I blame Tom Cox. In one of his books he mentions attending an event in an old chapel lit by lanterns in which an actor recreated the experience of M R James telling his ghost stories to his colleagues. I remembered hearing about this, and it was a quick job to trace the company – Don’t Go Into The Cellar – and find that they were running an event in Dunmow. Too easy, this internet. A few clicks and we were set up for a scary evening.

It wasn’t a cellar, and it wasn’t lit by Victorian lanterns – it was upstairs in the Dunmow Maltings, a building I had passed many times without registering it was there. It’s been restored and set up as a museum and community hall. It was quiet as we went in at 7pm, and we wandered around and eventually found the audience sitting in the upstairs space. The lights were bright enough to play football in there at first. The custodian turned off two sections, leaving a strong uplight and two ‘floodlights’ beaming down from the ceiling. Tom Cox described the eerie atmosphere of the dimly lit chapel, where the sudden thud of a bag dropped at the appropriate moment made the audience jump. Well… not here.

By 7.30, there were eighteen people sitting whispering in a semi-circle and two empty chairs. The music died away and Jonathon Goodwin came slowly out of the back room and took his place in the spotlight. The light shone up onto his pale face and spiky hair, and I would not have liked to be stuck in a lift with someone looking like that. You’d want to check they were still breathing. He introduced himself as Montague Rhodes James, mediaevalist and author – “But do call me Monty.”

Just as he explained (in elaborate Victorian phrasing) that he would leave it to us to choose the story to be told, the main door creaked open. Of course, the whole audience turned to look. Three women in their twenties came in and gawked at us all. Poor old Monty was left struggling to call our attention back from this gust of twenty-first century manners. He should have waited. Three women? Two spare chairs? A lot of hushed (but loud enough) haggling over who was gonna sit where and Monty’s assistant was left to sit on the floor to let one of the gigglers sit next to me. She was shifting her chair around about as noisily as possible, nearly knocking my drink over. Monty said to her; “When you’re quite ready!”

We were given the choice of two stories. We voted for ‘Tale of the Wailing Well’, and then (close vote) for ‘Whistle And I’ll Come To You’, although the alternatives sounded just as good. I admit I have never read M R James; I find the Victorians over-dramatic at times. Still, what else do you want from a ghost story but the drama? What you don’t want is three women who missed the twentieth century altogether fidgetting and giggling around you.

There was a break for us to grab a drink from the front desk and visit the sanitary facilites. The three gigglers were first out of the door, and I happened to know that there were only three thrones in the Ladies. I nicked the Disabled loo instead, so I missed hearing what they had to say. Shame, really. That would have been a prime bit of eavesdropping.

Back we came, settled in that semi-circle, and ‘Monty’ came dead-marching back to resume. The three gigglers hadn’t come back. I was dreading it for a full five minutes, expecting them to come thudding and sniggering in, but soon the third story took all our attention. We chose ‘The Ash Tree’, a tale of Hopkins witch-finding and revenge. Not the kind of story I’d want to be hearing if I had to creep along a corridor to a dark bedroom afterwards.

Applause. The sinister Mr James bowed and took his leave of us. Those of us who were left drifted out through the museum exhibits and out into the real world. Sad to report, the three young women… were never seen again.

Update; pretty sure I spotted the three of them giggling outside the chip shop as we drove out of Dunmow. But why spoil a good spooky finish.

Interesting times at the Scottish Association of Writers’ Conference 2024. Half of the awards were announced on Friday and half on Saturday, with the winners of the short form writing being asked to read out their work to the assembled crowd. That’s enough to put you off entering the competition in the first place. You look out over that crowd of people smiling encouragingly and you just know that some of them are probably thinking; ‘Get on with it!’

As I said in the previous post, my daft sketch about the astronauts on the ISS discovering that their journey home is definitely economy class won the Largs Shield. I got fourth place in the humorous short story competition, with two writers in my group taking second and first place for the same competition. Given that there’s only nine of us in the group, we got a lot of attention for that.

Not much attention, but it pleased me – I was awarded third place in the Constable Stag competition for the best novel extract. I’ve never seriously thought of writing a novel; putting in my entry was more of a test of how good the basic idea was. Good enough, it seems.

