Meet my guest Wendy Clarke

Wendy Clarke, has had phenomenal success in getting short stories published in the notoriously difficult area of women’s magazines. Recently I read a collection of her short stories, ‘Room In My Heart,’ and was blown away by the scope of subjects she covered. I was particularly struck by one called ‘The Courting Cake’ which was set in the Lancashire town of Chorley, a town I’m familiar with. Somehow she’d managed to convey the Lancashire-ness of it even down to mentioning a dance hall that I used to patronise when I was younger! When I asked her if she knew the said dance hall, she admitted she didn’t but had done her research. That’s what I call dedication.

She now has a new collection of short stories out, ‘The Last Rose,’ and to celebrate its launch, I asked her to describe how she’d first come to write, what inspires her to write, how long it takes her to write a story and, as she’s now writing her first novel under the auspices of the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writers Scheme, how it will affect her short story writing. Here’s what she had to say.

At school, English was always my favourite subject. Being pretty much a dunce at anything bordering on scientific or mathematical, I would look forward to these lessons and find my shoulders relaxing when I walked through the classroom door.

              I met my old English teacher last year. He’s over eighty now and it was the first time I had seen him since school. He asked me what I was doing with myself. “I’m a writer,” I said, surprised he remembered me. It was the first time I had been confident enough to say these words but I had just sold my hundredth magazine story and felt that I had earned the right!

              “Now why doesn’t that surprise me?” he said.

              I can’t describe how wonderful it was to hear him say that, for I had always looked up to him as a writer and a teacher. It was all the more pleasing because just three years earlier, I had heard the sad news that the school I was teaching in was closing and that I no longer had a job. His words gave me faith in my career change.

              Having not written anything, except exam papers, school reports and lesson plans, since leaving school, this new path had been an unexpected one. The memory of those English lessons where I had created the stories and poems that I loved, must have stayed with me, though, for when my brother suggested I try the online writing course he had just completed, I jumped at the chance. I loved it and went on to do a second.

              After the course ended, I carried on writing and started sending stories to women’s magazines. To my surprise, I had my first acceptance quite soon, quickly followed by sales to two other magazines. A few weeks later, my first story was published, complete with illustration. I was thrilled but not only that... I was hooked! In fact I’ve been writing short stories ever since.

              I’m often asked where I get my inspiration from and I would say all over. I read papers, I listen to the news, I watch the adverts, I eavesdrop on peoples conversations and I keep my eyes open. Sometimes I feel like a spy! A story can take anything from two hours to two days to write – it depends on the length and how inspired I feel. Historical stories take longer because of the research.

              My success as a short story writer is in large part down to my tenacity. I’m a great believer in setting goals and achieving them. In the early days I would say to myself, ‘I will not stop trying until I have had a story accepted by this magazine.’ Later the goals became, ‘I will have a serial accepted’, then ‘I will have an article published.’

              Once these goals were achieved, I realised there was one final one left – to write a novel. Having decided the genre would be romance, I joined the Romantic Novelist Association’s New Writers’ Scheme in January of this year and I would like to say that I am forging ahead with it... only I’m not. The reason for this is because I can’t shake off my love of the short story, so I am doing both.

              I have also just put together and published my second collection of short stories, The Last Rose which has taken up time. My writing friend Tracy Fells would say it’s all procrastination... but I call it trying to do everything I love!

That was fascinating, Wendy, especially the bit about meeting your old English teacher. Many congratulations on your success – and the best of luck with writing your novel. 

Here are the details of Wendy’s book http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Last-Rose-Stories-friendship-ebook/dp/B00U1WBAC4. Wendy has a terrific blog if you’d care to take a look here http://wendyswritingnow.blogspot.co.uk/.

Journey to a novel

My little promotion display

I held my first author event yesterday. It was only to my local Townswomen’s Guild, of which I am a member but, in a way, that was harder than giving a talk to strangers. I couldn’t help wondering if they were thinking, ‘Who does she think she is?’ and the scriptural thought sprang to my mind, ‘no prophet is accepted in his home town.’ (Matthew 4:24). In the event, I needn’t have worried because it went down well. I’d called the talk ‘Journey to my novel’ and talked of certain aspects of my life that had contributed to me becoming an author. I’d been advised that it ‘wouldn’t do’ just to talk about one’s book, one should give some background to it, so that’s what I did. The main thrust of my talk was about how much influence my home town of Horwich, Lancashire, had had on my life. After many years away from Horwich, we returned to live in the town when I was thirteen and thus I spent my formative years there. Francis Pryor, the archaeologist, said in his book ‘Britain in the Middle Ages,’ that ‘the person you are is synonymous with the town where you grew up.’ This is, I believe, very true of me. As readers of this blog know, up to that point, I’d led a very sheltered life, growing up as I did in other people’s houses while my parents were in domestic service. Returning to Horwich was the beginning of my journey to adulthood. And, as Horwich is very much featured in ‘A Suitable Young Man,’ it necessarily formed a large part of my talk. One person said to me afterwards that she hadn’t realised how sheltered a life she had led compared to mine!

