Cherry Gilchrist
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The Unexpected View

26/10/2013

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The unexpected view

Strange views from Devon – the writer is always on the look-out for surprises. Something that doesn’t quite fit the expected view of people or places. It can be a mini-moment of ecstasy when you encounter one – if it’s a nice one, that is. Perhaps even the less pleasant revelations act as a useful stimulus, shaking up fixed ideas, stirring the imagination.

I was lucky enough to have at least two (pleasant) such jolts on our recent visit to the Topsham area. It was our first encounter with the village of Lympstone, and it gave me one of the most magical of surprises. The village is on the Exe estuary but actually looks as though it’s in the sea. Water washes the base of the shoreline cottages, and it must be one of the few places in England where people dry their laundry on the beach. What the photo can’t show you is the gorgeous array of maroons and purples on the washing line, the first time I saw this startling sight. (Sometimes the best moments just don’t make it onto camera.) Then there were puzzling reflections of us in the silvery sculpture globes in the centre of Exeter. Grandma (me), granddaughter Martha, daughter Jess. Who is who, and where are we all?

Now I just need to find ways of writing about all this. A poem, a reflective memoir, a water fantasy. Water often does it for me, as a writer – sitting by a fast flowing, shallow river, or walking by winter waves on the sea shore. The chatter in my mind ebbs away, and the experience of the infinite complexity of moving water takes its place. Currents, patterns, swirls – water parting round rocks, whirling into pools, streams joining.

What will it be this time?

Picture
Egret on the Exe Estuary
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Baking your memories at the Cheltenham Festival

17/10/2013

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PictureMemories and baking - an earlier Proustian tea party
‘Have any of you been watching the Great British Bake-Off?’

A clutch of hands are raised tentatively. The audience is plainly wondering whether they are in the right place for a Life Writing Workshop. I hasten to explain:

‘We have only one hour to bake three memory recipes. And you’ll have to finish off the decorations at home!’

It’s the Cheltenham Festival of Literature, and I am here to encourage forty-five people to write their memories, ‘Memory’ being the theme of the festival. Your Life, Your Story is my entry into this world-famous venue, and I am all too aware of my responsibility to deliver a fully-fledged, rewarding writing experience in just one hour. The original one and a half hour time slot has now been reduced by the festival organisers, due to pressure of other events, so I have been re-timing frantically in the last few days.

To my delight and astonishment, the workshop sold out immediately when booking opened. And instead of the planned thirty participants, they’ve decided to up it to forty-five. OK, I can cope. I have to.

Everyone has memories – most people are fascinated by them – and almost everyone can write about them in a compelling way. The key, I tell my workshop participants, is simplicity. Describe your memories as if you were that child, in that moment. Strip away adult judgement, explanation. Try using the present tense. And, most importantly, re-create that moment in your mind before you write. Get back into the nitty-gritty of the action. What were you wearing? How old were you? How did you feel?

It’s working! Everyone is busy writing, then reading out what they’ve written to their neighbours. I keep an eye on my bedroom clock, which I’ve brought along. Only three minutes over schedule! It’s that tight.

Now we can try ‘bubble writing’ – I need to show them a good way to map stories and gather together recollections. My example is about my childhood rabbit, and how she came to a sad end amongst the frosty cabbages. You’ll have to come to one of my workshops to hear about Krinsetta.

But the techniques of bubble writing and writing up earliest memories are in my book, Your Life, Your Story, along with much more – how to construct a chronology, how to shape a life story and ways to give it texture and colour.

Three o’clock, and the workshop’s over. The intense atmosphere melts away, people leave – smiling, I am happy to see – and disperse to their next events. We made it, together. And they have recipes, snippets of written work, ideas to take away with them. And, I hope, inspiration to write up their life stories.


Find me also on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cherry-Gilchrist/464553846976599

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    Cherry Gilchrist

    Author of books on family history, relationships, alchemy, myths & legends. Life writing tutor teaching for Universities of Oxford & Exeter. Keen on quirky, ancient and mysterious things.

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