tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48074194712588482222024-03-13T02:17:12.801-07:00What am I like?Liz Ringrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14549790415514746802noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807419471258848222.post-70817062127749113462012-06-11T11:13:00.002-07:002012-06-11T11:13:28.469-07:00Letting go ...<br />
<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Recently I decided to let go of the branch. As a friend
quoted recently, If they won’t let you in through the front door go round the
back and climb over the fence.<br />
<br />
Many writers are trapped in the cycle of:<br />
Polishing our work<br />
Looking for an agent<br />
Approaching agent<br />
Pitching and sending three chapters to an agent<br />
Rejection by agent and starting the cycle again.<br />
I’ve been locked in this cycle for over ten years.<br />
<br />
Supposing we can get an agent to listen to us and look at our work we are then
faced with further difficulties. My experience with my first novel, Unwrapping
Angelo (despite it making a short list of six titles in a major competition)
was disheartening to say the least. The thirty agents I sent it to took
anything from a week to eight months to get back to me. Rejections came from
all of them but one. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rewrite it with
these changes and I’ll look at it again</i>, she said. After a whole summer of
rewriting and sending it back to her I discovered she’d left the agency. It
took numerous phone calls to glean the remaining staff didn’t want to see the
rewrite.<br />
<br />
On the occasions I’ve managed to get in front of various agents I’ve been told:<br />
<br />
Make it shorter<br />
Make it longer<br />
Change his name<br />
Change her name<br />
Change the title.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There were sundry other plot changes suggested but none of
these have ever induced them to represent the book.<br />
<br />
General information from agents was at best confusing, at worst upsetting:<br />
<br />
Send a two page synopsis<br />
Send a one page synopsis<br />
Send half a page synopsis<br />
I never read synopses so don’t bother sending one<br />
Write bios for each character<br />
Tell me the plot in the pitch letter<br />
Don’t give the plot away in the pitch letter<br />
Don’t bother with a pitch letter if I like the writing I’ll contact you.<br />
<br />
Agents’ opinions of the next “big thing” during one particular season:<br />
<br />
Chicklit is dead<br />
Chicklit is still flourishing<br />
Vampires are out, Angels are in<br />
Forget Vampires and Angels<br />
Sagas are over<br />
We need more sagas. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How can any writer possibly please all these people? But
supposing, despite all those factors, you get an agent who sells your novel to
a publisher for you (taking their commission) and your dream is to be realised,
it still isn’t plain sailing in today’s marketplace. The publisher will spend
the best part of a year with your book before it appears on the shelves and
will tie you into a contract. At the end of all of the effort, the rejections,
the hours of re-writing, the schmoosing of agents, the lengthy wait for the
book to appear in your hand they will grudgingly give you a pitiful fraction of
the cost of your book; will possibly reject your second book if the first
doesn’t sell into Tesco, and withhold the right to drop you from a great height
if the figures don’t mount up to their satisfaction, all the while retaining
the right to keep drawing their commission from sales of the original novel
until they decide not to print it anymore. <br />
<br />
The person we writers can please is the reader but with so many obstacles in
our way we’re lucky if we ever reach them. <br />
<br />
Until now I have held on with the earnest desire to be “chosen.” I’ve wanted my
novel to be the one the agent picks up and loves. For this to happen, assuming
my work is of a good enough standard, it has to fall on the right desk at the
right time of year (book fairs, etc permitting) on the day the agent has had
lunch with a publisher who is looking for exactly the story I’ve written. <br />
<br />
So I’m letting go of the branch and Amazon is there to catch me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a learning curve I’ve put up a short
novella, Favourite Things onto Amazon Kindle. In the first twenty-four hours
almost fifty copies have been downloaded. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I’ve polished up my novels they will go
up there too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All this time I’ve wanted
to reach my readers and now I am.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I want to thank the very talented writer, Amanda Grange for her encouragement and support. </div>Liz Ringrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14549790415514746802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807419471258848222.post-52669212043358967072011-11-18T06:53:00.000-08:002011-11-18T06:53:34.159-08:00You couldn't make it up!<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">So there I was, sitting in Le Pain Quotidien, my favourite restaurant in the concourse at St Pancras International railway station.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was with my best friend, Gwyneth, having a late lunch and anticipating the Romantic Novelists’ Association winter party in Westminster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’d already had a bit of a drama since one of my train tickets was missing and I’d had to fork out £50 to buy another one. “Let it go,” I told myself, “it’s done and that’s that.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">Out on the concourse, waving to us, were three more writers who had arrived on a later train.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They came in and joined us.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Something very strange has just happened,” Audrey said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“They’ve just put out a call for an Elizabeth Ringrose at the Eurostar desk.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For those not familiar with Eurostar it is the high speed train which now connects the UK with mainland Europe, via the Channel Tunnel. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">What a bizarre coincidence, I thought.