WHAT MAKES A WRITER BLOG 5

Taking a step back, I said a story begins with that one thought and it does. However, it’s more than that isn’t it?  For me it’s the love of the written word as well as the incidental spoken stories of everyday life, children, families, traditions and tribes.  Yes tribes as in those groups we belong to and the things they do.  These spoken stories, oral history, have such range in families and in society.  The story may have a simple genesis, but it’s the way you tell it, that’s the thing, to be sure! Stories are how we carry our history in our heads I suppose.  Our lives and the events that happen to us.  For me, the stories in the Troublesome Tom series are a history of experiences in my life wrapped in the humour or pathos of the moment.

The humour and ridiculousness of the genesis of the story ‘TT AND THE FERRET IN THE CORRIDOR’ by Barbara Herszenhorn, actually happened to me when I was a Headteacher.  There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” I said. I wanted to say “Who’s there?” But I was the Head and who did I know was behind the door? Could have been tricky.  But in came a Teaching Assistant saying, “You’re not going to believe this Mrs H. but there’s a ferret in the corridor!”  “You’re having me on,” I said.  “No,” she said.  From then on a flurry of action ensued – details of which are in the story, but suffice it to say I was only laughing after the events of trying to secure the safety of 350 children from ages 7-11.  We got him out into the playground, but no let up to the escapade as the playtime bell went just at that moment…aargh!  The problem was solved with the help of our trusty knight in shining armour, our beloved handyman armed with big orange net and a swing bin.  Well, I just had to capture that in the story with the images unfolding before our very eyes.  The sense of the ridiculousness of the event was stimulus enough with the 30 minute live film and drama right there!

“I know whose ferret that is Mrs. Herszenhorn, it’s Kevin Stanley’s he said he was fed up of it so he just let it go on our fields this weekend,” said one pupil.  Well thank you very much for that story Kevin.  It had it all, pathos, drama, humour danger, the lot!  The Y3 teacher speedily took a photograph of the ferret and used it as a creative writing stimulus for her class!

You see what I mean?  It starts with just one thought or one event!

Barbara Herszenhorn. 31.1.19.

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