Having been a Leeds tourist guide in the past, I am used to speaking in public so I was surprised to find that I was exceedingly nervous. My voice sounded shaky and quavery, not helped by the sore throat I was suffering from. Of course, it may have been with it being the first time I’ve done this talk but I hope I do better than that next time. I think I’ve said before that I’ve put my name forward as a speaker for other Townswomen’s Guilds in the area but I’ve not had any takers yet.

At the end of the talk, I gave a reading from the book. I had chosen a passage which had an element of humour in it and that went down really well. Although there were only thirteen members there yesterday, I did manage to sell eleven books so I was well pleased. Of the other two, I was one of them and my friend, who’d done a beta read for me was the other.

All in all, a worthwhile experience even if I was a nervous wreck beforehand!

Another Memoir - Four schools in one term!

I'm on the second row a little to the right of the teacher

What with the excitement of publishing my debut novel, I haven’t written any further memoir pieces so I thought it was about time I posted another one. I’d got to the stage where I’d passed my Eleven-Plus examination. This is what happened next.

So there I was, all set to go to Bolton County Grammar School in September 1950. Except that I never got there. In fact, I went to four different grammar schools in my first term, which is pretty good going even for our record of moving around. Before the end of that school year, we’d moved to Rotherham, now in South Yorkshire, where my parents would be working for a solicitor, in their usual capacity.

              This time, though, we weren’t ‘living-in.’ We were given a terraced house a mile or so from the big house. This was the first time we’d lived as a normal family, instead of the rarefied atmosphere of a wealthy household. Many of the neighbourhood children had been born and brought up on the same estate and knew each other from their early school-days. As usual, I was the perpetual outsider, never in one place long enough to make more than cursory street or school friendships.

              For a few brief weeks, I finished off the school year in a Rotherham Junior School, another Victorian building, high on a hill, with a stone flagged playground and the ubiquitous outside toilets, cold enough even on a summer’s day to freeze the bottom. I attended the school with a post-Eleven Plus confidence that was soon deflated as the teachers had little patience with the shy, quiet child who day-dreamed a lot.

              The situation improved slightly when I went to Rotherham Girls’ Grammar School. At least there, we were all new together and came from different areas of Rotherham. There was a certain anonymity, too, in our green uniforms, until personalities began to emerge later (and mine wasn’t one of them). We were all the same, First Years embarking on our secondary education, wonder on our faces as we watched the older boys and girls, confident and sure of themselves. Would we ever be like that, we speculated?

              It seems I was not to find out. After about six weeks, we were on the move again and my scholarship was transferred to Chesterfield Grammar School. Once more, we packed all our belongings, including Rex the spaniel, and moved over the border to Derbyshire. This time our destination was a large, very old house, Park Hall, on the outskirts of the town. I fell in love with the place, it reminded me so much of the old manor houses where adventures happened in the books I’d read. It captured my imagination at once, even the gardens seemed cottagey, if slightly overgrown.

              Park Hall Cottage was the cottage we were supposed to have but back in 1950, there was some slight problem, it seemed, with the previous occupants. Would we object to staying in the house itself for a few days? I didn’t mind a bit as the large room we had been allocated was high in the attics and the little bathroom was literally tucked under the rafters, its doorway so small it looked like a cupboard and you had to stoop to get inside it.

              Unfortunately, there was no place for Rex in the house so he had to stay in an outbuilding. He didn’t like that, he was used to our love and attention. Consequently, he barked all the time and got on everybody’s nerves.

              After six weeks, all the First Years at Chesterfield Grammar School knew each other and friendships were already being forged, so again I was on the outside looking in, not helped by the fact that I was wearing the green uniform of Rotherham, while Chesterfield’s uniform was navy. In spite of that, there was something about the school that made me think I was going to like it. It could have had something to do with the fact that the school meals were the best I’d ever tasted. With the school and the house, I decided I was going to like Chesterfield.

              Yet after only a week, my parents told me we were leaving. ‘But why?’ I demanded, most definitely upset.