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">Next to me was Margaret whose phone was ringing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“No,” I heard her say to her daughter on the phone, “I’ve got my bag and my purse …”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She went out onto the concourse for the rest of the call.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">It was time for us to pay the bill and turning to the bag containing my party dress I realised I’d left my handbag in the station toilets. Barging past the waiter with the bill, yelling that I’d lost my bag and with Gwyneth on my heels, I ran down to the toilets, past Margaret who was still looking utterly puzzled and talking on the phone.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">The attendant in the loos said she hadn’t found a bag but asked me my name and mumbled about Eurostar. OMG, I thought, the tannoy announcement …<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After babbling incoherently to two Eurostar staff members I was called through to their security department.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Three girls had found my bag in the toilets and had handed it in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My knees went to mush with relief as a lady carried the bag towards me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“See if everything is there,” she said, which actually hadn’t occurred to me, but yes, there was the folding money, my iPhone, cards, train tickets, car/house keys and asthma inhaler.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After more babbling and grateful thanks I went with Gwyneth back to the restaurant.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I’ll pay the bill now,” I said to our young, handsome waiter.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“My heart stopped for you,” he said.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I imagine he stops plenty of hearts himself.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Gwyneth paid the bill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was still a gibbering wreck.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So what was the purpose of Margaret’s puzzling phone call? It seems the Eurostar staff had looked at the recent contacts on my iPhone and as I give Margaret a lift each week they dialled her home number. Her poor husband was told his wife had lost her handbag and with that the call ended. He telephoned their daughter in Surrey who then telephoned Margaret insisting she’d lost her bag.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Meanwhile Eurostar had telephoned my husband.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well of course it came as no surprise to him to hear that my bag had been left in a toilet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He rang St Pancras service desk and the very kind man put out the tannoy announcement that my friends had heard.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Still wondering why the bag had been taken to the Eurostar desk I realised, with horror, that my bag must have come under the category of “suspicious unaccompanied baggage” and as the Eurostar section of the station is a UK border they would have the facility for scanning.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I guess I’ll never know who the honest and kindly girls were who handed it in for me and I bitterly regret the inconvenience and worry suffered by Margaret, her husband and daughter, my friend Gwyneth and my poor husband.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the girls’ honesty and the sheer loveliness of everyone concerned gave me a glow, and I realised that even in the context of crowds, travel schedules, queues and tiredness there are still angels of kindness who come to rescue us.</div>Liz Ringrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14549790415514746802noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807419471258848222.post-50826074074957179002011-11-10T15:23:00.000-08:002011-11-10T15:23:16.701-08:00Finding Uncle Harold<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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</div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I suppose the hairdressers <i>was</i> a funny place to be talking about the First World War.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was yelling above the sound of the drier about a mystery I was trying to solve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was bound to attract attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve never been renowned for the softness of my voice so when the manager approached I thought she was going to ask me to be quiet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead she said, “I think I may be able to help with your problem.”</span></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Could she help, I wondered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was 1997 and I’d been puzzling over a mystery since the previous autumn when I read a novel about the First World War, a subject I’ve always been interested in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A childhood memory had surfaced after reading the book and I rang my mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Didn’t Dad have a brother who died in the Great War?” I asked.<span> </span> </div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Mum knew his name had been Harold but she didn’t know any more than that, and Dad had died some years before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All his eight brothers and sisters were now gone too, there didn’t seem to be anyone I could ask.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I rang the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the lady was very helpful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Harold Henson died in 1915, she told me, at the battle of Loos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His regiment had been the Northumberland Fusiliers. </span></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent"><br />
</div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“That can’t be him,” I said, “my father’s family lived in Nottingham.” </span></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent"><br />
</div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Well,” she continued, “this soldier enlisted in Nottingham.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent"><br />
