daughter - Debbie Young's Writing Life

School’s Nearly Out for Summer

Posted on July 6, 2014July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

My column in this month’s Tetbury Advertiser marks the end of an era as my daughter prepares to leave primary (elementary) school – and I reflect on the day I left school myself.

It’s nearly time for school to be out for the summer, so why am I downhearted? Because the last day of term will mark the end of an era for me: my little girl will be leaving primary school for ever.

Really I should be celebrating. Laura has had the good fortune to attend an outstanding primary school, and I mean that in the OFSTED* sense. She’s gained a place at an excellent secondary school. I’ve enjoyed playing an active part in the life of her primary school, serving on the PTA for six years. I got time off for good behaviour this last year. But every parent I know who has children at senior school assures me that life will never be quite the same again.

On Your Marks…

With an aversion to change that is typical of her age, Laura is nervous of moving up, though less so with every step she takes towards it – completing SATS, visiting Open Days, planning her new school uniform. I’m sure that, by September, she’ll be eager to embrace the new opportunities that will come her way.

I know I was when I was her age. Gaining all the trappings of secondary school status was an exciting process, even if it was accompanied by my parents tutting at the expense. The smart new uniform and blazer, shiny leather satchel, a mysterious-looking geometry set in a tin, my own little hardback Oxford dictionary – all these heralded the start of a new adventure.

Get Set…

The author graduating from her American-style high school in 1978 — As valedictorian at the FIS graduation ceremony: “And in 30 years time, I’ll come back and tell you how I became a writer”

Although I don’t remember my final day at primary school, I do recall sobbing as I got on the last school bus from my secondary school. I was living abroad, attending Frankfurt International School in Germany. The school was run on American lines, making much drama of our departure with a university-style graduation ceremony, complete with gowns and mortarboards.

I was voted “valedictorian” or class speaker, responsible for making a final address to the assembled parents and staff, on behalf of the graduating students. I still have the typescript of my speech, which I’d bashed out on my red portable typewriter (no home computers in those days) and sellotaped onto orange sugar paper. I spoke about how attending an international school fit us better to play our part in the wider world. The speech went down well. I remembered to speak slowly and clearly, as per the instructions I’d written to myself in big red letters around the edge; everyone laughed in the right places; and afterwards other people’s parents asked for signed copies, assuring me that I’d be a famous writer before long. Well, we were all saying what each other wanted to hear that day.

And Finally, Go!

Cover of Quck Change flash fiction collection — A late developer

Now, more years later than I care to confess, I’ve just published my very first fiction collection as an Amazon ebook called Quick Change. It contains twenty terse flash fiction pieces, arranged in chronological order by the age of each story’s key characters, from cradle to grave. Pre-publication feedback is encouraging: “very subtle, very English, very clever”; “sly, witty, surprising, with genuine twists”; “they make domesticity look edgy, sometimes dangerous, but they are also life-affirming”. So rather like the Tetbury Advertiser, don’t you think?

I just hope Laura fulfils her ambitions a little faster than I did upon leaving school.

This post was originally written for the July/August 2014 issue of the Tetbury Advertiser. Here are some other recent columns I’ve written for this popular local magazine:

*For the benefit of my non-British readers, OFSTED is the government’s official school inspection board which visits all state schools every few years and reports on their standards. The highest level of praise they give is “Outstanding”, which is what they designated my daughter’s school earlier this year.

Family

The Scent of a Grandma

Posted on July 1, 2014July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

Picking up on the thread from my Mother’s Day post, The Scent of a Mummy, I’m reporting here on a memorable meeting with my late Grandma’s cousin Nina.

Nina and Laura together — It seems Nina (98) and Laura (11) share the same smile genes

It was with some trepidation that I offered to take my Auntie Thelma (my father’s younger sister) on a round-trip to Minehead, on the Somerset coast, to visit her mother’s (my grandmother’s) cousin Nina.

Outings with Auntie Thelma are always good fun. She’s good company, generous, funny and liberal-minded, and from since I was very young, she’s been more influential on me than perhaps she realises. She’s introduced me to different arts and crafts concepts, taken me to terrific museums and galleries, and helped shape my aesthetic tastes. She’s also inspired me with her endless creativity and application to the arts and crafts that she enjoys producing herself – much like my dad. (There’s a post here celebrating my father’s many talents.)

