Behind The Railings - what it takes to get published

I am watching a very good friend of mine trying to become a professional writer. She has a two year old child, a part-time job and she is pregnant. Demands upon her time and energy are never-ending. She wakes up feeling tired. And yet she struggles on with her novel.

I am reminded of an event I witnessed thirty years ago in the days before mobile phones. At that time I was working in Central London and used to cycle home in the evenings past Battersea Park, a large open space south of the river.

It was autumn and the evenings were beginning to draw in. The road beside the park was like a motorway, the traffic heavy and no sign of any pedestrians. I switched on my bicycle lamp and pedalled determinedly, trying to think of something other than how much of my journey still lay ahead.

Then I saw the woman. She was standing inside the park clutching the railings with one hand and holding a baby in the other. There was something about her face that drew my attention as I flashed past. Had I been mistaken or had she mouthed something at me? I carried on cycling for a few minutes as my brain tried to decode what I had just seen. Suddenly I realised that she had been saying, 'Help me!'

I stopped my bicycle, turned round and wheeled it back towards the woman. As I got closer it was clear from her expression that she was utterly desperate. 'Are you all right?' I asked

'No,' she said. 'The park gates are locked and I can't get out.' She was almost sobbing. 'If I didn't have the baby, I could climb out but I can't leave him. Will you take him?'

She handed the child over the railings to me and a few minutes later she had clambered over herself. I gave her back the baby. 'How long have you been stuck there?' I asked.

'Three quarters of an hour,' she said. Then her self-control broke and she began openly weeping.

'Do you want me to walk home with you?' I asked but she shook her head.

'I'll be all right now,' she said, embarrassed by her tears. 'I don't live far away. I just couldn't do anything because of the baby and he was getting so cold.' She walked away without another word. I got back on my bicycle and carried on with my journey.

Whenever I see my friend struggling to find a way of finishing her novel while looking after her toddler and working three days a week at the same time, I remember the woman in the park. Like her, my friend needs the traffic to stop. She needs an agent or an editor to take an interest. And all the time that she waits, desperately hoping for a miracle, she struggles bravely to maintain her self-control and to keep her dignity.

I Can Talk The Talk, But Can I Walk The Walk?

Public speaking is on my mind at the moment. I have been busy learning my speech for my daughter, Kathleen’s wedding in three weeks’ time. It’s the second wedding in eight months so I have a clearer idea what to expect this time. However, this speech is decidedly more difficult than the last one because the first few sentences are in Greek, since the groom’s family are Greek Cypriots and quite a large number of them are coming over from Cyprus especially for the occasion. I don’t actually speak Greek so I am learning this parrot-fashion.

I also heard this week that a school in Essex has won me as a prize, or at least they have won a visit from me as part of a competition organized by a website called Reading Zone.

Some writers are daunted by speaking about their work in public. I’ve got a friend who writes literary fiction for adults. Her novel came out about a month ago and she is utterly terrified every time she is asked to speak about it. I’ve tried telling her that the audiences at book events are generally supportive but she says that I’m missing the point. It’s the whole business of getting up in front of strangers and talking about who you are and what you do that she finds so excruciatingly painful.

I think I had this knocked out of me by being a secondary school teacher in Inner London for ten years. If you’ve stood up in front of thirty stroppy teenagers day after day and tried to control the ravening beast that is their collective psyche, any speech, whether to wedding guests or bibliophiles, holds very few terrors.

I remember one occasion when it had been snowing heavily in London. The roads had been partially cleared but huge mounds of dirty snow and slush were piled up at the kerbs.  In those days I rode a bicycle to and from school. When I set off for home that afternoon, almost the entire class for whom I was responsible was standing at the bus stop. As I drew level with them, the wheels of my cycle began to lose traction, spinning hopelessly on the icy surface. Then, slowly but surely,  I started to fall sideways, landing unceremoniously in one of the enormous drifts of snow.

When I re-emerged, totally soaked and utterly humiliated, it was to a great roar of delight from my students. Shivering, I re-mounted my bike and cycled home in the certain knowledge that in less than twenty four hours I would be facing that same audience, trying to make them concentrate on Shakespeare.  By comparison, delivering a speech in Greek is going to be a piece of cake.

No, public speaking does not worry me. The thing that really terrifies me is public walking. I have this recurrent nightmare that I am proceeding with great dignity up the aisle, my daughter on my arm. A string quartet is playing Pachelbel’s Canon in D. The groom and the best man are standing ready and waiting. The guests are all looking at Kathleen and smiling benignly. And that’s when I step on the hem of her dress. There is a ripping sound, she stumbles and falls forward. The music stops abruptly. The guests give a collective gasp of dismay. Kathleen looks up from the ground with tears in her eyes. Her ankle is broken, the wedding is ruined and it is all my fault.