</div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><span> </span>I also learned that only one Harold Henson died in the First World War so it had to be him.</span></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 36.0pt;">This was a mystery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why would a Nottingham lad have joined a northern regiment?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was curious to find out about this boy who fought and died for his country at the age of nineteen, and would have been my uncle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I rang a cousin in Nottingham but he didn’t know any more than I did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With a large family spread around the Midlands there were some cousins I didn’t even know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seemed an impossible task but my fascination was mounting. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 36.0pt;">Perhaps officialdom might have the answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wrote to the Ministry of Defence but discovered Harold’s documents had been destroyed along with thousands of others during the blitz of 1940.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Undaunted, I tried the Northumberland Fusiliers museum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had no individual records of my uncle but they had the regimental diary of the man who commanded his battalion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tragically Harold was only in France for fifteen days before he was killed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This seemed to be as far as I could go, but I’d become fond of this boy by now and longed to know more about him. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 36.0pt;">On Christmas Eve my husband asked me to open one of my presents a day early.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I can’t wait any longer,” he said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I’ve discovered something amazing and you’ve got to see it.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 36.0pt;">He had bought me a book about the Great War, which included personal reminiscences from old soldiers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the section covering the Battle of Loos there was an entry from a man called Harry Fellows who had been in the same battalion as my uncle.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 36.0pt;">“Not only that,” my husband said, “Fellows was from Nottingham and had a friend called <i>Henson</i>.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 36.0pt;">I could hardly believe it, a breakthrough at last.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wrote to the author of the book asking if I could be put in touch with Mr Fellows’ family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was sure he held the key to the mystery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was disappointed when the writer said she was no longer in touch with the family who had supplied her with the memoirs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once more I seemed to have come to a halt. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 36.0pt;">This was the point I’d reached that morning in the hairdressers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The day everything changed.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I know someone who’s an expert on the First World War,” the salon manager said to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“He writes books on the subject and I’m sure he’ll be able to help.” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 36.0pt;">I was willing to try anything so wrote to this man, telling him about my uncle’s painfully short participation in the war, and explaining about the old soldier Harry Fellows whose family might help me. Almost by return of post I got a letter to say that Harry Fellows had been a member of the Western Front Association, I was even given the address of the Nottingham Branch. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was reluctant to get too excited but once again I wrote a letter giving all the details and hoped I’d hear back soon.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 36.0pt;">As well as having a loud voice I have pretty sharp hearing and a few days later, as I walked up the drive, I heard the phone ringing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the time I got indoors the answering machine had picked up the call and I heard a man’s voice saying the very name that had preoccupied me for so long, “Harold Henson.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I grabbed the phone and found myself talking to a man called George.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My letter to the Western Front Association had been passed to him because, and I could hardly believe my ears, he was a friend of Mick Fellows, Harry Fellows’ son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoBodyText"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Mick Fellows was was stunned to hear from a relative of his dad’s wartime pal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He showed me his father’s war diary and in one entry the mystery of joining the Northern regiment was solved.</span></div><div class="MsoBodyText"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Harold, along with several pals, had signed up for the army on a Saturday morning in September 1914.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of these friends was Harry Fellows.</span></div><div class="MsoBodyText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">“We want a long ride in a train,” they said to the recruiting sergeant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>None of them had been further than Derby before.</span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">“There’s the Duke of Cornwall’s Regiment,” they were told, “or the Northumberland Fusiliers.” </span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">“There’s no football in Cornwall,” one of them said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We’ll take the fusiliers.” </span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">So began Harold’s tragic army career.