Next Best Thing to Visiting Grandma

Old photo of Nina aged 20 — Nina at the age of 20

So it wasn’t Auntie Thelma’s company that made me nervous, but the prospect of meeting for the first time a lady who was my Grandma”s cousin. Grandma died when I was 12. We were very close, and I still often dream at night of going to her house to tea, and wake up disappointed to realise I can no longer do that in real life. Grandma was born in 1900 (a very neat achievement, I’ve always thought), so would have been 114 if she were alive today. Nina, by contrast, at just 98, is a spring chicken. She is however the oldest person I have ever met. Born in 1916, meeting her was a useful opportunity for my daughter Laura, who is studying the First World War at school this term. We took a special photograph of the two of them together for Laura to take into school the next day for show-and-tell. Her classmates were impressed.

Nor was I anxious about being in the company of a very old person. I love old people, and for years was good friends with my next-door neighbours in Hawkesbury Upton, James and Hester Harford, who when they died in 2000 wer aged 96 and 90 respectively.

Why So Nervous?

So why the big build-up? It was because the only photograph that I’d seen of Nina made her look very much like my Grandma. I thought it might be emotionally overwhelming to meet someone who was Grandma’s spitting image, not least because it would fill me with remorse for having never made the effort to meet Nina before.

As it turned out, Nina didn’t remind me of Grandma visually (although comparing her photo with Grandma’s I still see a resemblance). But she shared my Grandma’s quick wit, dry humour and candour, and I really enjoyed her company. Although she is less mobile than she’d like to be, using a tea-trolley in lieu of a zimmer frame to get around the house, she is absolutely on the ball, and her conversation is wide-ranging, evocative of past times but anchored in the present, seasoned by the self-knowledge of a very old lady looking back.

A Lovely Afternoon

Selfie of Grandma's cousin Nina, my aunt, my sister, my daughter and me — The four-generation selfie

We enjoyed lunch together, and after a couple of hours took our leave, wary of wearing her out, but not before we’d taken plenty of photographs, both of her old family portraits – there’s a stunning picture of her when she was 20 – and of ourselves as a group: Auntie Thelma, my sister Mandy, my daughter Laura and me. There can’t be many 98 year olds who enjoy being part of a selfie.

But the visit was not without its emotional trauma. Having parked outside her apartment block (an elegant building with a view of the sea), as we stood waiting for her to answer the door, I was overwhelmed with a strong perfume that suddenly descended upon me like a cloud for no apparent reason. It was an overpowering floral scent. One moment it was not there; the next it engulfed me.

A Fragrant Mystery

I couldn’t quite identify the fragrance. It was neither honeysuckle, nor freesias (my Grandma’s favourite scent), but it was equally heady, yet I didn’t spot any immediate cause of it in the plain, paved yard in which we were standing.

More formal photo of Nina, Thelma, Mandy and Laura — Four generations, total age nearly two and a half centuries

Then Nina opened the door, we went in, and in the flurry of greetings, I neglected to mention the perfume to anyone else, to see if they’d noticed it too. (I did however doubt my sanity for a moment, because a former boss of mine, the editor of a magazine I worked on decades ago, told me with the benefit of his previous career as a psychiatric nurse that olfactory hallucinations, to use his technical term, was a sign of madness.)

It was only days later, having opened a purchase that I’d made on the bric-a-brac stall at a village fete on Saturday, that I realised which flower it was. What I’d bought was a richly-scented Penhaligon candle, still in its box. Its perfume, exuding so powerfully from the packaging that you could almost see it, was Lily-of-the-Valley.

And then the connection hit me: that this was the fragrance that engulfed me as I stood on Nina’s doorstep. And what you need to know to realise why this connection was so extraordinary is this: my beloved Grandma’s first name. It was – of course – Lily.

