Maria Donovan's Blog, page 7

Comings and Goings

To feel time passing, take a look around.

In these Corona times, I’ve heard it said that one day can seem much like another; but the daily walk around an increasingly familiar Dorset hillside offers its own means of noticing how time passes, a way to experience the subtle day to day changes that build into those great leaps from bud to leaf and flower, to fruit and seed, to colour change, leaf fall and back to bare twigs tockling in the wind.

New to me was the appearance of a plant I first noticed on 22 June, in the damp under-storey. It has broad green leaves and spikes of modest white flowers: in other years my eyes must have passed over it.

[image error]Broad-leaved enchanter

A picture uploaded to Plantnet – a free app that helps you identify plants through photos taken on your smartphone – brought back this identification: Broad-leaved Enchanter. The name gave off a smell of lurking magic.

As usual with this app it’s a good starting point to find out more. In this case it was easy to confirm the plant’s identity as the one with the botanical name Circaea lutetiana. Another common name is Broad-leaved Enchanter’s Nightshade, which is a bit of a mouthful.

The plant has quickly taken its place as another sign of time passing. It appears in the shade of the closed canopy, among sparse growth of grass, docks and nettles, as the long spring and early summer season of wild garlic and bluebells runs to seed and melts back into the earth.

Now, a few weeks on, the Broad-leaved Enchanter has become unavoidable. What once seemed rare and new quickly becomes common. I’ve even noticed it in the wilder parts of my tiny garden and was pleased – until the RHS website mentioned that it has underground rhizomes and can become a nuisance if allowed to spread. Now I have to decide whether to remove it.

Luckily, on the hillside I am not required to make that decision and can leave things to achieve their own balance.

[image error]Looking North NorthWest

This photo looking northwest was taken early in June. Then, the time for gathering elderflower was already past its peak.

Now in mid-July, everything’s at full stretch. Some grasses are waist height, the brambles reach out to snag us. On the grassy uplands, other plants appear in drifts: the yellow flush of sweet-swelling Lady’s Bedstraw (Galium Verum) and the white of its nearby relative Hedge Bedstraw (Galium Album) also known as False Baby’s Breath. As the name suggests the bedstraws were used in times past for stuffing into mattresses.

[image error]Gallium Verum[image error]Gallium Album

The Guelder Rose has long since shaken off its wedding gown and glows with clusters of fleshy red berries – but only in full sun. Back on the shady path the berries are still green.

[image error]Fruits of the Guelder Rose

The very last of the elderflowers cling on even now but nearly everywhere have changed to tight green knobbles held up to catch the sun. I am half-dreading the sight of them darkening and turning upside down, for that to me is the sign that summer’s almost done. Will this year’s late summer into autumn be one of stillness and heat with that afterglow that’s warmer than springtime? Sometimes it’s much too warm. The school summer holidays begin here next week, usually a sign for a change to windy, wet and cold, but it’s not quite the same this year, is it? Children have been homeschooling and going for walks. The old superstitions and applications of Sod’s Law don’t seem to apply.

But we’re not there yet: the decline of the purple foxglove sees the rise of yellow-starred St John’s Wort – another surprise and delight. This is one of my favourite plants from the time when I used to make my own red oil. Hold one tiny leaf up to the light and see why this Hypericum is called Perforatum, for the oil cells let the light shine through.

[image error]St John’s Wort Hypericum Perforatum

Unripe hazelnuts shells lie on the path brought down by hungry squirrels, on the cooler banks the blackberry still blossoms, just about. Often they say, these are the last wild flowers of the year. Young fruits show small and green but where the sun bathes the south-facing bushes, the tip fruits are ripening.

[image error]Ripening Blackberries

Everything is going about its business: to flower, get pollinated, fruit and seed.

Where you are, what things in nature make you feel conscious of the passing of time?

Does the fleeting nature of almost everything make you feel appreciative? Or do you feel that sweet melancholy that comes with knowing that things always move on? For me it’s often a mixture of both at the same time.

Please feel free to share links to photos and posts of the natural world where you are!

