Imogen Clark's Blog, page 5

Frosty mornings

I like to get away from my desk on mornings like this, just for half an hour or so. I listen to podcasts as I walk along and come back refreshed and ready to go.

I generally find some company.

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It’s Spring!!!

It’s Spring!!!Welcome to my monthly newsletter for March 2024

If you a purist about these things, then you will no doubt want to tell me that Spring doesn’t start until the 20th of March and that’s fine. You can stick with that date if it pleases you, but I prefer to slice my year into four neat quarters, one for each season. And so my Spring starts on 1st March and that was Friday – so we’re well and truly off!

Where have I been?

Syracuse, Sicily

February sneaked by, didn’t it? I made a trip to Wells-Next-the-Sea as is my wont and managed to catch an unseasonably warm day between the rain showers which was nice. But my most interesting explore was my research trip to Syracuse in Sicily.

Here’s a map in case you, like me, weren’t entirely sure where it is – Syracuse, I mean, not Sicily. ‘Long legged Italy kicked poor Sicily right in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.’ I assume you learned that at school too. Anyway, I digress.

I have been researching locations for the new book. Part of the story will be set in Sicily in the 1980s and as that was the last time I was there myself I thought it a good excuse to hop on a plane and go and see how the place has changed.

A lot, is the answer and I’m still digesting all that I saw and how it sits with my 1980 memories. (If you want to see a holiday snap of me in Selinunte in 1986 then click here.) But for the purposes of my book research, the trip was very useful and with my usual blend of artistic licence (ie twisting the truth to suit me) and imagination I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to write a convincing scene or two.

Sicily unchanged.

On our last day we had torrential rain. The Sicilians seemed very shocked by it and rushed about between each other’s cafés shaking their heads and peering at the sky ominously. Obviously we Brits have grown gils this winter so we were fine in the deluge.

Despite my gadding about across Europe, the book, currently titled A Question of Loyalty, is actually going to be mainly set in Ripon in North Yorkshire so you can expect some photos from there over the coming months. It’s a lovely and quite tiny city and also has the added bonus of being a little more accessible from Ilkley than Sicily is.

What am I writing?

Actually, I’m beginning to feel like a fraud. I know I call myself an writer but I haven’t written anything new since October. But we are nearly through this fallow period – thank goodness. The copy edits on the new Imogen Clark book have landed in my inbox and once I get those out of the way then it should be plain sailing to my August deadline. I’m positively giddy at the prospect of getting stuck into something new.

In other news, there’s still no cover to share with you for Table for Five, which is Izzy’s new book and will be out in June. (If you’re new around here then I should explain that I also write light-hearted fiction as Izzy Bromley.)

My publishers and I had a last minute change of heart on the cover design so a little more patience is required by us all. However, I can now share the book description with you. Here it is.

Abbie Finch loves her job.

Unfortunately, her boss doesn’t love her.

When she finds herself unexpectedly unemployed, Abbie realises that she’s let all her friendships fall by the wayside and has no one to turn to.

Lost and lonely, Abbie decides to leave her comfort zone and join the neighbourhood café’s community table. There she meets aloof, elegant Ethel, down-on-his luck Bob, colourful, chaotic Dawn and recently relocated Viraj. Friends? Not yet. But when they decide to help the homeless people in their community by staging an extravagant fundraising event, will something that began as a good deed help Abbie find a way back to herself—and make lifelong friends at the same time?

What do you think? Does it sound interesting? Well, it’s up for pre-order hereand we’ll have to wait a little bit longer for the cover reveal.

In another sneak preview I can reveal that September’s Imogen Clark book (the one I’m currently editing) will be called A Borrowed Path. Watch this space for more about that.

What have I read?

I’ve read some great books again this month. You know how sometimes you just get a really good run? Well, I’m definitely on one. Here are my top four recommendations.

This month’s book suggestions.

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer is about a group of teenagers who are thrown together on a summer camp for creative kids. The book then follows them through their adult life. Just having talent is not enough to make someone successful, as we all know, and as the book examines each character we see how opportunities may be missed for all kinds of reasons. It’s also an excellent study on what it takes to be a lifelong friend.

