Why Don't Our Children Read Anymore?

The best memory I have of my childhood is curling up on the upstairs landing (which only I knew had the warmest radiator in the house) on those bleak and desultory days of the seemingly endless winter holidays and losing myself for hours on end in fictional realms.  TV was a paltry runner-up to the richness of my life in literature.  I lived it and breathed it right alongside the characters in whose lives and dramas some kindly author had invited me to partake.  The whole household could have collapsed about my ears and I would not have noticed.

I still frequently go AWOL from the real world when I become engrossed in a good story.  I suppose I simply have no self-control, but the pleasure of reading makes me realise how thin so many other modern pleasures are.  Read a good book and something permeates your soul and stays with you forever.  Which, of course, is why I’m so sad that so many of our children today are missing out on that wonderful gift.

By ‘our’ I’m referring to children in a collective or national sense.  You know, that ubiquitous ‘younger generation’ we oldies are all so worried about.  I have certainly been worrying about this increasing problem for the past decade, but not for the more obvious reasons.  My own son is an avid reader – always was, always will be.  When I watch him devour literature and see him reap the rewards of something he does purely for pleasure, I feel sad that so many other young people are missing out on a wonderful experience.

I’m sure that wherever you are in the country, you’ve participated at some point in these ‘Good As New’ sales organised so beautifully by dedicated volunteers raising money for cancer research or similar worthy charities.  These sales are a great way to dispose of good quality clothing, equipment, games and books while helping needy charities.  For one reason or another I had a great collection of (brand new) children’s literature I no longer needed, all written by wonderful, award-winning children’s authors.  I also had a collection of used Simpsons comic books.

I’d be disappointed in you if you didn’t know where I was going here!  What sold?  Yes of course, you guessed.  What was disappointing was that even at giveaway prices – a tiny fraction of their retail value - parents did not see the value of buying high quality literature for their children.  Incidentally, this sale was in one of the more affluent London suburbs and the car park was crammed to capacity by people-carriers carrying very few people.

As a former English teacher I’ve always been deeply concerned about the reading habits of the young.  Correction, what I really mean is ‘lack of reading habits’.   When I first began teaching – and believe it or not, that wasn’t back in the dark ages, reading was still considered to be acceptable, even pleasurable.  Libraries were the hub of the school and book fairs the highlight of the term.  When visiting authors came, the children would be held spellbound; happily spending their pocket money stocking up their bookshelves and writing appreciative fan letters en masse without any prompting. 

I myself ran school book-clubs and from the day they placed their order until the day of delivery, children would stop me in corridors and playground asking me when their book orders would arrive.  When I became head of English, my mission was not just to maintain that enthusiasm but to increase it.  I wanted parents to be more involved as well, in order to capture some of those reluctant readers in the net.  I spent three-quarters of my departmental budget on exciting new books which had all been carefully researched by caring staff and students.

But gradually I saw a decline in interest.  Children no longer wanted to read.  Year after year each new intake proved to be less literate than the last and even less interested in reading.  Book fairs and book clubs dwindled away due to lack of interest and library lessons offered little more than opportunities for collective worship in the non-fiction section for boys or huddled gatherings of girls pretending to pour over an illustrated Shakespeare while they quietly discussed the latest gossip or read each other’s text messages.

The real crunch came a few years ago in the A Level classes, when students professing a desire to study English Literature at university claimed to hate reading.  When asked why they had chosen Literature, the answers varied from:  ‘Well I really enjoyed Pride and Prejudice.  I mean Keira Knightley was okay, but Matthew Macfadyen...’; to ‘I like Shakespeare.  Laurence Fishburne as Othello was really excellent.’

I harangued my students mercilessly every time they asked if there was a DVD of the text we were studying.  (In my defence, I’m not claiming that films have no place in the teaching of literature, just that they should provide the little ornament on the top of the tree, not constitute the whole of Christmas).  Students invariably said they found it so much easier to watch a film than read a book.

But as year upon year this antipathy towards reading – and in particular classical literature – grew and the internet made it (or so the students thought) so much easier to cheat on their essays, teaching literature became more about policing students than teaching them and sharing in their discoveries.  Today more and more children simply cannot be bothered to read.  Teachers don’t just have to worry about plagiarism anymore – there are numerous agencies all over the world employing people willing to write students’ assignments for a paltry sum.  And sadly these are beyond the refined searching tentacles of Google.  The system allows lazy students to avoid even glancing at the great literature they were meant to study.  And the chances are, if they don't do it now, they won't in the future.

Good teachers can inspire children in lessons, certainly, but much depends on students' willingness to go away and read, think and discover for themselves.  Nowadays, sadly, children are less and less inclined to make the time in their fast-paced lives to do just that.  If they can find a shortcut, they will take it.  I didn’t set out to moralise on the rights and wrongs of this (though doubtless my position is fairly clear), I just feel depressed that it is happening and worry about how sadly impoverished future generations will be. 

Maybe the media can compensate?  Personally, I must confess that I doubt it. 

