Hawkesbury Parish News - Debbie Young's Writing Life

Write What You Know

Posted on April 19, 2017 by Debbie Young

In my column for the April issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News, I wrote about this old adage for writers.

Common advice to authors is that when writing fiction, it’s best to write what you know. This is to add authenticity and to avoid errors. The only trouble with that advice comes when an author’s friends and relations assume that certain characters are based on themselves.

That’s why smart fiction publishers always print a disclaimer (“any semblance to people living or dead is purely coincidental”), although the author’s friends and relations may easily retort “Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?”

So I’d like to take this opportunity to assure you all that no-one in Wendlebury Barrow, the fictitious village in which my new novel Best Murder in Show is set, is based on any real person, living or dead, in Hawkesbury Upton (or elsewhere, for that matter).

And although the two villages have plenty of features in common – annual show, shop, pub, school, drama group, writers’ group, WI – only one of them has a resident murderer.

Fortunately, that’s Wendlebury Barrow, not Hawkesbury Upton. Phew.

Best Murder in Show is now available from Amazon as an ebook and a paperback, although its official launch will be at the Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival on Saturday 22^nd April at 10am in the Bethesda Chapel, to which you are all invited.

After that, copies will also be available from the Hawkesbury Stores. That is, if the staff still want to stock it after they’ve read Chapter 4 about the eccentric village shopkeeper…

The special Festival price for the paperback is £4.99, rising to the RRP of £7.99 from 1st May – so get in quick to save yourself £3!
Also available to order from Amazon.
From 1st May, you will also be able to order the book via your local bookshop at the usual RRP from 1st May by quoting ISBN 978-1911223139.

Personal life

For the Love of Yoga

Posted on March 1, 2017March 2, 2017 by Debbie Young

My column for this month’s Hawkesbury Parish News

Gromit statue — Not your usual dental assistant

Having achieved a miracle cure for fall-induced back pain at a yoga class in January, (something clicked back into place during a floor exercise), I turned to yoga techniques again this month to counter my fear during an emergency tooth extraction.

I lay in the dentist’s chair breathing deeply, body relaxed, palms facing upwards, while the very pleasant dental surgeon went about her task. With the added distraction of pictures of Minions and Gromits on the ceiling, (something our yoga class at the Methodist Hall doesn’t have), I got through the procedure unscathed. What with this and my back pain cured, I was feeling positively smug until I caught up with the international news.

That same day, an Australian man had used yoga to escape death by drowning. Trapped in a pool of mud by his overturned mechanical digger, he adopted the Cobra position to keep just his nose above the waterline until rescue arrived… six hours later. That put my triumphs into perspective.

But it just goes to show that whatever the source of stress in your daily life, yoga can help make it better. Though I’ll still be giving muddy pools and mechanical diggers a wide berth in future.

You can find out more about the Australian man’s story on the BBC website here.

(If you’d like to join the fun of our weekly yoga class, taught by Joan Boulton, come and join us at 10am every Thursday morning during term-time in the Methodist School Room.)

Family, Personal life

Just Rewards – A Proposal for a New Way to Keep New Year Resolutions: The Resolution Calendar

Posted on January 10, 2017January 10, 2017 by Debbie Young

My column from the January 2017 issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News

Given that change has become the new normal in the last twelve months, at least in terms of politics, I wonder whether New Year’s Resolutions will prove easier to keep this month? Research shows that it takes twenty-one days to establish a new habit, so if you’re struggling with your resolutions by the time you read this, don’t give up. I have a new invention that might help you: the Resolution Calendar.

A slightly smaller cousin of the Advent Calendar, it should contain twenty-one little doors, one for each day until your new habit has taken hold. Behind each door would be a suitable small reward such as the traditional chocolate, to be redeemed only if you get through the day with your resolution intact. (Unless of course your resolution is to eat less chocolate.)

Alternatively you might take my husband’s unusual approach to what was his first ever Advent calendar last month. Rather than opening a door each day, he saved them all up for Christmas, announcing throughout December as my daughter and I ate our daily chocolates just how many he’d had left on Christmas Day when all ours were long gone.

Whatever your New Year Resolutions, I wish you a happy and healthy 2017.