Family, Type 1 diabetes, Writing

Sharing the Love of Books on BBC Radio Gloucestershire

Posted on May 21, 2014July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

A post about my most recent appearance on BBC Radio Gloucestershire, including a link to enable you to hear the show if you missed it

Debbie Young at BBC Radio Glos studio — Photo credit: BBC Radio Glos receptionist!

“Every Saturday we like to talk live to an interesting guest between 1pm and 2pm” said an email from BBC Radio Gloucestershire that popped up in my inbox last Thursday, inviting me to appear on Manpreet Mellhi’s show last weekend.

I’ve blogged previously about my appearance on this regional BBC radio programme, and it’s always been a pleasure to be asked.The presenters are pleasant, genuine and passionate about the local community, and the station is highly regarded.

My answer to this latest invitation had of course to be “yes please!”

And so it came about that late morning saw me heading north in my car, through glorious sunny Cotswold lanes, with my satnav pointed in the direction of the Gloucester city centre studio, having spent part of Friday mulling over the stimulating list of questions sent in advance by the programme’s researchers. Pet hates, personal philosophy, favourite place in Gloucstershire – answers to all of these and more were requested, to help Manpreet, whom I’d never met before, prepare for our live on-air chat.

A Technical Hitch

So far, so good – until, with five minutes to spare, and a couple of minutes way from the BBC studios, my satnav switched itself off without warning, leaving me floundering as to which way I should be heading. Naturally, this had to be right at the point where one-way systems and the no-stopping zones kicked in, making it tricky to pull over and solve the problem.

Making split-second decisions, I veered off into the first side-street I could find with a safe place to stop and to give my satnav a firm rebuke. Using about the only technical piece of knowledge that I have about motoring, I realised that the problem was a blown fuse in the cigar lighter, into which the satnav lead is plugged. Fortunately, the only repair I’m capable of making to a car is to change a fuse, and I happened to have a couple of suitable sized fuses in the glove compartment. (Just as well there were a couple, as the first one blew straight away too.) Trying not to look at the clock, I plugged in the second replacement fuse, snapped the cover back on the fuse box, and fired up the satnav again. I reached the studio seconds before I was due to arrive, heart pounding, adrenalin still flowing.

Luckily for me, I was welcomed by a calm and sympathetic member of staff who plied me with a much-needed glass of water in the waiting area while the on-the-hour news report ran its course, and one of the station’s reporters, Joanna Durrant, stopped to catch up on each other’s news. (By chance, she’d been reporting that morning on a farming issue from a field near the village in which I live!)

“On Air”

Then I was welcomed by Manpreet herself into the cool, air-conditioned, sound-proofed studios, where all was calm. I started my interview with a big smile, triggered by the introductory music they’d chosen for me: the theme from “Murder, She Wrote”!

Cover of "Coming To Terms With Type 1 Diabte — Now out in ebook – paperback to be published later this year

Manpreet is an avid reader and we had a wide-ranging chat about books and the nature of reading, about favourite childhood books and the importance of also reading outside your comfort zone. While we had heaps in common – including a deep respect for the wisdom of independent bookshop staff – there were also new things to share. She was particularly taken by the idea of flash fiction, which she’d not come across before, and in how self-publishing is democratising the publishing process for authors. Manpreet also took an interest in my book about Type 1 diabetes, and I appreciated the opportunity to raise her listeners’ awareness of what it is and how it affects everyday life for those with the misfortune to contract it (like my husband and our daughter).

And We’re Clear…

As ever, I was impressed by how simple these professionals make it look to guide lively, wide-ranging conversations, within very precise time constraints, interspersing scheduled interruptions such as time checks, weather reports, news bulletins and alerts for later programmes – all while talking naturally and with as much warmth as if you were just sharing a cup of coffee with an old friend. By the end of our appointed hour – just the middle hour of Manpreet’s three-hour broadcast marathon – I was exhausted! But I left the studio with a smile and a skip back out into the sunshine, and when my satnav went haywire again on the way home, I didn’t care – I just enjoyed the scenic journey home in the sunshine, feeling grateful as ever to live in such a wonderful part of the country, served by our fine national broadcasting station.

Listen To The Interview Here

UK residents may catch the programme on the BBC’s iPlayer catch-up service till the end of this Friday, but thanks to kind help of the station’s staff, I am also able to share the broadcast with you here via an .MP3 file, preserved here for posterity.