 Posted on Yahoo this week:  

[I am 16 years old and so far i think I've read only 1 book lol. I think i will like books with mystery, science fiction. horror, fantasy, crime genre.I've been reading alot of manga .Its never too late to start .Bad english I hope you understand.]

Need I say more?

Chapter 1 of 'The Apple Tree'

‘Julie?  Little Juliet Somerville!  I don’t believe it.  Can it really be you?’

  Julie had been busy dodging the lunchtime crowds but halted at the hearty exclamation and firm hand grasping her elbow.  The force of this wheeled her bodily towards the voice.  Impatient pedestrians, forced to stop in their tracks before sidestepping the pair, clucked their disapproval.  She turned to her assailant, blinking as recognition dawned.

‘Robert!  What a lovely surprise!’

Robert returned her smile and Julie scanned his face, searching for the inevitable changes etched by the passage of time.

‘What a blast from the past, as they say.’  He tilted his head to one side.  ‘How many years has it been?’

She laughed. ‘I don’t know.  ‘Five or six, I suppose.  It’s so nice to see you, Robert.  How are you?’

‘Five or six?  Closer to eight I should say.  We must celebrate...you’re not too busy, I hope?’

‘Not at all; just idling.  I’d like that.’

He took her arm in a brotherly fashion and led her towards the nearby Crown Inn.  ‘Now let me think,’ he began after procuring drinks and settling himself beside her on the claret-coloured banquette, new to the Crown since Julie’s last visit.  ‘The last time I saw you would be when you went up to university.  I haven’t seen Lizzie in almost as long, although I hear she’s doing okay for herself.’

‘Yes,’ Julie conceded, although he was wrong about the date.  They’d met again the following year, at her father’s funeral, but perhaps Robert’s memory was being tactfully selective.  ‘Liz has just been appointed as consultant at the hospital.  Father would have been extremely proud of her.’

‘Yes, of course.  And of you too no doubt - where are you working now?’

‘I’m not at the moment.  I suppose I’m what actors fondly call ‘resting’.  But never mind that...tell me about yourself,’ she urged, eager to change the subject.

‘Me?  I’m doing very well, thanks.  I have my own garden centre now, down on Longshore Road, and the business is doing pretty well.’ Robert would have been unable to conceal the note of pride from his voice even if he’d tried.  ‘We’re doing more and more landscape gardening these days - I’ve got six full time staff and several part-timers.  You must come and see the place, now that you’re back home.’

‘Of course I will,’ she assured him.  ‘And are you married?’

He paused, replacing his drink on the table and eyeing it for a brief moment before replying.  ‘I was, yes.  I married Linda Henderson - I don’t think you knew her.  But she died.’ He uttered this last statement with the brutal simplicity of someone who still found the subject acutely painful.

‘Oh how awful!  I’m so sorry.  Can you...I mean, would you rather not...?’

‘I don’t mind talking about it.  It was quite a while back, you know - over four years now.  A traffic accident...she was killed instantly...and she was...we were...’ he gave a little cough to clear the thickness in his throat and took a small sip of his beer.  ‘She was pregnant at the time, so we lost the baby, too.’

Julie gasped and stared at him.

‘It was bad at first, of course.  We’d only been married eighteen months.  I suppose I fell apart a bit, but time and good friends have helped.  And the work, of course; I couldn’t have managed without that.’

‘Poor Robert.’  She had known him for as long as she could remember. They had been neighbours and he and her older sister, Liz, were school friends.  He always seemed to be present, somewhere in the backdrop of her childhood memories, always smiling, always cheerful.  Good old Robert. Imagining him ‘falling apart’, in pain and suffering while she got on with her own life somewhere else in the world, was difficult.  No stranger to the anguish of death, she might have done something useful for once in her little life if she’d known.  A tear formed in the corner of her eye and spilled onto her cheek, but whether this was for Robert or herself, she made no attempt to analyse. 

Robert, whose remaining speech had gone unheard by Julie, evidently saw the tear and jumped rapidly to his own conclusions.

‘Don’t cry, little Julie.  As I said, I’ve made peace with it now.  I’m over it.  Scout’s honour!’  And like a good scout, he drew a clean white handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the tear, before handing the square of cloth to Julie.  She looked at it and then at him.

He was so transparent.  Her tears probably touched his simple vanity.  Robert always believed her to be too soft and vulnerable for the tough world of medicine and had told her as much years ago.  He’d also said it saddened him to see her succumbing to the wishes of her father and sister.  Of course she’d been young and naive enough to believe that just wanting something sufficiently was enough to guarantee success and set the whole world to rights.  

‘Come on, now, this is supposed to be a celebration.  Tell me about your life.  Has some lucky, handsome doctor snapped you up, yet?’

Julie dabbed at her face with the soft handkerchief.  What percentage of men still carried handkerchiefs?  Was it the last sign of a true gentleman or merely a sign that Robert was never destined to make the transition into the twenty first century?  She grimaced inwardly at her frivolous thoughts and shook her head; so Robert might be forgiven for reading this gesture as a response in the negative to his question. 

‘Of course not...too busy forging a name for yourself in medical history, just like Lizzie, eh?’  He said.

