Writer's Gramps

Ever since someone tried to teach me French, I have loved the phrase book issued to people likely to find themselves in enemy territory during WW 2. So that they could make themselves understood in France, phrases like, Ce ne fait rien, were translated as San fairy Ann. From that, you will understand how pelased I was to find that, for a Punch article, Paul Dehn had recorded the names of French wines as they appeared in the New York Times as - So tairn, Shah Blee, and Bow Joe lay. Dehn explained that So tairn was the start of a Scottish ballad, So Turn etc.; and Bow Joe lay was a sea shanty, in which the last line went Where Bow Joe lay.  I found this, among other gems, in the Oxford Book of Humorous Prose, edited by Frank Muir. http://sullatoberdalton.com

 I don't know if anyone else remembers Beachcomber in the Daily Express but he was a kind of forerunner of Michael Bentine and the Goons. Like Bentine, he'd served in war but in the Great War and when he came back he was full of nonsense.  'In one of his pranks he stood at a letter box and said through the slot, ''Don't cry, my little man, we''ll have you out in a jiffy. Be brave ...' and kept on until a crowd gathered and a fire engine had been sent for. At which point he slipped away.  Taken from The Oxford book of humorous prose by Frank Muir. http://sullatoberdalton.com

 I'm under pressure from my 'Commercial Manager' to promote my book/s but it really is a chore. I don't mine answering questions because that means someone is interested but what I enjoy is the almost forgotten character sketch or amusing incident that doesn't qualify as a story. Like the time Annis, a stiff seventy-year-old was invited to look at a flat in a shelter home. Annie looked at the bath and thought it might be difficult to  get in and out of and, in the absence of the concierge, decide to try it with her clothes on. She was telling her daughter how she'd struggled to get back out but had manage to turn over and climb out, when her daughter said, 'There's a button for a bell to call for help, why didn't you just push that? 'Listen,' Ann told her, 'these people are already convinced I'm losing my marbles, what do you think they'd have thought if they found me in the bath with my winter on.' http://sullatoberdalton.c o...

 Some people are worried about the side effects of this Covid injection. I'm fortunate in not getting side effects from that, but, in company with everyone else, I suffer from the side effects of other human activities. The demand for lower prices has resulted in supermarkets and that has meant I can't shop nearby in the High Street, where I used to enjoy meeting friends and chatting and bantering with the butcher about his sausages being tough. I'm sorry it's gone, but life is about change. What I'm frustrated about is that, the internet, and people reading on tablets and electronic devices, means coaxing people to buy books has changed. If you want to sell paperbacks, you have to convince younger people to buy one on the internet as a present for a granny and I'm not skilled at that. In any case, granny is possibly glued to the TV - she'll probably remember when the film was first released - Brief Encounter, or The Cockle Shell Heroes for Gramps, come to m...

I've had my jab at the clinic. It took twenty minutes. I went in at one end of theclinic. First they had to make sure it was me, then give me a pep talk about staying safe, then an injection, then get a label that said 13.38 stuck on, and sit on a chair for five minutes till 13.38 in case the trauma of the injection caused me to fall over. After that, I left by the door at the other end of the clinic building. As I looked back, I saw a neat lady I banter with in the street three or four times a year going in, and wished I'd been fifteen minutes later, as our meetings are like spice for my day. But it's so often like that, especially when someone makes a snide remark and fifteen minutes later you think of a great answer. Funnily enough, I read the other day about a chap who spent time in lockdown thinking of really good quips, then manoeuvres conversations round to get them in, a kind of preplanned, frozen food, sort of one-liner idea. He warned it requires great skill, ther...

 What I really wanted to call Bees in my Bonnet was A book for Bedtime but it seemed too close to the BBC's programme title A Book at Bedtime, which I've enjoyed from time to time. More recently, I've been going to bed an hour before that comes on the air but I can recommend it to anyone as a first step to getting a good night's sleep. Not that the books will put you to sleep, far from it, but it's easier to get over if you follow a routine, and especially if you have something that takes your mind off the day's stress - most important these days when human contact has been put on hold. The thing I find most disturbing is getting between the sheets and finding a half baked plot running round in my head. Alternative's to what comes next, start to flicker on and off and, in the end, I'm forced to get up, make tea and try one of those number things the cunning people from the East have introduced us to, the ones where the total of the numbers has to add to ...

 The other day, a cousin commented that, when a book I sent asz a present dropped through the letterbox, it made her day. Which made me realise that a book is one of the best lockdown presents one can give. I've sent quite a few since then and had some good feedback. For myself, I've found my attention span has dropped. I like something I can read at bedtime. In fact, even when I write, I'm happier with a blog, even a short story like the ones I wrote for Bees in my Bonnet, or the incidents in Sadie's Boy. I made a bit of a mistake using bees in the first title, people get the impression it's about keeping bee hives, rather than a collection of short stories. Just the same, it seems to have gone down well with my local readers. It's fine to have big sales to strangers, but there's a lot of satisfaction when you sell at a local market and get complements from the buyers.    http://sullatoberdalton.com

  http://sullatoberdalton.com The Spirit of a Story Sitting looking out at mist and frost, I was listening to John Denver singing ‘let me always be with you’, and thought of my wife, wondered if her spirit stayed with me after her death, or if I imagined it. Then I remembered a few words from Ben Okri writing about a man going back to his home, the City of Dreams and hearing, ‘the voices of his father and mother, but also of the illustrious ancestors and the ever-watchful masters.’ The combination turned my thoughts to how historical incidents trigger a desire to write a story round them. I think what happens is that, as I read about something, a character begins to tell the story. When I read of the Spanish landing at Eilean Donan Castle, then leaving the sick lame and lazy behind as they went to look for the Jacobites, the chap left in charge started to walk back and forward, muttering. When the Navy arrived and started to bombard the castle, he became very excited, throwing hi...