Grief and Trivia

Bereaved and grieving, I experienced an unexpected lack of patience with things that seemed trivial.

Watching a celebrity chef holding forth with unmatched certainty, as if he had invented food and philanthropy, I suddenly thought: ‘Oh Jamie Oliver! What’s the point of you?’

Looking back, I know I didn’t see the point in anything much then, myself included. I was angry and full of misery and sorrow.

When I was in that state of deep grieving, I couldn’t bear the weight of the world as well. It was enough to get through the day. To put one foot in front of the other.

The things that gave me solace then were walking and the natural world. The daily walks that re-established themselves during lockdown have kept me going now. It helps to see what is changing; how life in all its colour goes on. You can lose yourself in the moment, watching a bumblebee or listening to birdsong or smelling the fragrance of elderflower on the hillside.

We come back to life; we carry on; trying harder than ever to make good use of our time, to do the right thing, to be fully alive because it could all end at any moment.

And yet we still have to do all the ordinary things: dull admin and cleaning the bathroom. There are personal relationships to maintain, people to care for and about. Sometimes there are beautiful things: supportive friends and love and understanding. We can laugh again. Or focus on gratitude at least once a day.

Only, as we rise from the depths of personal misery and break the surface to take the public air we find it poisoned. We come back to Brexit; Trump; refugee crises; war; wrongful imprisonment; genocide; homelessness; climate change; the Covid-19 pandemic; exploitation; injustice; murder; racism.

It’s enough to make you want to look away again.

But the death of George Floyd before our very eyes has turned us all into witnesses. Without that video taken by a 17 year-old girl, what happened to him might have remained a statistic, not the start of a shockwave.

We can all wonder what we would have done if were there. Filmed it? Or tried to intervene? People did both and it made no difference. The anger that follows is inevitable and understandable.

We can all see that racism has warped the development of an equal and just society; that history reviewed reveals inglorious horrors.

And now?

I’d tell you about the flowers on the hill and the birdsong another time.

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Up the Hill and Down

Walking over the Giant’s Head – Allington Hill from April into May.

From my kitchen window is this view of the sleeping giant, head resting on Allington Hill. Often looked at and photographed (by me) and in April, when walking near home was the only kind available, often climbed. In this post, the photos take us from April into May, up the hill, over the hill, through the giant’s beard and back through his hair.

[image error]Allington Hill 10 April 2020[image error]AH 12 April 2020Allington Hill – the giant bristly and bare

April into May: a time of tremendous transition. Here the Sleeping Giant still looks bristly and bare.

The photos begin from 10 April after I cleaned the windows. One consequence of the C19 lockdown was that the window cleaner didn’t come. I had to remove the seagull strike myself: an unusual pattern like sperm swimming upwards.

[image error]From AH – Looking back at Bridport 12 April 2020

The climb begins. Here at last is the view looking back over a misty Bridport from the spot where the road stops and the path enters the woodland. Still a way to climb to reach the top.

[image error][image error]Bluebells and celandines AH 12 04 20[image error]Primroses AH 12 04 20[image error]Primrose Path AH 12 04 20Woodland and wild flowers

There are many paths on Allington Hill so the walk can be varied every day. Despite my worries about meeting people, it was always possible to divert or step aside. The days were sunny and dry, sometimes chilly in the early mornings, or when caught by the breeze. Sometimes hot in the sun. You get to know people by sight and greeting: the same dog walkers, mostly, sometimes parents with children. Not crowded except with flowers beneath the trees here on the way to the top.

[image error]Budding tree on top of AH 12 April 2020

Out into the open again and the grassy summit beyond the stand of trees that make up the giant’s beard and hair.

I imagine that the people we meet – if they think of us at all – might call us, from our use of trekking poles, the skiers.

[image error]On top of AH far side Shadows and Colmer’s beyond Symondsbury[image error]Shadows – view from the top of AH 21 April 2020[image error]View from the top of AH 21 April 2020[image error]From top of AH looking West to Colmer’s HillViews from the far side

From the top and on the far side; the coast and glimpses of the sea to the south are not quite in the picture. Here looking west over the village of Symondsbury towards Colmer’s Hill.