Julie smiled.  How typical of him to assume that she should follow in her sister’s successful footsteps.  Elizabeth had never professed any interest in marriage being, in a sense, married to her busy career.  But Julie was in no mood to discuss the complexities of her failed marriage and aborted career and accepted his easy dismissal of the subject gratefully and without contradiction. 

This was a behavioural trait of Julie’s that was in danger of becoming a habit.  She experienced a sense of helpless insight into her situation.  Psychologists or behaviourists might label it a weakness.  It mimicked an early form of denial, this taking refuge behind the mistaken assumptions of others rather than setting things to right by exposing the truth.  Julie preferred to view it as the easiest way out of a tricky confrontation.  But she felt a nagging guilt nevertheless.  Characteristic or weakness, she had to acknowledge that old friends always deserved the truth.

‘I really am very sorry about your wife.  I wish I’d known.  But then Liz never tells me anything.  She’s so cut off from the world by her work and research, and now this new clinic - she might as well be on another planet!’

‘That’s understandable.  Liz is a very selfless woman, she always was.’ 

Robert was understanding to a degree that he actually sounded pompous!  His curious choice of adjective bemused her.  Selfless?  What did that mean?  The opposite of selfish?  Hardly, not Liz!  Yet it was a curiously apt word to describe her older sister who, at thirty-five and a strikingly attractive woman, had probably never paused longer than three seconds in front of a mirror to look at herself.  Julie always thought that if anyone asked Elizabeth to describe herself physically, she would probably not even know the colour of her own eyes intimately.  She was far too preoccupied with her career to gaze at her own reflection.  She was the Mother Theresa of medicine - cardiology, to be more precise.  Mother Elizabeth...Saint Elizabeth...

‘..So you must come to dinner and meet her.’  Robert implored, gazing earnestly into Julie’s face as she returned to the present with a guilty jolt.  So engrossed in her musings about her sister, she’d caught nothing but the tail-end of his speech.

 ‘Yes of course.’ She agreed then worried about her eagerness.  ‘I mean thanks!  I should like that very much.’

 ‘Excellent.  I know you and Sonya will like each other.  Shall we say Thursday, then?  About eight?’

 ‘Yes, that’s fine.’  Who might Sonya be and what else had Robert said?  She could hardly ask him to repeat himself.

 ‘You’re staying with Liz, I presume?  Are you home for good?  You’ve barely told me anything about yourself,’ he reproached, perhaps just a little sheepishly, in the way that people who monopolised conversations often did.

 ‘I have no definite plans at the moment.  Yes, I’m at home with Liz for now.  I’ve been living and working in London, but I spent the last year in Saudi Arabia.’

 ‘Saudi?  Good grief!’  He raised his eyebrows in surprise.  ‘Working?’

 ‘Well, yes...but I was pretty miserable there.  I’m just relieved to be home again,’ she added quickly, hoping that he wouldn’t pursue the subject further. 

He didn’t and they conversed on subjects of a far more general nature for a further ten or fifteen minutes until the throaty hum of his phone, vibrating in one of his pockets, reminded him of his afternoon meeting and they took their leave of each other.

‘Until Thursday, then,’ he handed her a small business card.  ‘Addresses, phone numbers, everything you need is on here; unless you find time to call in at the nursery before then?’

‘Oh I certainly intend to do that,’ she assured him, before their final parting.  And she meant it.

On the pavement outside the Crown Inn, Julie watched Robert’s departing back until the purposeful lunchtime crowds swallowed him up.  In her current state of lonely wretchedness, she felt his departure acutely.  He represented an umbilical link with the ‘triple s’ of her childhood:  safety, security and simplicity.  He was a link with her mother and the uncomplicated bliss of childhood; with ponies and poetry and fun and flowers.  And on top of those treasures, he had absolutely no connection with the more recent past and the confined, suffocating world of medicine that had dominated her life for almost a decade.

After her brief bout of self-indulgent wallowing, Julie continued on her own purposeless way, treading time, trying to get a step ahead of the decisions that were threatening to engulf her yet again.

****

Conversation with Elizabeth on anything other than medicine had always been a trial.  Cardiology was her pet subject and with the clinical aspects of the heart, she was in her element, but the emotional vagaries of that organ were beyond her understanding.  Liz had always taken an interest in Julie’s career, ensuring that she should not deviate from the central road of medicine onto the rockier path of surgery. 

When Julie met and soon afterwards married Simon Gardiner, during her final year of medical school, Liz worried that he might lure Julie into the surgical network.  But if Simon had tried, he would have failed spectacularly.   Without his tireless help during her six months of surgery, she would certainly have failed to complete her pre-registration year altogether.  So fundamentally convinced was she that she had chosen the wrong profession, she would have abandoned her career then and there.  Since taking a break from both career and husband, those feelings returned more forcefully than ever.

Liz reproached Simon in his absence for his benightedness in marrying Julie too soon and in taking her off to Saudi Arabia so early in her medical career.  Liz had never seen eye to eye with Simon, doubting his motives and resenting his intrusion from the outset.  After all, she was in a far better position to help her sister in her career than some surgeon from the south of England. 

