Lutyens and Rubinstein This is a fascinating and successful experimental bookshop – two literary agents have committed their money, expertise and writing lists to create a bookshop in Notting Hill, directly opposite Notting Hill community church by the Kitchen and Pantry in Kensington Park Road. It enjoys the expected combination of antique markets versus bohemian […]
Independent bookshops: A Zitebooks tour of this important, diminishing resource
Hatchards Hatchards is an independent specialist bookshop in Piccadilly founded by John Hatchard in 1797, located next to Fortnum and Mason, and opposite the Royal Academy. It has now quietly become part of the Waterstone’s group, but this doesn’t seem to have affected its unique grandiloquent feel. It is London’s oldest bookshop, the occupants having […]
Neverland
When I first began writing, I had friends who were painters, and I always said, `If you paint a picture, you can at least stick it up on a wall in your home; for your friends and relatives, and anyone else who comes to your house, to see.` My paper story I put in […]
Dear Doctor
or… WRONG DIAGNOSIS Dear Doctor, `You should not have told your daughter,` you said. `She’s best out of it,` you said. Well done. Do you realise what you caused? What you were saying? I came to you because of marital problems. Even concerned for the husband who was causing so much misery. `Is it […]
Lindsay Pickton
I knew a young teenage boy called Lindsay Patterson when I had the first two girls and did not plan any more children. But I did think the name Lindsay went well with our surname. I had never heard of it as a girls’ name. It was a Scottish town name, a Scottish clan name, there […]
The Dark Agenda
We live in a world where success has become a more vague concept. Some would say that it has a declining appeal. To become successful is to surrender your identity to the world, something scorned in the digital age. Fame has its price. A Dionysian feeding frenzy is likely to send you to the tabloids […]
Lunch for the Needy
I am at the church which I sometimes attend, mostly for their social events such as a Harvest Suppermeal or one of their discussion groups and courses. These meals, For the Homeless, are run by a local charity, and churches in the area take their turn to be host, about twice a year. It works […]
How I Came To Write ‘Reasons’
How I came to write the title story of my collection of short stories, Reasons. While studying for my Masters Degree in Creative Writing, I was fortunate to have Paul Bailey, novelist and critic, as my tutor for one option. The assignment was to write a 500 word story and I was unsure how to […]
Good Fairy, Bad Fairy
how I came to write Good Fairy, Bad Fairy For a period of time, I was separated from my youngest daughter. We could no longer live together. It was to do with my life situation which is described in my prose writing at the beginning of the Poetry Collection Windows. She was at a Sixth Form […]
The Admirers
HOW I CAME TO WRITE THE ADMIRERS I once had a neighbour who always had four cats. If one died, got run over or met a similar fate, she straightaway got another. One day I was in her house and her cats were all around us. Her man friend, Kim, was there too. I said […]
No Bananas
No Bananas When we had just returned from a two week’s holiday, my husband of a year – and you can see why it was not much longer – asked me, ‘Have we got any bananas?’ ‘Where would we have got them from?’ I replied. ‘Before we went away,’ he said. Holiday. Summer holiday. Like – […]
Roll On Tomorrow
Roll on Tomorrow Of all my four children, only my one son has an English degree like me. Like me, he loves words and language, and people, and he is very funny, in a quaint, dry sort of way. One day, as a very young teenager, he said, ‘I like the idea of the sort […]
Making Whoopee
Making Whoopee Lovelorn Laura was determined to turn her life around – with the help of a little lyrical loveliness. by Pamela Pickton “Oh, dear, what can the matter be?” sang the music as the keep-fit class bounced their bottoms on the floor. And, “Oh, dear, could we all fatter be?” sang Laura to herself. She had […]
The Books You Might Have Missed – Zitebooks Literary Review
Our 2017 Zitebooks Christmas feature is our response to questions featured in Saturday’s Guardian’s Literary Review Supplement. Hope you enjoy them. James Goddard The book I am currently reading Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Someone at my book group suggested it last month as an ‘extra’ read. Ony about one third of the way through […]
Christmas Greetings
`Posh people have better cards than most of us.` I remarked to my friend.`Yes, they do. Because they have rich friends.` Are they bigger? Mostly. Shinier? Or just of better quality material? However pretty, even beautiful, ours look like humble cottages next to Mansions Tall. The pretty, the beautiful, the funny, the well-crafted home-made. Still somehow scrappy next […]
