowed, no doubt he would have been charged with assault on a pupil.

Another form of torture was meted out by our games mistress.  During winter months the afternoon games period would find her choosing pupils for netball and hockey teams and those left over were sent out with the boys on a cross country run.  No gloves, no scarves but at least we got to keep our jumpers!  The run was all along the canal to the hamlet of Avoncliffe (picture  right) a couple of miles out of town then back along the road and into school. Remembering occasions when the fog came down really thickly I sometimes look back and wonder whether it ever crossed her mind about the danger of sending young girls out in twos and threes along deserted tow paths (in those days the local canal was all but derelict). On really cold days we got into the habit of setting off only to hide in Tithe Barn (above left) where there was a certain degree of protection from the elements. We had the whole thing down to a fine art; staying there for the right amount of time before sneaking across the railway line and back into town, returning looking suitably breathless!

When I finished my four years at Bradford on Avon I was looking forward to college, a business diploma and the intricacies of the typewriter keyboard.  The first time I sat in front of a typewriter, I could not understand how anyone could use this machine and get anything sensible from it.  Of course that was before I learned about ‘home keys’ and from there the various finger positions.  It’s funny how once you learn it becomes embedded into your sub conscious and completely automatic.  The only thing I do still find difficulty with is the top line of the keyboard where the numbers are situated and still have to look at my fingers.  And looking at fingers when we were learning to type was considered a hanging offence by our typing teacher!

Once we had built up a little speed the first five minutes of each lesson was given over to a typing test so we could check to see how we were improving.  Our typing teacher was a woman in her late forties with lilac hair – yes lilac!  In those days some women of a certain age favoured these sort of rinses if their hair was grey or white.  A rather pleasant shade of pale blue was also available if my memory serves me correctly!   During these speed tests she would pace up and down between the desks as we typed and if she happened to notice anyone looking at their keys they received a swat across the knuckles with the flat of the ruler she carried.  Again, this simply would not happen today but I have to say it was very effective – no one ever wanted to feel that ruler a second time!

So were those ‘Days of the Old School Yard’ happy days? Well a bit of a mixture really.  Yes I guess in comparison with today our teachers were quite hard and the times we lived in gave them licence to do things and treat pupils in a way they would never be allowed to do now.  However apart from one or two individuals, all had our respect and these little quirks of personality made them the colourful characters we remember so well today.

I’m a writer inspired by music.  I do have a particular fondness for rock, but my tastes aren’t set in stone.  I guess the melody and quality of lyrics stand out as the two most important features of any song that hits the spot with me; and there are also songs which bring back personal memories.  I wanted to do a few blog pieces on music and how it inspires and thought to kick this off I’d concentrate on how music connects with places and events.  Whether we’re listening to iPods, the radio at home or are out and about and catch something in a bar or restaurant, music is an essential part of all our lives.  For me, like many other people, music triggers memories not only of  people but of places and events.

Yesterday I heard The Weather Girls ‘It’s Raining Men’ on the radio and straight away was transported back to aerobics classes long ago.  It was always the warm up track which then moved on into The Jacksons ‘Can You Feel It’.  Ah the days of fitness and feeling ‘the burn’! And yes I did resist the temptation to go and dig out that leotard, footless tights and leg warmers! Everything was deep pink (apart from the leg warmers) and my OH used to tell me I looked like a raspberry!

I think one of my most enduring memories is one way back and linked with the Who’s ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’.  Four of us were on holiday in Devon and found ourselves at a fairground on Plymouth Hoe.  There was this one ride which I learned afterwards was called the Trabant.  Our boyfriends decided it was not for them but egged my friend and I on (and paid) for us to take a ride on it.  I should have realised the deviousness of men! Yes anything to get a laugh!  Once seated a metal bar was bolted across our laps and I guess that should have been a warning of what was to come.  It all started quite innocently as the whole thing began revolving slowly.  Then it gradually picked up speed and changed motion.  Not only were we spinning around, the whole thing was rising and falling and regularly skewing off centre.  This combination of movement made us both wonder whether we would both reach the end without either falling out or being violently ill.   Needless to say the title of the song which accompanied our ride said everything about the way my friend and I were feeling by the time we staggered off and every time I hear it, I’m automatically taken back to that event.  Did I dump my boyfriend after playing such an awful trick? No, kind-hearted as I am I didn’t but my friend certainly did!

In 1983 four of us stayed on the Costa Blanca in a villa just outside Calpe. We took two album tapes with us which we absolutely played to death – Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’ and Elton John’s ‘Too Low for Zero’.  It was just before I got married and when I hear anything from those albums I remember the great holiday we had there and my wedding a month after.

 

 

 

Spain was always a favourite destination for holiday and in 1999 when we were staying with friends in their apartment just outside Marbella I heard Enrique Iglesias’ ‘Rhythm Divine’ being played in a bar and simply had to go find a local hypermarket to buy the album.  We stayed regularly on that coast until 2003 but that particular song will always bring back memories of those fabulous summers there.

Not all holiday memories are good ones however.  In my younger days I was on holiday in Majorca when ‘The Birdie Song’ was all the rage –  something that was destined to drive eventhe sanest person mad!  So there we have it, a taster of songs which trigger memories.  Are there any songs which bring back any particular memories for you?

Next week I’ll be talking about lyrics and some of my favourite singer/songwriters.  Until then have a great week!