‘At least your year in Saudi Arabia must have allowed you plenty of time to study for the exam,’ Liz observed.  She was referring to the all-important Membership examination for the Royal College of Physicians.

Julie steeled herself to reply. ‘Actually, Liz, I don’t think I shall bother with it.’

‘Not bother?’  What on earth do you mean?’ 

‘I’m thinking of throwing it in.’

‘Throwing what in?’ Liz demanded, as if they no longer shared the same language.

Julie sighed.  ‘Medicine, Liz.  The more I think about it, the more I feel I’ve made a terrible mistake.  I just don’t want to be a doctor.’

‘Nonsense!  You are a doctor.  Unless you mean that you’re back on that silly flirtation with surgery?  He’s not persuaded you to take up surgery, I hope?’

‘No, of course not.  I mean altogether.  Give up medicine completely.  I don’t want to be a doctor, Liz! ’

Possibly for the first time in her life, Julie’s sister had no reply.  She stared, as though seeing Julie for the first time; as though she might be some alien being.  Blinking, she recovered herself enough to articulate her thoughts. ‘You must be insane!  Very well...so your marriage fails...these things happen...but, Julie, for goodness sake...’

‘Perhaps we could discuss it another time?’ Julie said to avoid, yet again, the detour down the path of failed marriages.

‘Nonsense.  We must discuss it here and now.  What would my poor father say?’

‘He was my father too,’ Julie knew that must sound sulky and childish. ‘And I think if he were alive now I’d be able to make him understand.’  There has to be someone, somewhere who can understand that I just want out, she thought wretchedly.

‘Understand?  But he’s not here to understand anything, which is why we have a duty to respect his wishes.  How could you consider abandoning medicine when that was his dearest wish for you?’

‘Was it?’  Julie’s voice broke.  ‘Are you quite sure it was his wish, Liz?  Only sometimes I wonder why any father would want to put his daughter through such torment.  Yes, you heard.  I hate medicine.  I always have.  I hate dealing with human misery, with sickness, pain and fear.  And I know I’ll never be a good doctor.’

Liz surveyed her sister at length before replying.  ‘Look, Julie, I do believe this business with Simon has upset you far more than you led me to understand.  You’re right; we should postpone this discussion for a week or two.  You’ll feel differently after you’ve had a good rest.’

****

Several weeks passed quietly for Julie, as Liz made no attempt to resume the discussion.  New text books appeared on her desk at regular intervals, which she idly perused but her mind absorbed little information.  Julie felt woolly-headed and detached from the world of medicine now that it was no longer part of her daily routine.  However, it surrounded her and engulfed her.  She admitted, though only to herself, that before she could ever put it behind her, she must first confront it.

Eventually Liz brought up the subject again.  ‘I presume you have entered for the May exam...I’ll quiz you tonight, if you like?’

Julie had not entered her name for the May examination, nor did she feel equal to a night of ‘quizzing’ from her sister.  ‘Liz, I’m sorry!  I haven’t been studying.  I just can’t manage to organise my thoughts properly at the moment.  But I promise I’ll enter for the November exam.  And I’ll study.’ Even as she said the words, she regretted them.  She had merely said what she knew Liz wanted to hear, to buy a little peace for herself for just a few extra weeks.

Mollified, Liz smiled.  ‘Of course you can do it if you put your mind to it.  Now I think we ought to start thinking about a job for you.  Dr Richardson’s rotation is coming up shortly.  Of course he’d prefer someone with at least a passing interesting in endocrinology, but I think I might manage to...’

‘No job!  Please!  I don’t want to work just yet.  Don’t worry about me.  Just leave me alone and I’ll sort things out for myself.  I don’t want to be organised any more.  Let me do things my own way.’

But left to her own devices, she failed to sort out anything.  She managed to devote an hour or two of each day to studying but was in a constant state of agitation; a fever to be out of the house, driving or rambling through the countryside on long solitary treks or wandering the town gazing absently into shop windows.  It was on one of these excursions that she’d encountered Robert Ashley.

****

The Thursday of her dinner engagement with Robert and the mysterious Sonya, found Julie driving along Longshore Road.

R Ashley

Nursery & Landscape Gardening

Marquee Hire and Container Planting

The sign in buttercup yellow letters on a green background caught Julie’s attention and she pressed on her brake and swung between the tall gates into the broad, semicircular drive which afforded ample space for cars.  At the centre of the arc squatted a wide, low, glass-fronted building with an abundance of greenery in the windows.  To the right of this was a low, rambling building, boasting on a blue and white sign: ‘INSIDE-OUTSIDE MARQUEES’ with a second door displaying the word ‘CORNUCOPIA’ in multi-coloured letters.  To the left of the main building was a newer construction, smaller still and in the final stages of completion, but this had no sign to explain its function.  A vast array of terracotta in all shapes and sizes lined the driveway, glowing warmly in the pale sunlight and lending a faintly continental feel to the place.  Fronting the smaller building, a motley assortment of statues, ponds, trellises, fountains and a huge quantity of garden ornaments continued for some distance behind it. 

