Quotidian

Fire in my Mouth: a concert performance in Edinburgh

It ended with a massive standing ovation that rang on and on, through multiple curtain calls. The atmosphere in the Usher Hall was jubilant, yet sorrowful in turns. The audience simultaneously astonished, stunned, tearful, but also joyous.

It had been one of the most remarkable hours of my life, in which not a second was lost to the performance. In the days that followed, I reflected on it further and read some more.

So here’s the story of 21st August 2024 when for one night only the Philharmonia Orchestra and the female singers from the National Youth Choir of Scotland and its National Girls Choir, performed Fire in my Mouth under the baton of the world-famous conductor, Marin Alsop, at the Edinburgh International Festival.

First, the context.

The interplay between reading and writing

In 2023 I wrote my first novel, Epiphanies and Robberies, and serialised it here – month by month. Whilst I’m the author of quite a few academic books, I’d never before produced something like this, an extended work of fiction, with characters and a storyline totally of my own invention. Certainly, over the years I had mapped out ideas or even made a start on novel writing, but always I failed to produce a completed manuscript. Until now.

Music in the spirit of a novel

Last year I wrote my first novel, Epiphanies and Robberies. I was fortunate to have the encouragement of a loyal band of friends and enthusiasts, who got behind my serialised story as it appeared, chapter by chapter, one month at a time, on this blog.

This year has seen the struggle to find an agent or publisher who will take on my work and bring it to the reading public. It’s a frustrating and rather slow process, though I keep up my efforts.

Happily, members of the loyal band continue to encourage me. Some in the most curious of ways, as I can now reveal.

Bedside vigil: from contemporary painting to palliative care

The painting is over two metres high, more than a metre wide, and from the end of the upper room, it’s radiating with bright colours and intriguing forms. I’m looking at a work by artist Gabriella Boyd, in Dumfriesshire’s Cample Line gallery. The image is unmissable, yet I seem drawn to it by contrary feelings.

I think I know something about what is going on here, but at the same time I’m puzzled.

The painting is telling me a story, but not through any obvious narrative progression.

Emma Jane Pagan – a story that keeps blooming

I was organising a weekend festival in my local parish in 2014, when I first met Emma. The whole event was a celebration of autumn and she kindly provided the festival café with lovely seasonal arrangements to go on each table. When the programme ended, the displays were auctioned off and I found myself signing up with her for a regular delivery of flowers to my home.

So I’ve known Emma for a decade, but until now, knew little of her ‘back story’.

It’s a tale of determination, hard work and of over-coming personal challenges.

It’s also a fascinating example of business and creative innovation in a rural setting. Finding a niche idea, building a community around it, and thereby enhancing the lives of local people and visitors alike.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading here how Emma faced up to a series of obstacles, and having got round them, is now living the dream as proprietor of one of Dumfries and Galloway’s veritable ‘hidden gems’.

Lost and found in the Spring garden

It has been a long, hesitant, process.

I look back at my diary and photographs over the two months since mid-February, bemused by the intermittent unfurling of Spring 2024, here in south west Scotland. Delayed by days and days of rain. Held up by low temperatures and with winds ‘like a whetted knife’. Hindered by the persistent chill of the wet earth.

Yet curiously it’s made for a good experience. I’ve realized that Spring is not just about the excitement of new growth. There’s also the matter of balancing expectations. For like it or not, Spring in the garden is about both disappointments and pleasures.

On the negative side of the balance sheet come the frustrated hopes. I think of the 60 allium bulbs of the variety, Purple Rain. They produced an astonishing display in their first season. This year all that’s to be seen is a clump of indifferent leaves. No flower buds in sight.

Likewise the clutch of Erythronium bought last year at Hidcote Manor, my all-time favourite garden. Carefully planted in a new border that we see from the kitchen window, all that’s on view at the moment are a few tattered leaves and a single white flower, albeit rather elegant.

