I was born in northern Britain, a post-war first-born, to parents recovering from their war efforts. My Father was a naval war hero on aircraft carriers and submarines; my mother was an ARP warden during the Manchester blitzes. Much to my disappointment and chagrin, I emerged into a vast city less than 2 miles away from the centre of the Industrial Revolution. I always felt my birth was badly timed and located, more anon.
As a child, I demanded that we find green grass, trees and fresh air as often as possible, becoming sullen and sulking if we stayed among the cobbles and red-brick corridors for too long. Of like mind, my Father obliged enthusiastically, hoisting me aboard his green and black Standard Vanguard ‘Tilly’ as often as he could. Safety belts and baby boosters were an extravagance as the ration book still tyrannized our diet, and cash was scarce. So, I stood beside him on the spongy front leather banquette as he drove, holding on to his shirt collar. This way, I could check on my mother, who came along begrudgingly and insisted on sitting in the back so she could finish her hand-sewing in the rear-view mirror. We always sang as we coursed heavily along, my other, who never sang, muttering with prejudice about ‘King and Princess’ of the road.
It was a vibrant and creative household, though everything was bought on hire-purchase, the ‘collector’ being a regular visitor at the end of the week. We had all mod-cons but unpaid for in full, and many perks came along with my Father’s caretaking job, which he took full advantage of, leaving the heating and lights on all the time. We even had a telephone, my mother’s treasure, so he could receive orders and instructions from the City Hall, and my mother developed her dark brown voice, which later won prizes.
My parents loved each other madly, which had its gloriously happy ups and its combative screaming and shouting downs. Hotly pursued by G.I. suitors during the war, my beautiful brunette mother occasionally regretted her rejections because my Father was content with a simple existence—his beloved cigarettes, Senior Service, habituated in the daily rations during his navy days along with a dose of rum, his afternoon nap because he started work at 6:00 on weekdays, and his frank Sinatra vinyl collection, and of course me, who he adored. My mother, however, was ambitious and adored glamour and ballroom dancing, local pageants and every event that she could sew for.
They shared their dancing and music passions by attending regular dance groups and lessons, mainly Latin American, and eventually entered ballroom championships. This meant they practised regularly around the ground floor of our little caretaker’s house attached to a massive red-brick edifice that boasted a grand secondary school and a pristine Victorian public library—my fabulous playground. If the telephone rang or somebody came to the door, they would tango or samba to answer, much to the amusement of my school friends.
Both parents were ardent crossword puzzle completers and would surprise us quite often during dinner or stop their Bossanova to proudly announce one of the missing answers which had suddenly come to them. When I was older, I learned that my mother rarely read anything except her dog-eared thesaurus and old crossword answers in Sunday’s News of the World. When they were talking to each other, they tried to use the words and phrases from their puzzles in competition with each other.
My mother didn’t write either but was an addicted storyteller, yarn-weaver and general chatter, especially with a whisky and dry ginger to hand. My Father, on the other hand, was a rhyming couplet closet poet. He had wood my mother composed from his cramped bunk or dangling hammock aboard the ship and UBoat. He was so modest that he would rarely show his creations to anyone except on birthdays when he would stump up a hilarious but heartfelt ditty, quite often sung around the cake.
Although humble and financed in weekly instalments, my environment was filled with rich outbursts of word-for-word’s sake, endless post-war big-band music and Latin rhythms, and my mother’s sewing talents, which could create anything I asked for. I would ask for a polar bear because I already had a brown bear, and I’d wake up the following day to find one waiting for me at the end of the bed. My Father was a carpenter and boatbuilder. His ‘office’, as he called it, was my favourite place to be, surrounded by his beloved tools and creations covered with sawdust. He also could make anything out of wood and always made something for my birthday and Christmas.
Needless to say, I grew up wanting to quietly write like my Father because the daughter of an extroverted mother could never compete by discourse. At the age of 7, I had decided that beautiful handwriting was a must for a writer, so I sat down and evolved my own copperplate style, which I still use. My Father had an immaculate hand. I can still see him writing page after page of blue airmail tissue to his uncle, who had emigrated to Australia to become a flying doctor. He loved writing, prized his pens, and only used the best black ink. If he had been born 50 years earlier, I speculate that he may have been a bard. But nothing came of his writing, I regret.
I have been scribbling since my early childhood but became a passionate educator and academic, so I was fully occupied with teaching materials creation, textbooks, reports and theses. However, lengthy vacations always promised writing projects—6 clear weeks of creation twice a year. So, I have gradually accumulated considerable writing and won the occasional short fiction/poetry prize. Ten years ago, I published my first full-length novel. Three more have followed, one recently winning an award. Now my university work is over, I am writing full-time and in heaven.