As Julie drew closer to the main building, gazebos, pagodas and other such incongruous dwellings appeared in the vast stretches of land to the rear.   She peered through the jungle of greenery in the central building but could detect no sign of life.  Entering the cool and dim interior she allowed her eyes to adjust slowly in the bosky gloom. 

A man emerged from an open doorway, wiping his hands on a square of cloth.  Dressed in denim, his jeans tightly fitting, shirt open at the neck, with rolled up sleeves, very workmanlike, he surveyed her, tilting his head slightly to one side.  He was perfect.  In spite of her natural reserve, she stared at him openly, unable to draw her eyes away from the sight in case it faded back into the greeny ether.  His eyes, keen and clear, met and returned her gaze coolly.  And still her eyes refused to drag themselves away.

‘Can I help you?’ He asked at last, the flicker of a smile playing about his lips. 

It was then Julie remembered to close her mouth and start breathing again.  She gave herself a mental shake, a kind of pulling herself together exercise, and a strange, though not at all unpleasant tingle rippled across her skin.  The exercise worked.  She even managed a fairly normal-feeling smile. ‘I was looking for Robert.  Robert Ashley.  Could you tell me where I might find him?’

A frown creased his forehead and she resisted the urge to reach out and gently smooth it away, restoring the face to its former perfection. 

‘He’s not here, I’m afraid.  He’s over at Nettlesby this afternoon.  Have you tried his mobile?  We don’t normally open on Thursdays.’  He explained.

It was Julie’s turn to frown.  She felt in her pocket and drew out Robert’s information-packed card, scrutinising it closely.  There it was, in small print Early closing: Thursday.  She tapped her fingertips against her forehead.  ‘How stupid of me; I’m sorry.’

‘It’s not a problem.   But as I’m here, maybe I can help?’

Julie shook her head. ‘Oh no.  But thank you.  Robert suggested I might call in when I was passing and have a look around.  I should have checked his card.  Silly of me.  I’ll come back another day.’

His attractive face broke into a smile and Julie couldn’t help smiling too.  It was involuntary, like the thrill she had felt as a child when the Christmas lights were switched on for the first time.  His smile was every bit as delightful.  ‘Well, as I’m here, why not let me show you around?’

And of course she protested and a polite verbal fencing match began but each objection was swiftly and skilfully parried until she gave in with gratitude and good grace and allowed herself to be conducted through cavernous greenhouses and long rows of hothouses sheltering exotic architectural plants, through shrubberies, orchards and tiny model gardens, while her good-looking guide answered her questions and drew her attention to anything worthy of more than a passing glance, like the external root system of some exotic palm. 

His exquisite hands mesmerised her as he pointed things out.  She had always thought Simon had attractive hands - typical surgeon’s hands, she used to call them - but she loved the way the gardener lovingly caressed the plants with his long, sensuous fingers as he spoke about them.  She felt a tiny tingle of pleasure and half expected to see golden fingerprints or new life blossom into being wherever he touched.  ‘Green fingered’ didn’t nearly do justice as a description.

‘You seem to get great satisfaction from all this,’ she remarked as they made their way back to the main building via ‘Cornucopia’ which turned out to be an area devoted to hanging baskets and decorative container planting.

‘Yes I do.  I find it very therapeutic working with plants.  I only wish I could spend more time here.’

‘Oh?  Then you don’t work here full-time?’  She’d already determined from his mannerisms and speech that he was unlike any gardener she had ever come across.  He must be one of those part-timers Robert mentioned.  She wondered what else he did.  Too old for a student, surely?

He laughed at her question. ‘Oh no.  I wish I did.  I’m just a casual helper.’

A casual helper, working the half holiday for a little extra overtime perhaps?    He might lose even this tenuous position if Robert returned and found him wasting time with her instead of working.  She wanted to help and a thought struck her suddenly. ‘My sister’s always complaining about the state of our garden.  I wonder if you could use some extra work - in your free time?’

He frowned, looking more baffled than annoyed. ‘Gardening?’  He sounded hesitant.

‘Or landscaping’ she added quickly.  ‘I mean whatever you think necessary.  I’m sure there’s a huge scope for improvement.  We have someone come in a couple of times a month but it’s all he can do just to keep it tidy.  And you could fit in the hours to suit yourself so that you don’t lose time here.’  The words tumbled out and she realised she must sound far too eager.  She was throwing herself at him in the most blatant and uncharacteristic way. Damn, it Julie, get a grip!

His frown was replaced by a smile of such evident amusement that it threatened to turn to laughter.  ‘Well I’m not sure that I could take on such a big job personally, but I’d be happy to take a look at it and offer some suggestions.  A low-maintenance garden;’ he considered it for a moment. ‘That could be good practice for me.’

Not take it on personally?  But it was a gift!  What did he do when he wasn’t working for Robert?  ‘Oh yes, and then you could give us your quote.’ How lame, but she wanted to make it clear she meant paid work, not a favour.  He probably thought she was too pushy.  Her cheeks burned at what must seem like her eagerness to provide him with work.  ‘Not, of course, that I can foresee any problems in that respect.’  Oh help.  Dig, dig, dig.  What is this hole I’m digging for myself?  She drew one of Elizabeth’s cards from her bag and handed it to him.