Over the years, I can think of various splendid plants that were nowhere to be seen come the Spring. Here are a few from memory: Fritillaria, Colocasia, Arisaema, and Penstemon. Also shrubs and trees that never again came into leaf, like Japanese Maple, various Rhododendrons, and the dead stems of Eucalpytus and Cordyline. Winter victims all, that never made it to Summer.

Cicely y David: my play in Spanish

At the end of a beautiful spring day in Pamplona, northern Spain, I am in a local theatre, waiting for the curtain to come up on Cicely and David, my play about the early origins of modern hospice and palliative care. A niche topic, certainly, but 250 people have come along to this Spanish premiere of the work, and the actors are full of nervous energy, eager to hit the stage.

The story within the play explores how in 1947 a newly qualified social worker, Cicely Saunders, became involved in the care of a dying Polish émigré, David Tasma. Their encounter in a London hospital over just a few months, was to shape the foundation of a future global movement to transform end of life care.

The story of how I come to be here in Pamplona goes back to when the play was first performed and filmed in a student production at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2022. For when that five night run of Cicely and David was over, I had no idea of the directions the play would soon be taking.

Within months, screenings were happening in Germany, Argentina, Slovenia, and the Netherlands, as well as at various locations in the UK. The film was being shown in various settings – at palliative care conferences, as part of public engagement activities and also on training events.

The performance in Pamplona represents a milestone for Cicely and David. For now, a new stage production is happening – and in Spanish.

A direct line to Paradise

Newly arrived from Virginia, Henry and Charlotte were entranced by Westminster Abbey. They had just spent two hours immersed in this Gothic-inspired royal church, full of tributes, memorials, the graves of remarkable people, and not least, with its wonderful mellifluous bells.

It already felt like this was going to be the holiday of a lifetime. A small group of friends on a guided tour of some of the finest churches and cathedrals in Britain, and this only the beginning. Slightly jet lagged, yes, but totally enthralled by the Abbey, they gathered to leave, sharing their reactions and excitement.

Then Henry spotted something.

Just to the left of the double doors, and elegantly placed on an ornate shelf, was a golden telephone, glinting in the light of newly lit candles. He and Charlotte moved closer, to read the panel mounted on the wall beside it. The wording was concise, yet intriguing.

The month of cakes

It may be the shortest month of the year, but February seems replete with symbolism, ritual and ambiguity. Ancient observances jumble with Christian overlays. Calendrical quirks and lunar considerations bubble up and surface. The weather flatters, but can also deceive. The garden wakes up, though might easily turn over and go back to sleep. Much bemoaned as a time of dreich and drear, I have found this February, with its extra day, to be a most intriguing month.

Denise Zygadlo: making art through lines, threads, prints and performance

I think I first spoke to Denise Zygadlo at a death cafe. An occasion where strangers meet together over coffee and cake, to talk about mortality in all its aspects. I was impressed by her clarity of thought and speech and her open-ness about her encounters with dying and death in her family.

I already knew something about her work as an artist. I also observed over time how she would be present at the opening of exhibitions, at film screenings and talks: just some of the many places where creative people gather together to celebrate, to look, listen, and to share ideas.

I confess to being slightly puzzled by her work. Simply put, it isn’t easy to pigeon hole. It draws on many materials, on human bodies, on physical movement, fabrics and photocopies, print and pencil. Created in a Nithsdale glen, it seems to be anything but pastoral. It provokes, up-skittles and questions. Taken as a whole it’s a vast bricolage of inspiration, made and remade, and literally re-fashioned over time. Assiduously and with discipline.

So it was terrific for me to get such a positive response from Denise when I invited her to take part in my series of interviews with people who do interesting things as they live and work in Dumfries and Galloway. One who self confessedly likes structure and focus, she completed the email interview process far quicker than anyone else has done so far.

From her answers to my questions I learned so much about her practice, which has been developing, shifting and changing over more than five decades. I hope you’ll enjoy reading her story and taking advantage of the links which lead to various aspects of her art over time. My thanks go to Denise for sharing all this – and for creating a remarkable body of work, which just seems to keep on giving.