After the Gala Dinner on Saturday (this time I dressed a bit smarter than blue jeans and boots) the president had a game of Tops and Tails – everyone stand up, listen to a question and choose answer A (hands on your head) or B (hands on your bottom). Usually it’s all over within five or six questions, but twenty five questions later we were still cheering the two women choosing the right answer every time – one of them from our own small writers’ group. In the end the president ran out of questions and Sue asked for the prize to go to the other person as she wasn’t able to enjoy either the chocolates or the bottle of red wine.

After the gala dinner I ended up chatting to a man who turned out to be the adjudicator of the Constable Stag. I do love that about this conference, that the people who judge the competitions are there in the room and ready to talk. He was enthusiastic about my entry – he encouraged me to get on and finish the novel. When I told my writing friends, they said “That’s what we keep telling you!” Looks like I have a new project for the year.

It was past eleven when I rejoined my group in the bar, and not far short of midnight when we all dispersed to our rooms. At quarter past midnight, the fire alarm went off right over my bed. I’m used to setting off the smoke alarms at home, so I spent a minute trying to work out what I’d done to set this off before thinking of opening the door to the corridor.

All the alarms were going off, and a couple of people were heading for the fire exit (about twenty yards from my room). It’s always some idiot smoking in the loos, so I slung on just enough clothes to be decent and grabbed my room key on the way out, thinking I would be going back in soon and would feel a right prawn if I couldn’t get into my room.

Some people had done the sensible thing and left the building immediately. Dress code ranged from full jacket and boots down to bare feet and bath robe. Two women near us had thought to bring a duvet from their room and were standing wrapped in it.

Two women in bathrobes and slippers told us that their room was right there in the corner. The thick column of smoke was coming from the room directly under theirs, getting denser as we watched. They told us that they had rung the night porter twice in the last forty minutes to report a smell of burning; at midnight they had opened their window as the room was uncomfortably hot and smoke had blown into the room. They had just put on their bathrobes to go to Reception for a third complaint when the alarm went off. They were on a free spa weekend as compensation for a previous visit that had gone so badly wrong, that it was like a Fawlty Towers episode.

By now they had the three of us and a growing group of SAW attendees gathered around listening and we were asking them all kinds of odd questions; ‘What was the story behind that bad experience?’ ‘What did the smoke smell like, did it make your eyes water?’ ‘What were you thinking as you ran to the exit?’ They asked us why we were all here, and we said we were on a writing conference. “Oh, writers!” they said, as if it explained everything. “We were told the hotel was full of writers.”

There was frost on the cars when we arrived in the car park. Some people were offered refuge in other people’s cars and the staff allowed some people access to the hotel’s entrance hall, the tiny space between the doors to the car park and the doors to Reception. The rest of us spent two hours in the car park in falling temperatures and increasing breeziness watching six crews from Scottish Fire work on the hotel, followed by almost an hour in Reception and the bar with the alarms still screaming for about half of that, and we finally got back to our rooms. Mine was far enough away from the site of the fire that I got just the whiff of burnt-toast (though I have very little sense of smell, so it might have been stronger). I tend to be organised anyway, so it was automatic to me to put out tomorrow’s clothes in order of putting on, just on case.

It’s a long drive home from Cumbernauld, so I’d booked an extra night. That left me free to go to the final session and to Dragons’ Pen (five people pitching their novel idea). I was looking forward to a restful night and an early start. Laws of Sod, the fire alarm went off at 10.30pm. False alarm this time, but it left me keen to drive home.

The SAW Conference 2024. Drama right to the very end.

March and April have been busy times, though looking back, it’s hard to see what I was doing. Writing, yes; doing all the peripheral jobs for Himself as he worked on replacing the shower; taking the first batch of seedlings from the propagator and setting them up in pots in the unheated greenhouse (and then worrying every time the temperature dropped overnight). There’s two whole shelves of seedlings coping with temperatures between plus one degree and the mid-thirties Centigrade in the greenhouse and a new electric shower up and running, as proof that we have been achieving something.

Getting the new shower into place was made easier and tougher by the house itself. The house is old with 20th century extensions, and the shower room is in one of those extensions, backing onto the kitchen. We discovered that there is a gap between the two walls, wide enough to accommodate the old gravity-fed shower mechanism and as much cabling and piping as we want. Whoever installed the old shower tiled over the gap afterwards and cut access points in the tile for the controls and water outlet, so we cut out the damaged tiles and found a way to replace them, as best we could. The only sensible way to get the old shower out was to cut a hole in the kitchen wall and reach in from the back to unbolt it and yank it out. He ran the new pipes and cables from the new source (mains fed) and removed the old piping that ran in interesting configurations from the tank in the loft. Yes, we still have a tank in the loft. We’ve had to explain that to a few people who have never lived in a house with a water tank.