Smiley face made of empty Lindor wrappers — All that was left of my Advent calendar by Christmas Day

Events, Personal life

Of Jealous Guys and Ambitious Bonfires

Posted on November 26, 2016November 26, 2016 by Debbie Young

(This is my November column for the Hawkesbury Parish News, published just before the annual village Bonfire Night celebrations)

Cover of the Ladybird book entitled James I and the Gunpowder Plot — All you need to know about Guy Fawkes in child-friendly detail (image: Amazon UK)

I’m old enough to remember not only the time when “Penny for the Guy” was a common cry at this time of year, but when a penny would be enough to buy something.

You could get four fruit salad sweets or a chocolate mouse for a penny. Or for just a few pennies, you could buy the cheapest fireworks from our local Post Office. My favourite was a box of coloured matches, while naughty boys preferred bangers or jumping jacks. Children were allowed to buy them, and we did. These days we may complain that health and safety regulations have gone mad, but looking back, you can see why we needed to invent them.

My favourite childhood memory of Fireworks Night was our family party. Raised in London suburbia, I was lucky enough to live in a house on the corner of the street, with a wrap-around garden big enough to host a decent bonfire without torching either the guests or the neighbours. That’s something you couldn’t do in most modern estate houses.

Each year our guy got sent on his way atop a pile of crumpled newspaper and sticks. In that simpler age, it didn’t occur to us to build a bonfire shaped like anything other than a bonfire.

Not so now we live in Hawkesbury, where the village bonfire is always a spectacular structure: Tower Bridge last year, complete with London bus. What shape will this year’s be? Whatever it is, if the old guys we used to make could see it, they’d be flabbergasted. Some guys have all the luck, they might say.

Picture of giant model of train in bonfire — The answer: Hawkesbury’s 2016 Bonfire Night set fire to the Hogwarts Express (Check out the two people standing to the left of the picture for an idea of the giant scale of the train!) Photo by Andy Musty

Events, Personal life, Writing

Beware of Scary Crows

Posted on October 19, 2016October 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

My column from the October edition of the Hawkesbury Parish News was written in the run-up to our annual village Scarecrow Trail

Photo of two scarecrows with a zimmer frame, radio and cups of tea — Charmingly detailed scarecrows outside Beaufort House, our local residential home for elderly people, during the 2016 Hawkesbury Upton Scarecrow Trail

While taking the scenic route to Cheltenham earlier this week, I nearly crashed the car when I spotted Harry Potter on his broomstick. A closer look revealed he was in fact a scarecrow in someone’s front garden, sadly too distant for inclusion in Hawkesbury’s Scarecrow Trail.

I don’t know why scarecrows attract people as much as they deter birds, but there is something very winning about a well-made scarecrow, and not only on Hawkesbury Show Day. I reckon Scarecrow Trails are what inspired the Gromit and Shaun the Sheep events that recently took Bristol by storm, every exhibit a riff on the same theme, allowing its maker to express his or her own sense of fun.

Photo of Debbie with Gromit statue — Selfie with my favourite Gromit, designed by Cath Kidston

Photo of a Very Hungry Caterpillar costume — Our Very Hungry Caterpillar scarecrow was cunningly recycled from a Village Show carnival costume by replacing four children inside it with two planks of wood and two bricks

You’d think birds would have to be daft to be repelled by such inanimate objects, but don’t be taken in by them. Crows are smarter than you might think. If you google “crows using tools”, you’ll be scared by their prowess. Like early man, they’ve learned to manipulate sticks and to bend or break them to form more useful tools. I’ve even seen a video of one bird giving another CPR until they both flew away unscathed.

Birds may not have the opposable thumbs that helped human beings get to where we are today, but with the bonus of long beaks, they are slowly catching up with us. Let’s hope they only ever use their powers for good. But just to be on the safe side, I’m leaving my scarecrow in place after Trail week is over.

Cover of All Part of the Charm — My memoir of village life is available as an ebook and in paperback

TO READ MORE POSTS LIKE THIS

If you enjoyed this post, you might like All Part of the Charm: A Modern Memoir of Village Life , the book I published earlier this year combining all my columns for the Hawkesbury Parish News from 2010 to 2015.

It also includes as bonus material a collection of essays I wrote about moving to the village 25 years ago. Now available in paperback or as an ebook, it’s perfect bedtime reading – or for your smallest room!