‘Dr Elizabeth Somerville...’ he read aloud.

‘That’s my sister,’ she explained.  ‘I’m Juliet, though everyone calls me Julie.’

His smile broadened.  ‘And I’m Nicholas...Masserman,’ he offered her one of his exquisite hands to shake.  She took it, savouring the thrill of touching those beautiful, long, sensitive fingers with her own.  Perhaps he was a writer or an artist who merely tended gardens for pleasure or to supplement his income?  She still held his hand and he gazed at it with that same quizzical amusement that threatened to erupt into laughter.  She released it quickly.

‘Would Saturday afternoon suit you, Miss Somerville?’

‘What?’

‘To look over the garden?’

‘Oh yes, of course!  That would be perfect.  And it’s Julie, remember?’  He placed the card in the back pocket of his jeans and she felt a twinge of guilt at her deliberate deception.  Perhaps she should have said Julie Gardiner, not Somerville; Dr Somerville, maybe, but Mrs Gardiner, in the eyes of the law.  She had removed her wedding ring many weeks ago.

Like many married professionals, she’d retained her maiden name after marrying Simon.  As they both worked in the same hospital, it avoided confusion.  But that was in the medical world.  To tradesmen she was Mrs Gardiner. 

‘Julie.’  He repeated, as if trying it out for size.  ‘And would you like to leave a message for Bob?  I’ll be seeing him around six.’

‘Oh no.  I’ll be seeing him tonight myself.  I’m invited to dinner to meet his, um....’ She faltered at the realisation that she had forgotten the name of Robert’s mysterious friend.

‘Sonya.’  He volunteered.

‘Oh yes, of course.  Sonya.  Maybe I should take some flowers,’ she glanced around at the cut flowers crammed into so many pots and vases.

‘For Bob or Sonya?’

She looked back, unsure how to reply.

‘I really shouldn’t bother’ he assured her.  ‘She always has a house full.’

Julie frowned.  That suggested that Sonya lived with Robert.  Not that that mattered of course, but if she didn’t, then offering flowers might seem a bit presumptuous.  As well as stupid!  The man owned the nursery – why would she bring flowers from his business to his house?  And why hadn’t she listened properly to Robert the other day?

‘Perhaps flowers aren’t the right thing...a bit...inappropriate?’  She murmured unhappily.

‘Not inappropriate,’ he corrected, ‘just unnecessary.  And as I’m staying at Bob’s house myself, I’ll be seeing you again tonight as well.’

 ‘You are?’ She blinked, unable to think of any suitable reply because of the multitude of feelings rampaging through her senses.  Things were certainly looking up, but she felt suddenly exhausted, as if she was taking part in a play for which she’d received the wrong script.  She turned towards the display of house plants.  Good breeding has well-established roots.  She ought to buy something.   Randomly she selected an interesting-looking indoor palm.

‘My sister adores these,’ she lied, doubting that Elizabeth had any affection at all for house plants.  He took the plant from her and proceeded, unskilfully to wrap paper around its terracotta pot.  ‘How long have you been lodging with Robert?

 He wrestled, all fingers and thumbs, with the sticky-tape dispenser. ‘A few years.  Since Linda died.  I trust you know about that?’

 ‘Yes, he told me.’  She handed him a twenty pound note.  Did she dare tell him to keep the change?  No, better not. He might be offended.  He had to turn a key and tap a code into the cash register but evidently kept getting it wrong as the machine beeped in complaint. Julie had to look away to hide her amusement.  She remembered Robert’s words about time and good friends helping him over his bereavement and felt irrationally pleased to think that this Nicholas with the sensitive hands was one of those ‘good friends’.

‘Thank you again for the tour,’ she said.

He reached around her to open the door for her just as her hand touched the handle.  For the briefest moment his hand covered hers and he smiled at her. He’d insisted on carrying the plant to the car and she unlocked the back door.

‘My pleasure.’  He wedged it on the floor at the rear and tested it to ensure it was secure.  ‘I look forward to seeing you again later.’

She smiled and nodded.  And that, I can assure you, is entirely mutual.

Leaving the garden centre, she continued along Longshore Road for a mile or so before turning right towards the town centre, stopping to buy chocolates and wine for the evening. She hoped that Sonya would not also have a house full of chocolates or be one of those permanent dieters.  And then, on a sudden impulse, Julie stepped inside an elegant and very expensive-looking dress shop.

The Apple Tree and Bound to the Prince

 

[Please see previous blog entry]

The Apple Tree by Lynette Sofras is a contemporary romance of approximately 58,000 words

Escaping from your past is never easy, as young hospital doctor Juliet discovers when she tries to start afresh, leaving both her marriage and her career behind.  Love blossoms rapidly when she meets the mysterious and forthright gardener, Nicholas, who seems to herald the new beginning she craves.  The past quickly dissolves into insignificance as their all-consuming romance propels them forward but Juliet has to learn the price of happiness in the cruellest way possible.  Will she be able face the painful roots of her past in order for her future to grow strong and healthy?