How to Talk to a Widower by Jonathan Tropper is the story of Doug whose wife Hayley is killed in an accident when he is just 28. This leaves him devastated and with Hayley’s teenage son, who would rather be with Doug than his actual dad, hanging around and requiring attention. It’s beautifully observed piece on long term grief and moving forward but it’s also written with a wit that made me laugh. The dialogue is sassy and punchy and it pulled me right into their world.

Oh Sister! by Jodie Chapman is about three women all born into an extreme church, (which seemed to me to be loosely based on the Jehovah’s Witnesses.) The women know nothing about life outside the church, but one by one they break the rules and have to deal with the consequences of that, being forced to turn their backs on the only life they have ever known. There are many parallels between the strict, male domination of the church and life in general. You don’t have to dig very deep to relate to their stories.

Trespasses by Louise Kennedy is an ill-fated love story set in Ireland in the 1970s at the height of the Troubles. Life there is a complex business, with its parameters made up of society’s expectations, what the church permits, a small community thriving on gossip and the deep civil unrest of The Troubles. Caught up in all this is is Cushla who embarks on an affair with an older married man. The tension that all these factors bring to bear on such a relationship builds steadily through the book so that the impending sense of doom becomes impossible to ignore. I really loved the descriptions of life in the 70s. I’d clean forgotten about running out of school in my underwear (mid Music and Movement class) for bomb scares.

And that’s it . . .

for this month. Do you like the newsletter coming via SubStack? You can comment below. I’m still experimenting with the platform and haven’t yet made any long term decisions as to how I’ll use it but I have been posting my Saturday Chats. One of the things that SubStack allows you to do is easily inform your audience when you have posted something new. I’ve been resisting doing this because I’m conscious that I promised one newsletter a month and I don’t want to bombard you. But if you do follow me on SubStack then I think it will send you a notification of anything I write.

Anyway, that’s enough from me. When we reach the end of next month I will FINALLY have started writing something new, London Book Fair and all its madness with have been and gone, I will have been wedding dress hunting with my daughters, have visited my son in Croatia and will hopefully have some covers to share. All this to come next month.

But until then, happy reading.

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Sharpening the Saw

I’m in Wells to edit and yet first thing this morning I’m out walking. Not editing.

I said to a friend that I was as procrastinating and they said no, I was just sharpening the saw.

I love this. 💛

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New blog post!!

Hello! I’ve just written a blog post about what gave me the idea for In a Single Moment so click on Blog above if you’re curious.

I’m always curious. Or should that be nosy? Occupational hazard!

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In a Single Moment

The idea behind In a Single Moment

My latest book In a Single Moment is now out and I thought you might be interested in where the idea for the book came from.

It's hard to explain without SPOILERS so if you haven't read it yet then maybe stop reading at this point!

When I was a girl, my mum told me a story about someone she was at teaching training college with. Valerie, my mother told me, had been swapped by the hospital at birth and grew up in the wrong family.

Her mother, Margaret, knew almost immediately what had happened but could get no one to listen so, rather ingeniously, she chose to ensure that her connection with the other family was never lost by making the other father godfather to what was, in essence, his own child.

But Margaret never persuaded anyone that she was right. The parents of the other baby, Peggy, refused, on the advice of their solicitors, to participate in any blood tests despite the fact that you could just by looking at the children that they were with the wrong families. (I've seen the photos so I know this is true.) As she became more desperate, Margaret entered into correspondence with playwright, George Bernard Shaw to try and get her cause noticed, and those letters form the basis of a book, Letters from Margaret which I bought for my mum as a gift.

I was fascinated by this story as a girl. How could you be in the wrong family and no one do anything to sort it out? It made no sense to me. The truth had finally emerged just before my mother met Peggy, over twenty years later, but I'm not sure it was all happy families from that point on.

As I result of hearing about Peggy and Valerie, I always wanted to try my hand at a baby swap book. However, I didn't want it to be obvious that the babies didn't fit where they had landed so I gave everyone dark hair and no particular distinguishing features. As I wrote, I played with ideas of nature and nurture in both families, dropping in clues which might suggest both that a swap had happened and that it hadn't. In fact, I didn't know if there had been a swap as I was writing and only discovered the answer for myself when I wrote the scene in the art gallery, which is almost at the very end of the book.