              ‘Because it’s not going to work out, love,’ Mum explained. ‘There’s no way I’d get on with her (presumably meaning the woman whose house it was) under my feet all day, telling me what to do.’

              ‘Besides which,’ Dad continued, ‘you know the cottage we’d been promised? Well, apparently the people who had the job before us are still in there and short of a court order, they’re not likely to leave for some time. So you see, love, we were brought here under false pretences, that’s why we’ve decided to leave.’

              ‘But what are we going to do, where are we going to go?’

              ‘Your Uncle Mark’s coming over for us in the van, we’re going to stay with them for a few weeks till we get ourselves sorted out,’ Dad informed me.

              As we drove over the Pennines from Chesterfield to Manchester, where my uncle and aunt had a greengrocer’s shop on Stockport Road, Levenshulme. Uncle Mark’s delivery van wasn’t very big and we were a bit cramped with three adults, a growing girl, a fat lazy dog as well as the family belongings. Uncle Mark was his usual cheerful, blustery self but we were all subdued and miserable. I sat in the back cuddling Rex and watching the road back to Chesterfield disappearing behind us, infinitely sad to be leaving Park Hall and Chesterfield.

              Although my cousin Patricia was a year younger than me, I still felt hopelessly inadequate at her side. She exuded such self-confidence and was bright into the bargain, which meant that she was already settled at Levenshulme High School which I would be attending. I was still in my Rotherham green while she, of course, was in the Levenshulme browns and yellows. Fortunately, we weren’t in the same class, she being in the A stream (of course.) and me being in the B stream.

              The house seemed to be in a state of constant chaos and clutter, not surprising with so many of us living in such close contact and a busy shop to run. Mum helped about the house, cooking and cleaning, while Dad assisted Uncle Mark with the deliveries, while Auntie Lenora concentrated on serving in the shop.

              You entered the house through the shop, the bell of which jangled when you opened the door, past the wet smelly fish and earthy vegetables, up some stairs into a small sitting room dominated by a piano and a window overlooking the back yard. This room led through to the kitchen-cum-dining room, with a fire blazing in the corner, a table in the centre, a sink and a cooker to one side. There was a glass porch leading to the back yard piled high with old fish and fruit boxes. Up the narrow stairs was a large lounge, kept mainly for ‘best’ since Uncle Mark and Auntie Lenora never seemed to have much time to sit down.

              There must have been a bathroom and one or two bedrooms on this floor too but I don’t remember those. My memory skips up another flight of stairs to the bedroom I shared with Patricia and Pamela, my other cousin.

              I don’t know how long we stayed there but it can only have been a matter of weeks. Mum and Dad were looking for jobs and thinking of putting their roots down in either Bolton or Horwich, having had enough of domestic service life for the time being. Auntie Lenora’s father, a Mr Blakeley, a tall upright man whom I’d met a couple of times, had an end-of-terraced house in Farnworth, about five miles from Bolton, that he was willing to rent to us until such time as we could get on our feet again.

              We moved there some time in December and my parents must have begged and borrowed some furniture for having ‘lived in,’ we didn’t have much. The house, which had once been a shop, stood on the corner of Carter Street, on the opposite corner to the Black Dog Inn, the terminus for the number 43 Bolton to Farnworth bus. Having stood empty for some time, it was a damp, dark place, which always felt cold. The front door led straight from the street into an old-fashioned kitchen with a large range on the fireplace wall and a small scullery, shiveringly cold, off it. Steep stairs divided the kitchen from what used to be the shop which had also served as a parlour at some time but now, because of the damp, was largely unused except for storage. Up the dark, thinly carpeted stairs were the bedrooms, one to the left which was Mum and Dad’s room, and one to the right which was mine. You had to go through my bedroom to get to the piercingly cold, cavernous bathroom. Everywhere there was peeling wallpaper, patches of mould and tides of rising damp.

              Still, it was soon home and a place of our own where we could settle down after the past few tumultuous months, especially following the Chesterfield experience. As Dad had his PSV (Public Service Vehicle) driving licence, he was able to get a job driving buses for Bolton Corporation. Sometimes, on a standby duty, one of his runs would be the Bolton to Farnworth run, which meant we could take out a flask of tea on very cold days or simply chat to him for a few minutes in the cab.

              By that time, it was close to the end of the first school term and already I had been to three different schools. It was decided that, in order to settle me in more quickly, I should go to Farnworth Grammar School for the last few days of the Autumn term and this I did. Still wearing my Rotherham Grammar School green uniform! Talk about odd girl out!

In memory of Bob Sutherland, email and Facebook friend, who wanted to know what happened next.