[image error]Tall Trees – the Giant’s Hair and Beard 22 April 2020[image error]Young beech leaves All Hill 22 April 2020[image error]Sunlit young beech AH 22 April 2020Mainly beeches young green

On the way back, walking eastwards again, one of the paths takes us under tall beech trees newly dressed in young green.

[image error]So grows the Giant’s Hair and Beard 22 April 2020

On the way down the slope again on the eastern side, walking through a meadow and looking back up at the leaf burst of the giant’s hair.

[image error]Rain coming at last 28 April 2020[image error]Breath of the giant 30 April 2020Changes at the end of April

And home again, back to the view from the kitchen window and the end of the month. After so many dry days, April rain falls at last and the trees and the garden are glad of it. What an eruption of colours and change in the course of a few weeks!

[image error]May Begins

We have walked into the view, under the trees, over the hill and seen the other side.

The sun shines on the giant’s head: the 1st of May. No maypole celebrations: but nature’s dancing.

Are you walking more now that exercise is rationed?

Has your walk changed because of the restrictions? What have you discovered and what are you missing?

If you have posted photos of your walk, please feel free to share a link.

And thanks for coming with me.

Paper, trimmers, comb

What memorabilia would you save from the ongoing Corona crisis?

The Museum of London is asking people to set aside items that could help to tell the story of life in lockdown.

Though most of us don’t live in London, many of the things that end up in that collection will evoke shared memories. For instance, all UK households will have received a letter from Boris Johnson, our current Prime Minister.

[image error]Boris letter front[image error]Boris letter backA letter from the PM

The contributions don’t have to be valuable. Paper artefacts can become rare because they are common and easily disposed of in the recycling.

My example of the letter from Downing Street is, as you can see, charmingly dogeared. Perhaps someone else will have kept a pristine copy.

What items will be of particular interest locally? Bridport Museum might one day display a copy of the Corona-era leaflet published by Bridport Town Council. People of the future may study or skim these words about Bridport Community Support – what’s available, how to volunteer, the numbers to call for help and advice – and note the guidelines on how to behave. Will they pass on to the next thing, a bit bored, or really wonder what it was like to live through such strange times?

[image error]Bridport Corona advice leaflet front[image error]Bridport leaflet backLocal Advice for Local People

Paper rainbows drawn and coloured by children who are staying at home appear in windows across the country: support our NHS; Keep Safe; Save Lives. Such messages are everywhere.

There are so many intangibles too: the eeriness of empty streets, the sight of queues of single people spaced 2m apart outside supermarkets, food shops and pharmacies, what it feels like to go out when everyone avoids everyone else as if repelled by magnets.

Yet there is more eye contact than before, as we negotiate who goes where. That is, as long as we trust each other to do the right thing and keep a distance. If someone comes too near we might put up a warning hand, say, ‘Don’t!’ or turn our heads away for fear of catching something. The sight of someone spitting in the street becomes a deadly threat.

There is so much bad news we are told we aren’t to listen to it all day long. We’re to keep ourselves mentally as well as physically well. Social distancing is a term now embedded in our culture despite attempts to call it what it is: physical distancing. We have replaced physical contact with virtual contact.

There are so many funny pictures and videos going around, Zoom has suddenly become a household word, and we are getting used to new standards of broadcasting as familiar voices speak to us from their own homes, perhaps from inside a tent made of pillows, or a cupboard under the stairs. Some of them sound as if they’ve got their heads in the biscuit tin.

I don’t know any writers who have complained of being bored: we’re mostly desperate for more hours in the day since writing makes time go by so quickly. Introverts guiltily welcome the saving of energy now they aren’t donating so much of it to extroverts. As always, for some of us, it’s important not to be overwhelmed by social media.

But a dip in the ether here and there can bring forth something just a little different: perhaps adding something new to concentrate on for an hour. Perhaps something like this colouring and folding of a butterfly. The instructions came from an Instagram post by Ink and Page of Bridport.