Thanks again to Manpreet, Zoe, Gemma, Joanna and team for their hospitality and help, and to BBC Radio Gloucestershire for their kind permission to share the recording via my website.

Family, Type 1 diabetes

The Seven Year Itch & Type 1 Diabetes

Posted on May 10, 2014July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

(A post written to mark the seventh anniversary of my daughter’s diagnosis with Type 1 Diabetes)

Debbie and Laura at TIm's house — Laura doesn’t remember being without Type 1 Diabetes

Getting ready to celebrate my daughter Laura’s 11th birthday in 13 days’ time, I can’t help remembering that seven years ago on this day, I was hoping that we’d be out of hospital in time to celebrate her fourth birthday party.

What were we doing in hospital? We’d been urgently despatched by our lovely family doctor, Dr Mather. She’d alerted A&E (aka the Emergency Room) at Bristol Children’s Hospital to expect our arrival.

It was imperative that we were seen straight away to reduce the chance of Laura becoming dangerously ill.

“Are you in a fit state to drive?” Dr Mather asked. “If not, I’ll call an ambulance to blue-light you there.”

With adrenalin surging from the shock of the diagnosis, we were almost in a fit state to fly there, Superman-style, to save our baby.

All Change with Type 1 Diabetes

That was the start of a whole new way of life for us, accommodating the daily need to do things that fly in the face of maternal instinct:

to stick needles in in my child to deliver life-preserving insulin
to prick her fingers, lots of times, every day, to draw blood to test it was neither dangerously high or low

It’s a balancing act, always, 24/7, 365 days of the year. Until a cure is found, there’s never a day off, because if we stopped doing those things, she’d be dead within days. Managing Type 1 diabetes is not for the faint-hearted. But being faint-hearted is not an option.

Lucky Seven?

Laura and Debbie Young on a hill — With Laura, aged 7

Seven years feels like it should be a magic number. It’s a special anniversary when people are meant to become suddenly desirous for change or take off in new directions in search of freedom.

There’s no magic here today, except the evidence, as every day, of the wonders of modern medicine and the compassion of our NHS (National Health Service) that supplies us with the resources we need to keep Laura alive.

Another Sea Change

Laura and friend at JDRF Youth Ambassador Event — Laura hugs a JDRF mascot for luck

When Laura was diagnosed, we were just getting ready for her to move up from playgroup to school. That’s enough change to challenge any family without the complication of serious illness, but hey, when it’s your kid, you deal with it.

Now she’s poised to move up to secondary school. Next week, as her final fling at the village school, she’ll be doing her SATS exams – the tests that the government imposes on every child in Britain at this stage. The school has been preparing the children for SATS since January, and the stress of SATS is bad enough for children (and parents!) who don’t have special health care needs.

But for Laura, she’ll have the added challenge of taking exams while trying to keep her blood sugar level. Stress can have two effects on a diabetic – it can send them very high or very low. Either state is not ideal for sitting exams – it can make you feel faint, drunk, angry, scared, tearful. Or it might have no effect at all. Trouble is, you don’t know how it will affect you till you’re there.

The supposed treat of a class breakfast in school at the start of each examination day adds further complexity. Moving away from her normal breakfast routine adds risk: if we miscalculate her insulin dose to deal with whatever she chooses there for breakfast, it could scupper her blood sugar for during the exam. But we don’t want to stop her from going to the breakfast, because it’s important for her emotional and psychological well-being not to feel different from her classmates – another potential source of distress.

Laid-Back Laura

Fortunately Laura is the most laid-back person I know.

“I’m not worried about SATS,” she assured me yesterday. “I think doing tests is quite fun.”

She’ll be fine, I’m sure. She’s bright, she’s thorough, she has a strong work ethic. She’s not spending the weekend worrying about her SATS – she’s completely absorbed in setting up a Eurovision Song Contest final for her cuddly toys.

Yes, she’s doing fine. But I still wish we could ditch the diabetes, seven years on.

