He laughed, not unkindly, reminding her of humiliation. ‘You’re no better at keeping your balance with a camera than you were trying to ride a bike, are you?'
Monday, 30 May 2011
SuccInctly yours #10 - Grandma's goulash
Influence remembered à propos of nothing in particular
I remembered a man today, a tutor from long-ago college.
Feeling that us soft and ignorant southerners needed to know about The North he organised a weekend trip to Nottinghamshire, to stay with pit families in terraced houses, toilet down the bottom of the garden, in the snow.
He organised us visits to the Co-op bakery, to a factory making metal cans and to a coalmine – Blidworth – where we descended in the cage, took a train to the coal face and watched the whirring of the gouging teeth, astounded by the noise and the airy cavern at the bottom of the lift-shaft.
In the afternoon he drove us through D.H. Lawrence country, speaking of the man and of the places of his books, the countryside hard edged, unforgiving and beautiful, and then to Hardwick Hall, where he spoke of Bess and of her self-promoting skills to build and to survive.
He was Celtic, dark and passionate, wore a red tie, tweed jacket, taught us Economics, but I cannot recall his name.
The radio in the minibus played the just-released 'The last time’ by the Stones non-stop.
Feeling that us soft and ignorant southerners needed to know about The North he organised a weekend trip to Nottinghamshire, to stay with pit families in terraced houses, toilet down the bottom of the garden, in the snow.
He organised us visits to the Co-op bakery, to a factory making metal cans and to a coalmine – Blidworth – where we descended in the cage, took a train to the coal face and watched the whirring of the gouging teeth, astounded by the noise and the airy cavern at the bottom of the lift-shaft.
In the afternoon he drove us through D.H. Lawrence country, speaking of the man and of the places of his books, the countryside hard edged, unforgiving and beautiful, and then to Hardwick Hall, where he spoke of Bess and of her self-promoting skills to build and to survive.
He was Celtic, dark and passionate, wore a red tie, tweed jacket, taught us Economics, but I cannot recall his name.
The radio in the minibus played the just-released 'The last time’ by the Stones non-stop.
Sunday, 29 May 2011
Blog carnival > language > place edition #6
see Curve of early learning page for my contribution
For links to other contributors - and a mental feast of language - check out
Michelle says:
Visit this month’s Blog Carnival and see why thirty writers and artists linger on the edge. In stunning images and words, people in places as different as Baltimore and Hong Kong, Newport and New Zealand, London and Nepal, explore the edges of art, story, poetry, text, history, innocence, experience.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)