[image error]Paper Butterfly – thanks to @inkandpage

I’ve probably seen more real butterflies than usual, on more walks: what is it about a restriction that makes me want to take all of the ration of outdoor time I can get? And I have learned to cherish my small garden as a place of refuge and consolation. They say what a garden needs most is the shadow of the gardener. Knowing that I am lucky to have any kind of outdoor space to call my own has erased all my usual resentments about working in it when I might be doing something else.

On the street where I live the lack of traffic on foot and by vehicle brings a welcome silence and more space for birds and birdsong. Blackbirds warble from the rooftops, or perch on dusty cars; goldfinches feed among the bushes in front gardens, only moving when disturbed by a rare pedestrian with dog.

[image error]Blue sky and Colmer’s Hill

When ‘this is over’ will we miss the blue of sky without con trails, the cleaner air in villages and towns devoid of traffic? Nature carries on regardless of our troubles, filling in the gaps we leave for wildlife. While we are learning that life goes on without travel and professional haircuts, we’re reminded that we are natural creatures too – for the hair we have just keeps on growing.

[image error]Hair clippers c and combs [image error]Hair clippers box[image error]Clippers and combs Hairclippers – and welcome to them

DIY haircuts will feature on a global as well as a personal experience: my donation to a museum collection would be hairclippers. Specifically these, offered with a brief extract from my diary:

My friend made a terrible hash of cutting his hair with clippers. I had tidied up the back for him but he went at it again and left himself with a sort of half Mohican.

Terrible.

But he was quite cheerful about it and said that it would grow again.

At least we can offer his discarded hair to the birds as nesting material.

Reader: they took it all …

Have you tried to cut your own hair or someone else’s?

What’s the biggest change for you about life in lockdown?

What artefact(s) would you donate to a collection, local, national, international or global?

Finally, my thanks to everyone working on the front line, and condolences to those who have lost a loved one to Covid-19.

Mother’s Day in the age of Corona

To my mum, Corona was a fizzy drink with a deposit on the glass bottle, sometimes delivered with the groceries in pre-supermarket days.

As you might have guessed, Mum is not here to treat or talk to on Mother’s Day (or any other day). I know I’m not alone in feeling, most years, that the currently motherless are left out in the general celebrations.

This year things are different for everyone. People might be waving to each other from behind glass. I find myself feeling more sorry for others – though I would still be glad to talk to mum on the phone or wave to her from afar if that was all that was available.

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I wouldn’t have been able to give her a posy like this one: I picked them from my garden for a neighbour’s birthday. Mum loved wild flowers but she had developed some allergic reactions.

My promise to Mum was that we would plant her grave with primroses and forget-me-nots.

Regularly we meet up with Dad there and snip around the delicate flowers – tending the grave isn’t necessary but burial ground maintenance is by strimmer and that doesn’t suit.

The last time we were there, we had already become wary of hugging for fear of passing something on. It has taken us years to be so free with each other as to offer a hug and a kiss. Will it ever feel normal again?

Dad brought bunches of daffodils in bud. The ones from the time before were in full bloom and he gave them to me to bring home. It felt a little odd to have flowers from mum’s grave on the windowsill but I still loved them.

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I tried compressing my feelings into a haiku:

take back the sunshine
buds left behind will open
unseen on the hill

This week Dad went to Mum’s grave alone. Again the flowers he’d left the time before were in full bloom. He took them back to the flat where there is no mum, and fewer of the usual distractions: no football, which they both loved, on TV. No cricket. No rugby. No social gatherings. He’s listening to music and finding other things to do.

And we can still talk every day.

However you are managing: I hope you are!

Slow it down

Time out of time is great for writing. But things are moving on too fast.

A friend who’s a keen gardener said the other day how much she’s looking forward to the spring. I enjoy all the seasons but this time after Christmas when things seem to be suspended for a while is perhaps my favourite time for writing. I don’t want things to hurry on.