Aside from the shower project, there was the trip to Scotland to the Scottish Association of Writers’ Conference. I had to return the Largs Shield for the next lucky winner to pick up, so I had to go – no hardship, as I did enjoy the weekend last year. I took the Shield down from the wall and had a think about what was to go up there now, though the day after I packed the Shield into my luggage I got an email to say that I was in the top three for this year’s Largs…

… and Laws of Sod applied. I ended up dragging the only male writer in our group up to the front of the conference to read the part of Tim Peake while I was pretending to be a not-very-focussed call handler in a Texan car hire company. The good news is that however much I am tempted to enter this contest next year, I can’t. The rules state that anyone winning a particular contest twice in a row is banned from entering that contest for the next two years. Next year, I will be sitting in the audience cheering for a different winner.

The conference was fun, and I think it deserves a blog post of its own. Drama and comedy, and that’s before the winners began to read out their entries.

I am still hammering away at the 29 Plays Challenge, which leaves me not a lot of time for much else. It hasn’t been so inspiring this year. Partly because the briefs are repeats of previous years’ briefs, and there’s a one in five chance of picking up a brief I have already written a play for – and partly because there’s a feeling that this is the last time, and I’ll never get the chance to write in the company of talented actors and playwrights again.

My favourite briefs this year (so far) have been the command to write a trilogy, three connected plays that are complete in themselves but even better when seen together (think Alan Ayckbourn’s ‘The Norman Conquests’) and to write the stage version of a film, novel or poem we know and love. The trilogy was based around three generations of one family, starting with the youngest and working up to the grandfather. The film, of course, was Moon. We were asked to add our own take on the original, and I took the chance to bring to the fore the story of the original Sam Bell and his wife Tess. I could not improve on the last speech by the radio show host, about the returned clone being either a whacko or an illegal alien, so that stays as the last line. None of these plays will be performed, so the original scriptwriter is unlikely to sue.

So far, I don’t have any plays that are begging to be re-written and sent off to anywhere, and that’s the saddest part. Twice before I have started March with at least three plays worth editing, but time’s running out this year for a play I’m fond of.

I have had time to send off a micro fiction which made the longlist – it’s currently sinking to the bottom of the public vote, but just getting top twelve was an achievement, so I am not disappointed. I couldn’t help but vote for one of my rivals, who wrote a story that was sinister and deep – in 100 words.

We have had time for other things this month, surprisingly. A visit to Norwich to see Janey Godley, including a visit to what must be the best Mediterranean tapas restaurant in the east of England. If you’re in Norwich, try Haggle – the staff were the absolute best and the food was ‘gimme more’ delicious. Janey Godley was a treat. I can believe she returned the favour to the young thug who stood on her car bonnet and kicked in her windscreen, and I wish I had her balls.

Next up, just a few days later, we were in Bury St Edmunds to see Brian Bilston and Henry Normal. Never heard of Henry Normal before; I wouldn’t have bought a ticket to see him alone, but there he was with Brian Bilston, so… His publicity shot showed him looking very stagily ‘common man’ with a book on his head. Don’t be put off. His poetry started out as almost kid’s joky rhyming stuff, but the life story he told was very down to earth in a way that didn’t ask for pity or admiration; just, ‘This has been my life so far.’ The poetry got more intense as he neared the end of his act, and at one point he struggled to continue reading a poem, taking off his glasses at the end to wipe tears away. Yes, we loved seeing Brian Bilston again, but Henry Normal is now up there as someone worth seeing in his own right.

Himself is ripping up the floorboards in the bedroom for a perfectly good reason; re-routing the plumbing with a view to putting in a shower that is a tad better than our current one – not a hard act to follow, as it resembles a dripping gutter at times of low pressure. Four more plays and I can join him full time, being gofer to the Man who Does.

Roll on March.

As February rolls into view, I have those three little words on my mind. Twenty-nine Plays Later.

The good people at The Literal Challenge have been running this marathon write-in for ten years, and they have decided that ten years is enough. Once more, and then no more. Initially, they said they were keeping it low-key, invitations only to those who had taken part in previous years. They may have changed their minds, or possibly not; I’ve seen an email spreading the word to anyone who feels like joining in.

