Jennifer Pittam

Photo by Jennifer Pittam Masks on Public Transport, June 2020 So early in February I spent a weekend with my father, who had recently been in hospital with a strange virus that we came to know as 'The Bug From Hell.' Like a kind of influenza, it seemed to have no runny nose or other cold symptoms, but jumped straight from high temperature, via loss of taste and sense of smell, to a barking cough and the most severe chest infection within 10 days. After a short, concerning period in hospital, he threw off the bronchitis. Feeling well but with an ominous scratchy cough, I left him and flew to Belfast for a long court case. Photo by Jennifer Pittam My Last 'Normal' Picture before Lockdown Photo by Jennifer Pittam The River Lagan, Belfast - View from my Bedroom Window How strange it seems, 12 weeks later in #Lockdown, to be working as a Clerk of the Court from my front room in London, hearing bail applications on Zoom instead of travelling all over the British Isles...

So my Creativity Course got off to a roaring start and the first thing we have to do is learn to write 'Morning Pages'.  Writing Morning Pages is a technique in which you empty the subconscious, sort of vomit it onto the page, at least once a day. Preferably you do it first thing in the morning, without thinking, judging or editing your work.  It's not a new idea - one wonders whether artists and writers have been at something similar since the first troubador hiked his wares at the castle gate. Since the first troubadour... There are various famous works one could learn from - the journals of Virginia Woolf, to name but one, and Dorothea Brande's brilliant classic 'Becoming A Writer'. Out of print now and hellishly expensive, it's still worth looking out for. DB gives those wonderful pep talks so redolent of old black and white movies. "If you fail repeatedly at this exercise, give up writing. Your resistance is actually greater than your de...

'I'd like you to write a 2,500 word autobiography,' says Eric Maisel. The wind howls outside and the rain lashes down. 'I can't,' I think. 'I won't,' my mind shouts. I can't penetrate that whirling bundle of protective noise - the one that every artist uses to hide the creative centre of the soul. Tentatively, I put down a note about my first creative experiences, with my wax crayons in the back garden at Woodford Green. I remember a picture on the wall of our little Victorian School, and my astonishment when I noticed it was mine. I remember a week in the Scottish Highlands, painting for dear life. I remember sadness, the years when my art seemed like a love lost forever. I remember when I caught a glimpse of it again, a brief flash in the graveyard. I stand in the graveyard. It's not so scary. People picnic here in the summer. They bring their babies, their weddings and their loved ones at the last.The rain has stopped, the wind pauses. I b...

This week I've been in Birmingham for a huge court case.  For those unfamiliar with Britain, Birmingham is a city in what we call the Midlands - quite literally, the middle part, geographically, of the British Isles. Photo by Jennifer Pittam The view from my hotel was tranquil and uplifting, unlike the court case which was gruelling and difficult to listen to. Safeguarding my own mental health, I took my writer's notebook to the Birmingham Museum of Art. Here I learned far too much about the punishing air-raids of World War II, when the city was reduced to rubble by enemy bombing. Photo by Shutterstock.com Birmingham Blitz, WWII  It was very moving to see the black and white photos of the civilian population, who continued to work and maintain the country when their homes and businesses had gone. Many were mothers, left at home whilst husbands and sons served in the armed forces. As always in war, the civilian population in  the enemy country suffered i...

Today I attended a writing class with Anne Aylor in the Lucas Arms, an old pub not far from Kings Cross Station. The class was a precious 'time in' with the artist soul. We wrote upstairs, lulled by the creaking pub sign and the smell of burning sage. Anne, a gifted novelist, has a talent for nurturing the embryo writer in others. For a precious day I found myself once more with Thomas Tarling, his charming and courageous woman Mary and the enigmatic leader of the fair, Zackariah Scarrott. 'One's religion,' said J.M. Barrie, is 'whatever one is most interested in'. Today, the religion of the practising writer was extended by a few more hours, in a London pub with the rain beating down on the streets outside.

Kennington's Gorgeous Bats It's been a glorious week in London, just as late spring 'should' be. By contrast, there are ghastly things looming large in the world, and a fair percentage rock up in my courtroom. The  lunch break is my sanity check, and I  head to Kennington Park bearing salad box and writer's notebook. Stress  falls away - thank the Lord for riotous flower beds, sculpted lawns and centuries-old London Plane trees. The Sculpted Lawns and Ancient Trees Photo by Jennifer Pittam Kennington Park  was common land for hundreds of years. It's first recorded officially in the 1600s. There were village settlements, semi-wild forest and the River Effra, a proud Celtic tributary of the River Thames. The first Queen Elizabeth sailed her barge down the River Effra to Sir Walter Raleigh's Brixton home, but now, like both of them, the River Effra's six feet under the ground. The Lost River Effra I wonder whether Sarah Elston walked on ...

Remembrance Sunday has gone and now we are deep into Autumn. The trees in London’s forests and parks have turned red and the air is crisp as I trot across the Common to the gym. I am deep in thought as I struggle across frost-encrusted grass and prickly gorse, for I am struggling with my novel at present. Everything in me wants to stay at home and sit by the laptop, battling. Yet, this is the worst thing I could do. Sometimes you have to walk away from your writing to walk deep into the heart of what you’re trying to say. As I come out from behind a tree I startle a deer – a magnificent stag. Because I am thinking about my hero Thomas and his battle to find himself, I’m not really looking where I’m going. I just blundered into his territory, a great, flat-footed human, not looking, not thinking. I must have come between the stag and his ladies, for he stands his ground and barks at me. This is dangerous stuff, potentially, but I don’t even notice because I am deep in the untamed, the w...