People often ask me why I love writing so much. It is time to reflect when I pick up my pen or sit at my keyboard; Quiet time to meet myself head-on and weave words to represent my inner world in an attempt to make the abstract symbols of writing mean something first to me, then, perhaps, to others. I write for myself unless I’m commissioned to write something. The world I weave is always ideal, so I enjoy being there while composing and working through creating a finished piece. If I’m not writing, then I’m sick. Everything that happens outside my mind takes up its place, in some shape or form, in my ideal world. It’s a marvellous resource to retreat to when the going gets rough, meaningless or absurd. If no one ever read what I write, I wouldn’t mind. But it is so lovely when someone peeps into my world and can appreciate it.
I have honed my writing ability over the years to match the modern demands, especially the page-turner mentality, the cryptic carrot to dangle to entice and indulge potential readers. But left to my own devices, and from the start, I have my own style of poetic prose fretted with noble sentiments and true love, fantastical landscapes and characters, and many of those outmoded aspects of a true artist which are dismissed nowadays. I cringe when I read some of the newest writers with poor use of vocabulary and cheap emotions and thrills to attract readers. I deplore crude language, so I immediately snap a book shut or delete it if I find a cuss word. Every word in my palette is a treasure, so obscene expletives are forbidden. I am British, and so I love the language that originated in my birthplace and keep my distance from colonial versions mainly. My writing comes from my heart and a sensitive womb, and I’m not afraid of the hornet’s nest of criticism: stings build character and urge me to always be myself when I write.
My writing is me. No masks. No self-conscious blushing or posturing. Me. I am a wide-awake being sensitive with all senses to the outside world I find myself in. My writing sounds are essential, so I often read aloud to check for resonance, assonance, weight and light, cadence and rhythm. Sound is indestructible, scientists tell us, whereas paper and ink are perishable. The latest revolution of podcasts and audiobooks is brilliant and figures in my future projects. Investing in a professional microphone is a start, and recording my posts is a delightful occupation. I imagine my listeners driving along or chopping carrots while strolling in my inner world. Writing is sound to me, as is everything. The visual is vastly overrated by comparison.
My future is set until I die. I have so many books, poems, and epics to compose. I have a lifetime’s scribbles to transcribe and rearrange soft and hard forms. On the table at the moment (25.9.23):
- A novel called ‘Satan’s Action’ is set in 18th-century Florence and attempts to capture the moment when the Christian God’s elite music (the sacred)—only believers were fit to hear it—and the music of everyday life (the secular) split apart. This occurred with the invention of the piano, which is mysterious today. This is ready to start writing as all the planning is finished, and many fragments are already written.
- A non-fiction book called ‘A Midwife in 21st Millennial Japan’ recounts the 20 years of my working as a university teacher in Japan teaching English and Study Skills. I found myself delivering souls smitten by native academics, popular culture, and a passive education style. This is also planned; most of the research is done and needs threading together.
- A series of e-Self-Study guides based on the idea of Study/Learning Wellness culled from my time as a mindful educator, offering tried and tested strategies and techniques to protect learners and those in full-time study from developing mental health problems. I run a newsletter on Linked’In on this topic, too.
- A novel called ‘The Human Papers’ is about stunted communication in Japan during the two hundred years when Japan was closed to foreigners. A select few were chosen as custodians of the human papers left behind by the exiled/foreigners until they were allowed to return. This is already finished as a short story but is a much larger work.
- A novel called ‘The Training: 3 Heroes of Earth’ is almost finished. This is based on my time living with Australian Aboriginals and their incredible view of the Earth as their Father and Nature as their Mother. The Earth is on the verge of perishing because of human abuse, and the only people who can rescue it are the loyal indigenous custodians.
Numerous essays and articles are being published in every spare moment.
I am ready now to share my inner universe with the world. You can find most of my creative writing here on ‘Heroes Here and Now’, which used to be called ‘Nirvana Linden’ when I was a practising Buddhist. I am no longer consciously practising, having used the Buddha’s teachings to generate wisdom to live a content, delighted and fulfilled life.
I was so fortunate to come across the Buddha as a young child. One day, I played cricket with my beloved poet father and younger brother during our lunchtime break from school. The radio played loudly as we batted and bowled, fielded and scored, and I heard his name and some basic information about his life and teachings. What stuck in my mind in that red-brick enclosed, concrete-floored, back yard was this:
‘encountering the teachings of the Buddha is as remote a possibility as a turtle poking its head up through a hole in a floating log.’
Later, after I had left my industrial and creative home and gone out into the world, my parents retired and left the caretaker’s house to live in a more rural area in an apartment, where my Father died prematurely. His nicotine fetish caught him in the end. One day, my mother called me to tell me that a Chinese Buddhist sect had bought the secondary school and Victorian public library, which was reformed as a Buddhist temple. I saw the newspaper clippings and suddenly realized I had been born in the right place. The Head Priest was now living in our little house, the sibilance of mantras and singing bells overlaying the tango and big band of my parent’s antics, the silk and hemp of robes hanging where my MotherMother displayed all her creations, the living room now a gompa or meditation hall.
I must remember to put this story on my list of future works!
That’s me and my artist partner—Mariko Kinoshita— who has supported my writing and designed wonderful book covers.