No matter to me whether there’s ten or two hundred others taking part. It isn’t a competition, and recently they have dropped the requirement to write each play within 36 hours of receiving the brief, so the only person pushing me on with this is me.

It’s the perfect time to stop this play per day challenge. I get the chance to take part in a leap year challenge and see what kind of extra craziness the organiser has in store for that spare day brief. It’s tough, but I am going to miss it. Two of the plays I wrote last year have been edited and adapted for minor competitions, and I’m fond enough of three of the plays from last year that they will be going further. Results will be out in March, by which time I hope I will have another 29 hastily written plays to draw on in future years.

I am going to miss the people I have met over the last three years of Literal Challenges. They were fun, supportive and some of them were very talented without being precious about it. Others were like me – in it for the laughs. I’m hoping they do one last all-day Zoomthrough of the plays in April, where everyone votes on the best play for each brief and performs it over Zoom.

First brief lands at eight o’clock tonight. This time tomorrow, I’ll be head down in a play. Wish me luck.

This isn’t the post I intended to write tonight.

I’ve just heard that the famous sycamore tree at Sycamore Gap has been cut down. Deliberately, and not for safety reasons; as an act of vandalism. A sixteen year old boy has been detained for questioning tonight. Not making any guesses as to whether he was the one cutting the tree, or one of a group, or just someone who posted a video of the act on his social media accounts.

I don’t care who did it and why. The tree is down. There are thousands of images of that tree – not just the ones you can buy in the local shops on postcards and prints, but in the scrapbooks and files of people who made the trek to see it. People like the couple from Florida who came to England to see that tree (because it was in their favourite film). People like us who just wanted to see that perfect dip filled with a tree.

We saw it just once, this March, and now I am really grateful that we took the time to walk there. I hoped to go back and see it in full leaf or on a clear winter night with the Plough in the sky beyond it, but now that’s never going to happen.

What has really upset me is that this is just another incident of destructive, spiteful, unpleasant acts that have no benefit at all for anyone – not even the person who committed the act – and work to make life a little less magical for everyone else. I clear up the litter beside the road outside my house because the council never will do it and I hate seeing that someone has dumped their rubbish where I have to see it. I’ve slowed up on litterpicking. Two or three hours’ work will fill a couple of rubbish bags (which I have paid for, as my only attempt to get litterpicking equipment was met with a round of “Not me, ask him…” “No, not me, ask her…” that turned into a longer waste of my time than walking alongside the road picking up plastic bottles full of piss and discarded fast food containers and beer cans and even things like the cardbox box that once contained the prescription medicine of the person named on the label and an entire strip of cheap machine-dispensed nails. Within three days, there was more rubbish chucked out at the same place.

I’m tired of picking up after people who don’t care how they ruin a place for others. I am really tired of hearing what weak excuse they had for acting like a chimpanzee. I am angry that the penalty will probably be to do x hours of unpaid work (and I know how hard it is to get someone to do a few hours of paid work when there’s FaceBook to be checked). I don’t see any solution, or any way of stopping this. And there is no repair for this damage. They might carve some kind of totem pole from its trunk and place it where the tree once stood, but I for one could not bear to see it.

I haven’t been allowed to say anything about this up to now. I was shortlisted for the 2023 Jane Austen Literary Foundation’s short story competition. Didn’t win – the story that did was very clever and a touch spooky, whereas mine was pretty clunky (it was a last-minute substitute for a much darker story that I wrote out halfway and then disliked).

Mine was based on a woman I met at an Open University residential school some twenty years ago. We were sitting waiting for our lifts home, and she was nose down in a book, completely ignoring me. She did apologise, when she finally looked up to turn a page. She explained that she had dyslexia, and that her school had completely missed diagnosing it. She’d learned to read in her early twenties and now she read constantly, trying to catch up. I think the book she had was one of the Winnie the Pooh stories – something I read at eight years old. What has stayed with me is the look on her face – just so excited to be finally able to read all these books. She couldn’t stop smiling.

As the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation was set up as a charity to promote literacy skills, it felt like this was the ideal story to tell. My fiction based on that woman – a story called ‘This Is Danny’ – will be included in an audiobook of the three finalists later this year. The proceeds of the book will go to the JALF charity. Nothing to me. I don’t care. I’m chuffed just to be published.