Bound to the Prince by Deborah Court is a fantasy/erotic romance of approximately 100,000 words

Once a proud warrior, elven prince Elathan is living in exile, fallen from grace and separated from his own people. When he beholds a compelling mortal woman on a London bridge one night, he hunts her down and abducts her to be his slave of pleasure. Bound by magic and desire, Igraine Chandler finds herself in a world beyond her wildest dreams, fighting at her prince's side to reclaim his throne.

Feeding the Mechanical Cannibal

Friends always seem interested in the types of writing I get asked to do as a freelance writer and always ask me what I’ve been working on.  The short answer to their question is ‘anything and everything’ because there is not a single topic about which you can’t find some information on the internet – and all that information has to written by someone like me.

Every article needs to be informative and as accurate as possible (although I’m only too well aware that is not always the case with everything you read on the World Wide Web).  Needless to say, my knowledge is not encyclopaedic (if it only were, I would be applying as an understudy for the legendary Stephen Fry!) and of course worthwhile articles require painstaking research to give them any commercial value at all.  That, of course, means that I spend most of my day browsing the internet, sifting through the billions of words in search of reliable, verifiable facts.

I have two visions of the internet: one as something vaguely incestuous with interrelated links like a massively extended Eastenders family; and the other like a gigantic mechanical cannibal as it constantly feeds off its own kind, regurgitating the same information to be re-devoured and regurgitated in a slightly different way in order to evade accusations of plagiarism.  There are numerous devices available to check for copyright infringements, but after a few years of writing articles it become easy to trace these back to their source through their sometimes tortuous literary umbilical cords.  I have seen my own material re-created in this way and no longer feel indignant about what at school was once called ‘cheating’ but which has now become standard internet practice.  After all, it’s only words, and the spirit of the internet is to make knowledge accessible, which can only be a good thing.

Still, it does make general article-writing pall after a while.  Thinking up new things to say on a subject becomes more and more difficult as the internet expands at such a fast and mind-boggling rate.  Do we need one more article parroting the same information on this over-burdened super highway?  This is one of the reasons I have moved slightly sideways into editing and am finding this much more satisfying.

Most interesting of all is editing creative work.  With the growing popularity of ebooks, more and more writers are taking advantage of this platform to self-publish.  They say everyone has a book in them and just a quick glance at Amazon’s Kindle store seems to corroborate this urban myth.  However the internet also encourages brutal honesty and readers will write reviews telling you exactly what they think and one thing readers definitely dislike is reading a book with glaring errors of grammar, punctuation, syntax etc.  And this is where I come in.

I feel truly privileged to work with really creative people and help them to realise their ideas by tidying up a well-crafted story so that it flows properly and does not hinder its readers’ enjoyment of the narrative.  With my own aspirations to be a published writer, I can honestly say that this is a dream job – only one step away from enjoying success in my own right (or should I say write?)

Creativity and ambition are infectious too, it seems.  One particular writer for whom I edited an ebook quickly became a very good friend who began to encourage me in my own writing endeavours in a positive and helpful way.  The result was that within a week, thanks entirely to her, I published my first ebook on Kindle and that was a truly thrilling event for me!  It was something I had simply not considered for myself before.  The short blog to follow this will contain brief descriptions and links to both Deb’s debut novel (Bound to the Prince) and my own (The Apple Tree) and I would be equally thrilled if you chose to read either of them, as one shows my editing skills and one my writing.

Making Money Online

When I decided to start a blog, it was meant to have very regular input. What got in the way of my writing? Well, more writing, actually!

When I gave up teaching it was with the sole intention of pursuing my interest in writing; finishing off that novel that has been bursting for release for years and maybe starting a few more writing projects. Then one day, quite by accident, I came across a link which led me to a link, which...oh well, I won’t bore you with a tedious tour of the internet. The shortened version is that I found I could use my interest in writing to actually make a regular income until my novel hits the best seller lists (dreams are just about the only commodity left that cost us nothing).

There are many freelance writing sites on the internet and I’m not even sure I chose the best one, but I registered and pretty soon found myself with my first writing project. This entailed writing a number of articles for ezines on various subjects, ranging from crystal jewellery to space heaters. After the initial project finished, the employer asked me to continue working for him, which I agreed to do.

As that was my first project, I had deliberately set my financial sights quite low, but as I gained in confidence (helped by his praise and the ego boost of seeing my articles published on the internet, albeit under someone else’s name), I aimed slightly higher the next time around.

Project number two was all about tattoos. Now, what I knew about tattoos could be written on the back of a postage stamp so I was very apprehensive when I discovered the nature of the second project from a Chinese client. However, I needn’t have worried and the project could not have been more ‘up my street’, as it entailed researching all the symbolism behind tattoo designs. I loved it! Once again, the client asked me to continue writing for him after the initial project ended.

Following that, projects came thick and fast. Thanks to the positive feedback left by the clients on the freelance writing site, I was able to select projects according to my interests and each time command slightly more in recompense. I’m not saying I will ever become rich from this type of work and, because I’m such a perfectionist, I’m unlikely to ever churn out the quantity of articles to make it really lucrative financially, but I get by and I thoroughly enjoy the work I do and can ring the changes whenever I like. I have built up a substantial client list who can provide me with all the work I wish to undertake, so my visits to the freelance site are now infrequent.