Nature isn’t going to wait while I get on with my work though. A thrush started singing in the apple tree back of the house in early January. In early February the blackbird began warbling from the rooftops. It’s a delight to hear them – but it feels too soon.

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By February 7 the magnolia tree in front of the white house in the picture was already showing buds.

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Primroses were out before Christmas!

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These narcissi are in the shade so haven’t opened yet.

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Is it early for crocuses? These are also in the shade. The ones in the front garden that catch the early sun opened weeks ago. Snowdrops have been and gone.

This is how it is in West Dorset, on the south coast of the UK, between one storm and another.

What’s it like where you are?

And … back to writing fiction. I’ve left a character in a perilous state and there’s something I can do about that, while there’s still time.

Year of the Giant 2019

The changing face of the Allington Giant. Looking back over the past year is also a way of looking forward.

In the last year, at least once a month and sometimes more often, I’ve taken a photo of the Sleeping Giant of Allington Hill.

The point from where the pictures are taken shifted slightly southwards as the year went by. When I gave up writing in the doorway of the utility room I began to prefer taking photos from the kitchen window.

Looking back over the year I feel surprised that things that seem to have happened five minutes past were weeks and months ago. But looking over the photos of the year reminds me too that the changes will soon come round again.

But what differences will there be? In March 2019, the magnolia flowered very early.

[image error]19 January 2019[image error]27 February 2019[image error]13 March 2019 Rainbow and MagnoliaMidwinter to March Equinox 2019
click on a photo to see larger images

I note a tendency in me to prefer showing photos taken on bright and beautiful days. Perhaps in June there were none. I remember my mid-June birthday as being blustery with plenty of showers!

[image error]21 April 2019[image error]13 May 2019[image error]11 June 2019March Equinox to June Solstice 2019

July, August and September are busy in the garden when there’s watering to be done. The autumn raspberries began early and needed picking twice a day. Though I like the garden to be a little wild it still takes time and as you can’t spend it twice, those are hours not given to writing or going for a walk – though swimming in the sea is too good to miss some days! The giant’s facial hair is luxuriant in these months.

[image error]19 July 2019[image error]20 August 2019[image error]14 September 2019June Solstice to September Equinox

In the last quarter of the year, as things slow down and Christmas looms, there’s still plenty to do, but what a treat one morning to open the blinds one frosty morning in November and see a fox in the neighbouring garden. He stayed in view for an hour and a half, curling up as if to sleep, never shutting his eyes for long, ears twitching. He got up after half an hour and slipped through the fence into another garden, and lay down again. When he stretched you could see the mud covering his white chest and belly. He was a russet glow in the whitened grass. Very hard to photograph so an extra one with a red ring shows the spot where he lay for the second stint of rest. Why he came there on that day I don’t know. After watching him for so long, I turned to do something else and the next time I looked, he was gone. Not to be seen since. But what a gift.

[image error]29 October 2019[image error]14 November 2019 fox[image error]Red ring shows the spot where the fox lies curled up. [image error]13 December 2019 Moon Eye GiantSeptember Equinox to December Solstice 2019

As was the moon descending into the eye socket of the giant on the day of the General Election, when he seemed to wake up in alarm.

The days are lengthening again in the Northern Hemisphere. What will 2020 bring?

Eye of the Giant

Friday the 13th of December 2019. Early morning. I wasn’t in a hurry to turn on the radio to hear the election results.

As I pulled up the blind the Moon was sinking.

[image error]The Moon over Allington Hill

Everything else was a dawn blur, the giant asleep, head resting to form the hill. As the Moon dropped into that empty eye socket, the giant seemed to wake up, open-mouthed, alarmed.

[image error]Eye of the Giant

I turned on the radio. The sun came up. The light in the giant’s eye dimmed and disappeared. I thought about going back to sleep too. But it might be a good idea to keep our eyes open at least some of the time in the coming five years.

Was the election result a dream come true for you? A bad dream or a good one?

Bridport News Flash

‘Writer does town proud in Bridport Prize’ – the headline gives me a tingle as our local paper catches up with the news that ‘Aftermath’ won first prize in Flash Fiction.