Unmasked
UNMASKED My last magazine story – A Love Like This – is true. Though I called it The Love Seat. It all happened much longer ago than five years. The two separate episodes, with two different partners, were twenty-five and ten years ago. Not the stuff magazine stories are made of, I thought. As I […]
Dynasty
My mother’s mother was born a Peircy and a distant relative, Brian Piercy, told me that anyone with either of these spellings is a Percy. He has done 40 years of research into the Percys. My great grandfather was cut off without a penny, as they say, for marrying beneath him. Though my mother always […]
Blessed Babies
I wonder if anyone else has ever laughed, as I have, at that poem by Eleanor Farjeon called, `When I Live In A Cottage`? The poet lists what idyllic things she would like to have in her dream cottage, including dogs, cows, goats, apple trees, and rosebushes, cats with kittens, and beehives. `And one blessed baby […]
Genesis and Catastrophe
Woman created everything there is. Who else could have? Does she not make everything? The dinner, the home. Conceive, carry, give birth to the baby, then rear it? She made land first in the hope that good would come out of it, and sustenance for her. But then she divided the land into smaller bits, […]
Neighbours
Oh, she couldn’t have put it in the bin, could she? Not in the massive landfill bin – outside, in the flats’ private car park, next to the separate bins for cardboard and things. How could you possibly ever find anything in there? But, yes, she had emptied her kitchen bin out there this morning. […]
A Love Like This
I don’t expect it to be there. It couldn’t be, could it? Not after all those years? But at least if the restaurant were still there… Well, it would do something, though I can’t think what. I can only think of that little tingle, inside my heart, when I remember the ingle nook. Oh, tingle […]
Matchbox
MATCHBOX OR `My matchbox finally takes his bow.` I knew my publisher would not allow such a long title, so I am beginning with it. I called the last blog Cabbages and Kings and a Matchbox, because I mention a member of my family who could make a matchbox sound interesting. But he got removed. Left out. You […]
Cabbages and Kings
A long time ago, when I had just spent time with a friend who had recently been to Disney Florida, when it was very new. I remember being amazed at how little they had to say about the experience. And I thought how somebody in my family could make […]
History Repeats
HISTORY REPEATS LONDON FIRE. GREAT FIRE OF LONDON History has shown us the Holocaust of the Jews, of American Indians, of the Aborignes. Of women, the black, of the poor. Devastations come thick and fast now: Westminster, Manchester, London Bridge. This week, the fire. Many thinkers have claimed that what happens in the world, including […]
‘What about Sets?’ I asked, carefully…
When you do a fringe show, on a limited budget, especially when it’s essentially, a ‘one-person show’, you’re rather limited about what you can create in terms of set. In past shows, I’ve just not bothered with anything, especially when touring. I mean I did a whole tour with a plastic joke-shop arm as the […]
I haven’t a Stitch to Wear (Fashion Ideas for Performance)
First things first. If you’re going to do a show based on your book, you’ve got to dress in something fabulous and sums up your aesthetic. The thing is, my natural dressage is lazy. I like to refer to it as shambolic chic. I often play other characters, so one has a costume and therefore […]
Hot, Cross Bun
So much to ‘blog’ about, and here’s another from my esteemed quiver. One of my fans asked me yesterday, ‘When are we going to get a new one?’ So, here we go. But where? Bombings and other hells. The election – and, When exactly are we ‘old’? At what age have people the right to […]
Bastardography – A Queer, Creative, Mental Health Theatre Odyssey
It’s just over two weeks before I take the Balham stage to bring my book Bastardography to life. The play’s subtitle is ‘A queer, creative, mental health odyssey’. With a background in theatre (no sniggering at the back, there!) it seems a natural fit to create a unique theatrical experience based on the book rather than […]
What On Earth Do You Do All Day?
Over the years I have become depressed by the continual digs about not having been out to work a great deal in my life. I wonder if anyone has ever considered that it could be that you don’t go to work because you don’t have a job? You may well have entered your child rearing years […]
Mindfulness and The Box
Mindfulness, as I have long understood it, is being in The Moment, whatever you are doing, whether washing the dishes, or something more enjoyable. For whatever you are doing, normally your mind wanders. I guess watching television could be described as mindless. It is certainly a lazy occupation. Other activities may require you to turn […]