Let's talk a little now about the setting. Lincoln is a beautiful cathedral city in the midlands of England and I lived there for a few years in the 80s. I decided to set the book there because it lent itself so well to my plot. The old town, all history and tourists, is at the top of a very steep hill and the working part of the city is down at the bottom beyond the railway tracks, a very visual representation of the haves and the have nots. It's also small enough that Sylvie and Michelle could reasonably have bumped into one another.

I had a wonderful trip, revisiting old haunts and seeing the place through an adult's eyes. I was only sixteen when we moved away and the world looked very different to me then. As ever, places I discovered on my research trip made it into the book. I know exactly where Sylvie and Jeremy live and can take you to the dyke where Donna sees the fox. The dénouement scene was also inspired by my own visit to the art gallery and I spent a very self-indulgent morning in the cathedral. Some places I had to make up. The houses where Michelle and Dean might have lived don't have gardens in front of them, so I added those with a flourish of my artistic licence.

And there you have it. I hope you've found this post interesting. If you're reading the book with your book club then there are some questions to kick start your discussion HERE and as ever if you want to ask my anything about my books then please do get in touch. I love to hear from my readers.

Lincoln Cathedral from the castle walls.

Steep Hill, Lincoln.

Want to know more? Then why not sign up for my Readers' Club? I'll send you a monthly newsletter to keep you up to date with all the inside information about life behind the scenes. You can also join me on my Imogen Clark Author Facebook page or Instagram where I post pictures most days.

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Editing – yuk!

It has to be done and it makes such a difference to the final book, but I really don’t like editing. It’s overwhelming and yet dull at the same time.

But I’m on a deadline (even though it’s Christmas) and I have to finish it!

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Festive Weather …. not.

I know it’s England and Yorkshire and all that … but it would it kill the weather gods to pull something festive out of the bag?!

Currently it’s grey, dank, windy, warm and really not at all Christmassy!

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Something to make you smile

I saw this sign when I was in Wells this week. It made me smile so I had to buy it.

A great rule to live by, I thought.

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A Festive Short Story

The Nod.

My heart raced. I held my breath. This was the pinnacle of everything that I had been working towards for the entire year and for many years before. I stood, primed and waiting for the nod.
But I’m skipping ahead. Before you can fully appreciate the significance of this moment, I need to explain something of my life back then. I was eleven years old, not exactly snotty-nosed and scabby-kneed but with most of the other characteristics of a small boy. My hair was still blond and it curled like a cherub’s. I had freckles and I suppose I must have looked appropriately angelic as I processed up the nave in my red cassock and starched white surplice.
You see, I was a chorister at the Cathedral. Life was busy and discipline was strict with rehearsals before breakfast and after school followed by the daily choral Evensong. Our choirmaster was called Mr Fazakerley but we boys nicknamed him Ming on account of his bald head and neatly trimmed black goatee. Ming was a hard taskmaster. I’d like to say he was harsh but fair but in reality he was just harsh. He could control the choir, a raggle-taggle bunch of pre-pubescent boys, with a single raise of his arched eyebrow. It wasn’t that we respected his authority as such. We were simply terrified of him.
We spent hours on end in his rehearsal room, an unprepossessing place which contrasted sharply with the splendour of the ancient Cathedral above us. It was long and thin and slightly damp and it smelled of candle wax and incense. There were panelled mahogany cupboards at either end in which we stored our robes and countless dusty box files of music. Down the centre ran two rows of choir stalls, far less ornate than those in the chancel upstairs, with uncomfortable wooden seats and a sloping shelf running the length of them where we would rest our copies. To one side was a battered upright piano
on which the organist, Mr Timmis, would accompany us. There was also MIng’s black music stand. He always stood on a small wooden stool to conduct us so that no boy could claim that they could not see his baton. He never smiled or praised us but if the sound that we made came close to sublime he would indicate his approval by the faintest nod of his shiny head. When he wanted us to stop singing he would flick his baton and purse his lips. Not stopping immediately was evidence that we had not been watching him, a punishable offence in itself.
‘No!’ Ming would bark at us if the music displeased him. ‘Bar 22. Do it again! And concentrate!’
Mr TImmis would give us the note and we would sing the phrase for a second time.
‘Stop!’ Ming’s bellowing voice would interrupt us again. ‘Someone is below the note. Who is it?’
Then he would leave his stool and stalk between the stalls, eyeing us each individually like a predatory wolf. We held our breath, hoping that his gaze wouldn’t linger on us. When the tension in the room had become unbearable, he would select his victim.
‘You boy. Sing it again.’
The rest of us would relax slightly and watch as the unfortunate chorister sang the phrase for the third time. Ming stood so close that you could smell his sweat and he would watch the shape of the culprit’s mouth, looking for evidence of a distorted note. The terrified boy, trying hard to focus beyond Ming’s penetrating stare, concentrated on producing his purest and most accurate sound. Eventually satisfied that this boy could sing what was required of him, Ming would continue down the line, prowling agonizingly slowly. We hardly dared breathe and our little bottoms clenched tightly as we prayed that his narrowed eye would not settle on us next. It’s hard to describe the terror that he generated in that dingy rehearsal room. Even now, thirty years on and with Ming cold in his grave, simply bringing him to mind makes the base of my spine prickle.