An old school-friend alerted me to this article in the Bridport News – and I suppose that’s why it matters. When asked ‘Are you writing anything?’ or ‘When’s the next book coming out?’ I usually mumble something about a tendency to start too many projects and being happy to be working every day.

Often, that feels like enough about me and as the conversation turns, it’s awkward to pipe up with, ‘But I write short things too and sometimes put them into competitions and this time I’ve won a prize!’

Now I won’t have to toot my own trumpet because the Bridport News has done it for me.

[image error]Reading Aftermath
photo by Rachel Brown

The Bridport News (officially, the Bridport and Lyme Regis News) is a local paper read by local people, even when they don’t live here any more. It is held in great affection and sometimes referred to by its old nickname, which is supposed to refer to the sound of the printing presses that were once above Frosts in West Street. I would print the name here but having checked on the internet, I find it has taken on quite another meaning, and might attract the wrong sort of attention.

The press releases about the Bridport Prize went out a while ago, but there’s been other news: our Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage, was in town for Bridport Literature Festival and the before and after of that week of events has dominated the local entertainment news. Not that I could grumble about feeling neglected because there were mentions for me along with writer-friends Rosanna Ley and Gail Aldwin, before and after our Bridlit event on ‘Spirit of Place’. There was even a brief acknowledgement of my win, so I thought that was it. This was a nice surprise!

As Frosts is no more, I walked to the other end of town (West Street plus East Street) to buy a paper copy, to see if the article was in there, too. Yes, there it is under the altered headline ‘Maria does Bridport Proud in Competition’ smack on the front of the entertainment section. An entire article about the Bridport Prize with a focus on my contribution. It feels like I’ve been given a badge. It shows there is a result for all the hidden work. I might be spending my days writing in my pyjamas but I have been doing something.

[image error]Kirsty Logan presents Maria Donovan with first prize in Flash Fiction
photo by Rachel Brown

Joanna Davis (aka @DorsetEchoJo) covers everything relevant with a neatly upbeat potted version of my lifestory and all the particulars of the prize including something I didn’t know: mine was one of nearly 1400 stories entered in the Flash Fiction category. Helpfully, in case anyone thinks it must be a local competition only (we have a lot of talented writers round here), she makes it clear that this competition ‘attracts entries from across the world. 2019 saw submissions from more than 10,000 writers from 83 countries, who competed for one of the 34 winner and highly commended awards’.

There’s also the quote from the report by Judge Kirsty Logan, for which I ought to find a place: ‘”Aftermath leapt out immediately: it’s a masterclass in flash fiction, cramming more character development and world-building into 250 words than some writers manage in a whole novel. It’s a truly impressive piece of writing.”‘

From among the official photographs by Rachel Brown, the News features the one of me looking owlish alongside Antonia from Bridport Book Shop. I’m gripping the weighty statue that she hands over yearly to the winner of the Dorset Award (also mine for the highest entry from a Dorset Author). The Award has been sponsored by the Book Shop from the early days of the competition.

[image error]Antonia and Maria with the Dorset Award
photo by Rachel Brown

The statue, which is the only physical object handed out, apart from envelopes containing cheques, always provokes a reaction from the audience, which perhaps explains why we look (as Kate Wilson, organiser of the Bridport Prize said, when she sent me the photos) like schoolchildren who have done something naughty.

As I’ve said before, I’m enormously grateful to everyone at the Bridport Prize – and now also to the Bridport News for spreading the word.

The competition reopens with appropriate timing on January 6, 2020 – the Feast of the Epiphany.

Finally, can anyone spot the minor error in one of these photos? Clue: it’s not my face.

Winner in a flash! Bridport Prize 2019

2019 brings welcome encouragement: First place in the Bridport Prize, Flash Fiction, with ‘Aftermath’

[image error]Winner’s Slide Bridport Prize Flash Fiction

In August this year, I saw I had a missed call from Kate Wilson, organiser of the Bridport Prize. I’ve entered the Bridport Prize before: if nothing else, it’s a contribution toward the upkeep of Bridport Arts Centre. It’s also a chance to be recognised in one of the biggest writing competitions on the planet. A chance, and nothing more, because they have thousands of entries.

