WRITING CLASSES

When I was in my thirties, together with my husband and two sons, I emigrated to New Zealand. After I had settled into my new country, I began asking myself what it was I really wanted to do. They had told us at New Zealand House that this was a country of opportunity, after all. The answer was, 'I want to write', so I enrolled to do a three month 'Writing for the Media' course, followed by one on Creative Writing at what was then The Christchurch Polytechnic.

The first thing I wrote was a humorous article on office work (you write best what you know best, my teacher had told me), which I mailed to a rather dull magazine. To my surprise, they accepted it, asked me if I'd write a series and, at the same time, paid me, I followed this startling success with a couple of 'Thought for the Day' type pieces which I read on National Radio. What was this thing called 'rejection'? All one had to do was to write something half decent and it was published! Thereafter I wrote prodigiously for three years without any success and could probably have decorated our house with the rejection slips I received.

It took many years before I felt ready to write the novel I'd promised myself I'd write years earlier. As it was the first two or three were destined for the bin and 'He Called Me Son' and 'The Best in Blountmere Street' took me thirteen years to write!

LEARNING TO READ

I was twenty-one and I worked with Doreen in a solicitors office just off Oxford Street. She was clever, fun and well-read. It wasn't long before she was bringing books to work for me to read. I was like a baby bird with its beak open ready to receive anything she deemed would nourish me. Neville Shute was swallowed whole, along with Hemingway and Thomas Hardy. I couldn't get enough of books by A.J. Cronin (of Doctor Finlay's Casebook fame) and Winston Graham. One day Doreen brought in "My Son, My Son" by Howard Spring and I discovered what it was like to be so captivated by a book I actually read it walking along the road.

And that was that! I was a reader and I've never stopped reading since. Through books I've met thousands of interesting people, eaten hundreds of exotic meals in far away countries and been privy to all sorts of intrigue and mystery.

So, if you're still around, Doreen, bless you. The little bird you nourished has become a veracious book-eating eagle! Thank you, my friend.

Barbara