My best friend was called Rudge. He was a scholarship boy and so was set a little apart from the rest of us. His accent was more rural, his words less clipped and there was always something a little bit grubby looking about him even though matron organised the washing of his uniform just as she did everyone else’s. He took some ribbing from the other boys because his parents rolled up for exeat in a battered Vauxhall rather than a Mercedes. He always had a smart answer for the bullies though and never showed any weakness but sometimes, after lights out, I could hear him sobbing quietly beneath the coarse woollen blankets.
However, the one thing about Rudge that no one mocked was his voice. When he opened his mouth to sing it was if the very angels had transported you to some ethereal
cloud. Where the rest of us would climb our way steadfastly to a top B flat, he would soar over its zenith without any effort and I have to admit that I was more than a little envious of his talent.
Anyway, this particular year Christmas was fast approaching. The festive season is obviously a terribly busy period for the Cathedral and we boys were rehearsing longer and harder than usual. The main focus of the celebration was the Service of Nine Carols and Lessons on Christmas Eve. Traditionally it began with a single voice singing the first verse of “Once in Royal David’s City”. Ming never told us who would be given the honour of singing the verse beforehand. Instead, when we and the congregation were all in our places he would simply nod at one of us and that boy, with the note already pitched in his head, would burst forth into the verse.
Of course, the identity of the chosen boy was never a total surprise. There was a pecking order of sorts. Whoever it was had to be old enough to appreciate the solemnity of the occasion and have a proven track record of holding their nerve and consequently their voice, steady. I was on the list of possibilities as were a couple of others but Rudge was
always the favourite. I don’t know if he knew this because tradition decreed that we didn’t discuss who might be chosen, and when it was over we would simply acknowledge the supremacy of the successful chorister by giving him a hearty thump on the back. We were boys after all.
So, it was Christmas Eve and we were in the rehearsal room. There was even more pressure than usual that year as the BBC was coming to record the service for a documentary about life at the Cathedral School. This meant that Ming was at his most merciless. The service was due to start a few hours later and we were busy polishing our performance ready for the cameras, the hard work of rehearsal having been done already. It was just after lunch and we had raced from the refectory so as not to be late. After about twenty minutes, I began to notice Rudge shifting in his seat. I signaled a question to him, raising my eyebrows quizzically.
‘Are you OK?’ I mouthed.
‘I need the loo,’ he mouthed back. ‘Badly.’
Leaving the rehearsal room was to be avoided at all costs but was not unheard of in dire emergency. I pulled a sympathetic face at him and went back to concentrating on the music but after a minute or two I could see that Rudge was still squirming. There was at least another hour and a half of rehearsal before we would break to robe and attend to calls of nature and I wondered what he was going to do.
Tentatively he raised his hand. Ming must have seen him but took no notice.
‘Please sir,’ he said when it became apparent that Ming was not going to speak to him. Everyone else stared, fascinated to learn how this interruption would be dealt with.
Ming tutted loudly and brought his baton down hard on his music stand making a bone shattering crack which reverberated around the room.
‘What is it?’ he hissed.
‘Please sir, may I be excused?’
‘Why?’ spat Ming.
‘I need to use the loo sir.’
‘You should have gone before we began. You will have to wait.’
‘But sir, I really don’t think...’
‘Be quiet boy. Bar 47. You are far too loud on this entry. I want to be able to hear the congregation breathing over the top of you.’
Rudge put his hand back down. I tried to catch his eye but he was looking at his feet. The rehearsal continued for another ten minutes and then Rudge’s hand went up again. This time Ming showed no mercy.
‘What is it boy? So help me God but I will chop that arm off at the shoulder if it interrupts my rehearsal one more time.’
‘I’m sorry sir but I really need the loo.’
‘Oh, do you now? Well, if you leave this rehearsal room you can forget anything about the first verse and you can consider yourself out of the choir for the next term.’
I looked at Rudge. His lips had thinned to a narrow line and I could see tears forming in the corners of his eyes. I hoped the others couldn’t.
It was about ten minutes later that I caught the unmistakable stench. It passed amongst the stalls like fog, weaving in and out of us until there was not one boy who did not know what had happened. Then it hit Ming. His pointed nose wrinkled in disgust and he stopped beating time which brought the music abruptly to a halt.
‘What is that smell?’ he asked, peering at us in turn.
‘Please sir,’ chirped one of the smaller boys. ‘I think it’s Rudge. He’s had an accident.’
I turned to look at Rudge although I’m sure in my heart I had already guessed what had happened. One look at him confirmed my fears.
‘Go to the bathroom boy! At once!’ shouted Ming, his anger barely controlled. Rudge stood up and waddled with what little dignity he could muster towards the door.