My best placed entry before now was in 2015, a shortlisting in flash fiction, which also won me the Dorset Award for the highest place entry by a Dorset writer. That year I had my first taste of the joy of a Bridport Prize award ceremony.

In 2019, I had another go, making a note to check the results in October. A call from Kate on 22 August felt like it must mean something. I put thinking on hold and rang her back.

I was open-mouthed when Kate said, ‘You’ve won first prize! In Flash fiction, with ‘Aftermath’. I think I asked her to repeat it three times in case I’d misheard. Patiently, she repeated her words. First prize in Flash fiction. Plus the Dorset Award. Two prizes for one story!

When I had declared myself happy to accept the awards, Kate asked me to keep the news to myself until after the prizegiving in October. It was all right to tell family and friends but no fanfares, no blog posts, no social media.

That night, I told my dad. I wished I could tell my mum. The following day was the anniversary of her death two years ago and my good news was submerged again for a while. I knew it wouldn’t feel quite real until the prizegiving on October 19.

The awards lunch is always on a Saturday and the night before there was an event with readings by this year’s judges, Naomi Wood for first novels, Hollie McNish for poetry, and Kirsty Logan who took on two categories: short stories and flash fiction. Some of the prizewinners were in the audience but many were still travelling. Our photos were already up in the foyer and there was a map of the world with pins to show the places the top-listed writers called home. As that enjoyable evening came to an end, the Arts Centre was already being reset for the following day.

[image error]Reading ‘Aftermath’
There’s Kate Wilson, organiser of the Bridport Prize

On Saturday we (my guest and I) had luck with the weather and walked up through town on a busy market day to arrive at Bridport Arts Centre by 12 noon. The entire place was taken over for the awards.

The Bridport Prize award ceremony is one of the nicest you could ever hope to attend – you won’t often find so many happy people in one room. The judges, and the readers and other volunteers have done their work and are due a celebration and thanks. Every writer present is made to feel they’ve achieved something special, from prizewinner to highly commended.

[image error]After the ceremony we toddled over to the Bookshop

Drinks and chat ended all too soon and we went downstairs for lunch and the prizegiving. Kate congratulates us all and says there were over 10,000 entries this year from around the world. I’m first up, for the Dorset Award, presented by Antonia of The Book Shop, Bridport, sponsor of this prize, which is such an incentive for those us lucky enough to live in the county. Kate had warned me beforehand: you’ll get an envelope but there won’t be anything in it. I also received the fascinating and extremely heavy sculpture that the winner of the Dorset Award is entitled to keep for one year. We think it’s a pen.

Every highly-commended writer there was invited up on stage to receive their envelopes and their applause and have photos taken. The top placed in each category read from their work.

Before I read my story, I felt I had to say thank you, to everyone at the Bridport Prize and Bridport Arts Centre. When I was born we lived in a cottage down an alleyway just on the other side of South Street. My earliest memory is of playing in the dust and looking out onto the people passing in the sunlight at what seemed like the end of a tunnel. It was years before the Arts Centre came into being or the Bridport Prize. I’ve spent many years living in other places, and always felt proud of the writing prize that bears the name of my home town. Now that I’ve moved back to Bridport, we only had a short walk to get to the ceremony, but as a writer it felt like I’d come a long way.

[image error]Bridport Prize anthology 2019

The prizewinning and highly-commended poems and stories including flash fiction are available in this anthology. The novel extracts are published in a separate anthology.

To see the results of the Bridport Prize 2019 click here.

The anthologies are for sale via the Bridport Prize website, Amazon, perhaps also in person from Bridport Arts Centre and certainly from The Book Shop, Bridport.

A writer friend asked me, ‘Life-changing?’ I don’t know about that in terms of future prospects. But it is a wonderful feeling of encouragement. A touchstone.

How often does a dream come true?