Cover of my new book, "Coming To Terms with Type 1 Diabetes" — Click cover for more info

In November, I’ll be launching a paperback of the ebook I published last World Diabetes Day, to raise funds to search for a cure. All proceeds are going to JDRF, the leading charitable funder of Type 1 diabetes research. If you’d like to read the e-book in the meantime, it’s available exclusively via Amazon on Kindle for now, wherever you are in the world. (More info here.) If you’d like to be alerted via email when the paperback is available, please sign up for my mailing list here.

Family, Publishing, Writing

Writing With Many Hats

Posted on May 8, 2014July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

(A post about one of my writing roles – as Commissioning Editor of the Alliance of Independent Authors’ blog of Self-publishing Advice)

Moroccan fez hats in restaurant — Moroccan hats n a Boulogne restaurant (fortunately, they didn’t have to eat them)

Writing my latest post this morning on the ALLi blog, it occurred to me that many people who read my Writing Life blog will have no idea of the double life I lead.

Well, much more than double, really – I am a classic example of a multi-tasker (and that’s probably why I’m permanently tired!)

What is ALLi anyway? I hear you cry. And what are you doing writing on its blog when you’ve got a perfectly decent one of your own?

A Brace of Blogs

Actually, I’ve got more than one blog of my own. Echoing those car stickers that you see in rear windscreens saying things like “My Other Car is a Porsche”, my other blog is about book promotion, offering tips to authors on how to sell more of their books. Which in itself echoes the title of the book I wrote for Silver Wood Books a couple of years ago called Sell Your Books! See what I mean about the multi-tasking? That second blog is called www.otsbp.com – which is short for Off The Shelf Book Promotions. But back to the ALLi blog…

ALLi for One, and One for ALLi

ALLi (pronounced to rhyme with “ally” rather than “alley”) is the acronym for the Alliance of Independent Authors. It’s the professional organisation for self-published writers and indie authors all over the world, launched by bestselling novelist Orna Ross just over two years ago.

As a self-published author interested in networking with other writers and in improving my writing craft and self-publishing skills, I joined ALLi not long after it was launched. ALLi members may write guest posts for its blog of self-publishing advice (www.selfpublishingadvice.org), and after I’d written a couple of guest posts, I was flattered to be invited by Orna Ross to join her small staff as the Commissioning Editor of the blog. It seemed too good an opportunity to pass up, and so about a year ago I assumed the role, working from home, at hours that fitted in well around my other work and responsibilities.

Commissioner Debbie

The Young family does Fontainebleau — More hats – this time at Fontainebleau on our camper van tour in 2011

The job of Commissioning Editor is to, er, commission articles for the blog, adding to its extensive resource of advice and information for authors who self-publish their work. There are specific themes for each day of the week, and I’m responsible for filling four slots each week:

Opinion (Monday)
Writing (Thursday)
Publishing (Friday)
Reaching Readers aka book promotion or marketing (Saturday)

To fill these slots, I track down ALLi members who have relevant messages and advice to add, and I give them a broad brief on what I’d like their post to be about. I plan the schedule of posts to provide a good variety and range of topics to appeal to writers in all genres, wherever they are around the world. When I receive the copy, images and author bio for each post, I input it to the blog via WordPress and add the necessary metadata and other details.

Keeping Myself Posted

By definition, I have to read every post – so it is a great way of keeping myself up-to-date and well-informed about self-publishing trends and developments, which complements the other writing activities and ambitions in my life.

But it was only when I was looking through the site index that I realised just how many posts I’ve written for the blog myself – some of them composites of comments by other writers, some them exclusively my thoughts. And it occurred to me that they might interest readers of my Writing Life site. So here are links to a few of my favourite posts, for your convenience:

If you’d like to read all the posts I’ve written for ALLi, this link will give you everything that has been published under my byline on the ALLi blog.

And if you’re an indie author who is interested in joining ALLi, here’s the link to find out more.

But for now, I’m heading off to slip on one of my many other writing hats – working on my new collection of flash fiction, Quick Change, due out next month. If you’d like me to let you know when it’s available, please feel free to sign up to the mailing list for this title.

PS In case you’re wondering, my other car is a Ford Ka – but more about my vehicles another day!