JUMPING IN

Written September 26th 08

Well, you have to begin somewhere so I might as well blaze in on a wave of glory, riding piggy-back on this picture which Crysse took last week when she graced the occasion of the launch of 'This Strange and Precious Thing.' That is, as soon as I manage to crack how to paste up pics. I might even start with a picture of my youngest granddaughter who is celebrating her 7th birthday today at Leggoland.

This is the one with the comic teeth which she was wearing on her 5th birthday, and perhaps paste in another, a really nice one of her without the teeth.

She's got teeth in that one, of course, but her own, and demurely not on show.

Just ten days ago I was celebrating the birth of my third book.

Bath writer, Esme Ellis, is how Crysse (Morrison) on her Sept. 21st blog, described me. Writer! But I've never been able to see myself in that role. Words, either in speech or on the page, don't come as easily to me as they seem to come to others. For the best part of my life I've communicated with my fingers - No, I don't mean sign language - I mean through my art, and in particular, my sculpture.

Any formal education I missed out on when, come the eleven plus, way back then, I opted, or rather my mother, bless her, spied in the list of tick-boxes for all the secondary schools on offer at the time in Sheffield, one we hadn't known about; Junior Art School. We did English and maths, and all that, but minimally, and I left at the age of 15 for a full-time course at the Sheffield College of Art. So, That's it. I've begun.