My innumerable projects have included health-related articles, fashion, finance, travel and tourism, academic and educational writing and ghost-writing entire books. More recently I have enjoyed focusing on editing and proofreading and I can honestly say that every project has generated more work for me and it has also introduced me to some great friends. And I intend to introduce you to some of those in my next blog.

Tie be, or not tie be - that is the question

Drive through any urban area between three and four pm when the schools are disgorging students faster than the speed of light, and you will notice the radically different ways kids from different schools wear (or sometimes don’t wear) their school ties. This got me wondering whether tie fashions reflect the way students feel about their ties or about their schools.

As a former teacher, I know how important the school uniform is to a school and in most secondary schools, the senior management team will try to ensure that children leave the school premises looking smart. After all they represent the school to the local community. But somewhere between the school gate and the nearest bus stop, that uniform – and the tie in particular – undergoes a radical makeover.

If students resent wearing ties so much, shouldn’t we be listening to them? What real function to ties serve anyway? The blazer colour and badge identify the school perfectly well, so as a means of advertising the school the tie is pretty well redundant. The majority of students leaving school will probably only wear a tie on very rare occasions. For boys, these will be their first interview, their wedding and perhaps if attending a funeral. But what about the girls? Unless they join the forces, they will probably never again wear a tie in their lives. So why inflict this unwanted accessory on them for eleven of their most formative years?

I began noticing ties more and more over the last few weeks – or perhaps I should say I began noticing their absence. On a trip to London during the rush hour, I noticed the majority of commuters were men and in my carriage only a small percentage were wearing ties. On the TV, whilst Tim Henman seemed to sport his tie with pride, another famous commentator, Boris Becker, looked far more relaxed without one; and on Question Time, last week, I noticed Hugh Grant was the only male panellist not to wear a tie – but that certainly had no adverse effect his eloquence, wit and credibility. The audience was solidly behind him (and I only noticed one tie amongst them). Conversely, Stephen Fry was the only tie-wearing member of the all-male team on QI and while his tie may have looked like an esplanade of multi-coloured pebbles snaking a beach of fuchsia-tinted sand, it definitely did not dim his dazzling repartee.

Nevertheless, it seems being on TV (even the BBC) is no longer up there with weddings and funerals as meriting formal attire. Is this a silent rebellion against the noose-like symbol of subservience to one’s company? Are ties gradually disappearing in the same way as cuff links which might be seen as jewels in the manacles of servitude?

Politicians, when they do wear them, seem to pick them as an afterthought to bring out the colour their rosettes when they are out and about, slumming it with Joe or Jo public; whilst in hospitals they are no longer considered de rigueur by the medical profession.

So why do men wear ties? And what’s more, why do women seem to get so much pleasure out of choosing and buying them for their men? Are ties really smart attire, or are they simply outdated throwbacks to some sort of institutionalised servitude, which women, in some sinister fashion, endorse?

Travel Writing - Siena, Italy

I am frequently asked to write articles on travel, which I enjoy because it allows me to relive memories of some of the wonderful places I have visited in the past. I love Italy in general and Siena in particular and below is a sample of a brief article written about this magical place.

Siena travel guide

Little more than an hour’s drive from Florence lies the captivating little oasis that is Siena. Seated in the true heart of Tuscany, this beautiful mediaeval city, now a UNESCO World heritage Site, beckons visitors within its protective walls in order to weave a spell of enchantment with its charms. Its narrow streets are made for walking, not driving (in fact cars are not allowed within the centre) and for losing oneself in time as well as place.

Siena dwells heavily in the past and it is a past steeped in tradition, as a wander through the warren of narrow lanes and cobbled alleys will reveal. The numerous museums and galleries recount Siena’s past Gothic glories and, for those with a taste for the macabre, grisly instruments of torture can be viewed at the Museo della Tortura, while the mummified head of St Catherine (which was separated from the rest of her remains and smuggled out of Rome) resides in the Basilica di San Domenico.

Twice yearly the Palio, or bareback horse race takes place, in which 10 riders display their equestrian prowess around Il Campo. There are also several places in which you can learn to make (and then eat) traditional Tuscan cuisine or you can snack on local peasant fare of stuffed and deep fried olives, prepared by cheery street vendors. Alternatively, you may choose to sit out in the cool shade of open air cafes surrounding the Campo, Siena’s shell-shaped central piazza, as you watch Siena life buzz by.

A visit to the Gothic cathedral, Il Duomo, Siena’s artistic and architectural masterpiece, with its inlaid marble floors, all frescoes and painted windows and crammed with fascinating history is a must-do; while an ascent up the spiral steps of Torre del Mangia, a mediaeval bell tower, is equally advisable. This affords a 360° view across the tightly-packed ochre rooftops of the city and out across the vineyards and rolling fields of olive and lemon groves, stretching out as far as the eye can see into this dreamy landscape which is true Tuscany.