The Cathedral was full and the sense of excited expectation prickled in the air. You could have heard the proverbial pin. Every eye was on Ming as he stood before us in his gown and hood, baton raised. His eyes passed down the line of boys standing in the choir stalls before him. I could feel my heart pounding beneath my cassock and my nails dug sharply into my palms. Would this be my year? His eyes continued their path past me and on down the line and I felt a surge of disappointment, albeit mingled with relief, that the chance to sing the first verse of Once in Royal David’s City would not be mine that day. Ming’s black eyes settled on Rudge. I wasn’t surprised. Notwithstanding his disgrace in the rehearsal room, he still had by far and away the best voice. The honour should be rightfully his. I saw Rudge straighten his back and grow a little taller. The nod, when it came, was so small as to be almost imperceptible but we all knew that the decision was made. There was nothing MIng could do now. It was completely out of his control until the organ came in with the second verse. This was Rudge’s moment.
Rudge turned himself slightly in the stall so that he was facing the congregation and took a deep breath. You could have heard a pin drop. The verse was unaccompanied and there wasn’t even a note from the organ to break the silence.
Then, in that voice so pure that it made you shiver, he began to sing.
‘Last Christmas I gave you my heart. But the very next day you gave it away...’
It took a moment for it to register what was happening and when I did I could barely believe it. I looked first to Rudge who was singing out as loud and clear as a nightingale . Then I turned to Ming. His jaw dropped and his face turned puce, all its mean angles exaggerated as he listened to the pop song fill the Cathedral. We all looked at one another. We were too well trained to giggle but our mouths fell open in shock and then admiration.
And what could Ming do? Absolutely nothing. The service had begun, the cameras were rolling. He simply had to stand there and suffer until Rudge got to the end of the verse. Then, finally, Mr Timmis opened up the organ and the familiar tones of “Once in Royal” filled the building.
Rudge didn’t come back to school the following term. There was a rumour that he had been expelled but I think his parents saw the writing on the wall and took him away before he was kicked out. We never saw Ming again either and the gentle Mr Timmis took over the choir for a term or two which we boys all approved of wholeheartedly.
I lost touch with Rudge but each Christmas his sweet revenge comes back to me. It will stay with me forever.

Want to know more? Then why not sign up for my Readers' Club? I'll send you a monthly newsletter to keep you up to date with all the inside information about life behind the scenes. You can also join me on my Imogen Clark Author Facebook page or Instagram where I post pictures most days.

I look forward to seeing you.

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Beside the seaside.

My favourite place is by water. It doesn’t have to be the sea. I’m not fussy. Rivers and lakes work just as well. Even canals at a push!

But today I’m on the beach and it’s lovely.

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