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A year later, after training, the regiment sailed to France and Harold died in their first taste of action at Loos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the troops moved forward into the trench Harry Fellows was sent by the commanding officer, with a message for their Captain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He left my uncle’s side and never saw him again; Harold’s body was never recovered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Harry Fellows went on to survive the war and when he died in Nottingham, aged 92, he asked for his ashes to be returned to France to be buried close to his friends.</span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 36.0pt;">We travelled to France for the 80<sup>th</sup> Commemoration of the end of the war, and spent four days visiting many battlefields and cemeteries on the Somme, and attending the great ceremony in Ypres.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We went to Mametz Wood where Harry Fellows’ remains are buried and took part in a short, very moving service to commemorate him, and all his fallen comrades. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 36.0pt;">There was another visit that we’d organised, one I would never forget.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On our last morning Mick Fellows met us and we drove to Loos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s mining country and in November was a bleak, unwelcoming place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dud Corner cemetery was beautifully tended, grass cut neatly between the graves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Around the perimeter walls huge slabs of stone bore details of those missing in action; it was here that I finally saw my uncle’s name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had to crane my neck to read it and my husband lifted me up so that I could feel the contours of the carved letters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we left our poppy crosses, and signed the book of remembrance I thought our mission was complete.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mick Fellows had other ideas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 36.0pt;">He took us back through the village of Loos to a farm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We got out of the car and walked along the edge of a well-tilled field that sloped gently up to a ridge. When I realised where we were I couldn’t speak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Me, the one with the big mouth and a line of chat for every occasion – rendered dumb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were in the field where Harold fell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mick passed around a whiskey bottle and we drank a toast to my uncle, and all those who marched away to fight and never returned. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 36.0pt;">Back home I traced as many members of the family as I could to let them know the story I had uncovered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a joy to meet cousins I never knew existed; to see faces that bore traces of my own features.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wondered which of us might have looked like Harold, and how different our lives might have been had he come home from the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 36.0pt;">They quickly came to know me as the cousin from Leicester who talked a lot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I know their lives were also made richer by discovering the uncle whom most had never heard of, who would forever lie in the windswept French countryside, and who now, would never be forgotten by his family.</div>Liz Ringrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14549790415514746802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807419471258848222.post-86402668036091639342011-06-04T06:33:00.000-07:002011-06-04T06:33:25.486-07:00Kind Kids and CupcakesAt the top of our little country lane there is a trestle table groaning under the weight of home made cakes. They've been baked by a neighbour's children (aided and abetted by mums and grannies) and are being sold in aid of Cancer Research UK. Having sworn off cakes for at least a month I resolved simply to give them a donation but once I saw the effort they had gone to with decorations, etc, it would have been rude not to sample them.<br />
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I arrived at the table as a group of passing ramblers stopped to survey the treats. The children, one of whom had rushed back home for a knife to cut the coffee and walnut cake, rapidly added up the costs as date and walnut slices, chocolate brownies and cupcakes with elaborate toppings of jellied fruit, hundreds and thousands and dolly mixtures were eagerly loaded onto paper plates and consumed greedily. Walking the "Leicester Round" footpath can give you an appetite!<br />
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What I wasn't prepared for were the tears that really wanted to slide down my cheeks. For some reason I found this whole tableau very moving. Was it the worthy cause that made me want to cry or was it the sight of these kids, giving up their Saturday, having worked hard for days to produce this impressive spread? I really don't know but I made sure they didn't see the batty woman from up the lane taking deep breaths and hurrying off with her plate piled high.<br />
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Returning a few minutes ago I asked them and their mother if I could take a photo and write a little piece about them for the Parish Magazine. They shyly posed while I took the picture and then, as other neighbours had arrived with purses at the ready, I hurried off. I hope they make a pile of money for the cause. Little endeavours such as these have long reaching effects.Liz Ringrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14549790415514746802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807419471258848222.post-78375648669491435192011-06-02T08:24:00.000-07:002011-06-04T10:22:39.762-07:00Yes, just what am I like?Am I disciplined enough to write a regular blog? Time will tell, I guess. But that's quite enough for now. Must go away and think of something jolly interesting to say.Liz Ringrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14549790415514746802noreply@blogger.com1