yarnbombing – Debbie Young's Writing Life

In my Young by Name column for the October issue of the multiple-award-winning Tetbury Advertiser, I’ve been musing about superheroes and superpowers

One of the few Marvel Movies superheroes I can actually recognise (Photo by Judeus Samson via Unsplash)

Losing the plot early on while watching a Marvel movie with my teenage daughter, I fell to wondering which of its superheroes’ superpowers I would most like to have myself.

Thor’s exceptional physical strength, de rigueur for most superheroes, doesn’t appeal. While it might come in handy for removing a stubborn lid from a jam jar, it’s not something I’d have much use for in my everyday life. Besides, my handy gadget from Lakeland serves the same purpose just as well.

Nor is there much call in the Cotswolds for Captain America’s martial arts expertise, especially while social distancing rules apply. Turning green and increasing my bodyweight ten-fold, like the Hulk, is a non-starter. I’d need a whole new wardrobe. Jessica Jones’ immunity to mind control might come in handy in our era of social media manipulation, but I’d far rather have her ability to fly.

Flight Envy

Being able to take off and soar like a bird would be an undeniably environmentally-friendly form of transport, even more so than my electric car. Just think how many calories it would burn. Plus it would be far more fun than going to the gym.

photo of pheasant on road — The least careful road user I know – the pheasant (Photo by Michael Hoyt via Unsplash)

This makes me wonder why pheasants, designed by nature to fly, are so reluctant to take to the air whenever a car approaches them. There’s always a stand-off between bird and vehicle. Just when you’re starting to think your car is more likely to become airborne than they are, they tease you with a Gallic shrug of resignation and take flight with an “Oh, if I must” expression.

The pheasant’s first choice of tactic to escape from any threat is to run. This is not the smartest move in a single-track country lane with high banks and hedgerows on either side, allowing them only to run ahead of an approaching vehicle rather than to divert out of its path. Although I admire their optimism, their physiology dictates that they will never outrun my car. However, they are capable of flying at up to 60mph*. Surely it’s a no-brainer?

Bird Brain

photo of pheasant in undergrowth — Possibly the worst camouflaged bird in Britain? Even so, on the endangered species list, it rates as “of least concern” due to the zillions bred for shooting each year (Photo by Zoltan Tasi via Unsplash)

And there we reach the heart of the matter. If logic is not the pheasant’s long suit, we can blame the size of its brain: a mere 4g**. Although impressive compared to a goldfish’s 0.097g of little grey calls, the pheasant doesn’t fare much better than the hedgehog (3.35g), and we all know how ineffective the hedgehog’s preferred self-defence method is against cars. (In case you’re wondering, your own brain weighs around 1400g.)

All this makes me wonder which superpower pheasants would pick to enhance their chances of survival on the road. Given their track record on decision-making, my money is on invisibility.

* Source: https://www.pheasantsforever.org/Habitat/Pheasant-Facts.aspx

** Source of brain size data: faculty.washington.edu.chudler/facts.html

In Other News

cover of The Natter of Knitters Despite a post-cold voice like gravel, I really enjoyed giving a talk via Zoom to a local WI (Women’s Institute) group earlier this week, talking about how living in a Cotswold village has inspired my novels.

Pictured left is the cover of a story that was actually inspired by another WI, from Chudleigh, down in Devon, about a yarnbombing event that goes wrong. The Natter of Knitters is a quick read (about 20% the length of one of my novels) and is available in ebook and a slim postcard-sized paperback – the perfect stocking-filler, for anyone who is already thinking about Christmas shopping! Part of my new Tales from Wendlebury Barrow series, it features all your favourite characters from the Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries and introduces new ones too.

Cover of Trick or Murder? Like The Natter of Knitters, the second Sophie Sayers novel Trick or Murder? takes place during the autumn. This story sees a conflict in Wendlebury Barrow between Halloween and Guy Fawkes’ Night, fuelled by the strange new vicar, the Reverend Neep.

In the village where I live in real life, Hawkesbury Upton, we usually celebrate both of these occasions in style, but due to Covid restrictions, there’ll sadly be no trick or treating or bonfire parties this year. However, we’re now gearing up for both a Pumpkin Trail along the route of our HU5K fun run, an event I helped found eight years ago, and the annual Scarecrow Trail, for which this year I’ve rashly volunteered to make not one but two scarecrows, one to go outside my house and the other outside the parish church of St Mary’s. So you can guess what I’ll be doing this weekend…

The theme for this year’s Scarecrow Trail is “Heroes and Villains” – and I’ll show you photos of mine once the trails have started. It’s all top secret till then – but it’s a safe bet that neither of mine will be of Marvel Superheroes!

Buying Links

You can buy all my books online or order paperbacks from your local bookshop. Here are the online buying links for the books mentioned above:

The Natter of Knitters – ebook – paperback
Trick or Murder? – ebook – paperback

In an occasional series on my blog I share the reasons behind the dedications in my stories. Today I’m describing how Chudleigh Women’s Institute and Westonbirt School inspired the first in my new Tales from Wendlebury Barrow series, The Natter of Knitters.

Every book I write has a dedication to the person or people who played a key part in its conception. My mini-mystery The Natter of Knitters, 20% the length of one of my novels, has a three-way dedication:

To Irene Smith, Joy Bell and the Chudleigh WI.

What’s a WI?

photo of vintage WI badge — My vintage WI badge dates back to the Second World War when the WI slogan was “for home and country”

First of all, I’d better explain what WI means, for the benefit of readers outside of the UK who aren’t familiar with this long-standing organisation. WI is short for Women’s Institute (motto: Inspiring Women). The Federation of Women’s Institutes coordinates the local groups that meet regularly all over the country. This is how they define themselves on their website:

Inspiring women – then and now

In 1915 we set out to give women a voice and to be a force for good in the community. Since then, our membership and our ambitions alike have grown tremendously. Today , we are the largest women’s organisation in the UK and we pride ourselves on being a trusted place for women of all generations to share experiences and learn from each other.

Why Chudleigh?

There is a thriving WI in my home village of Hawkesbury Upton in the Cotswolds, so why is my dedication to a group a hundred miles away in Chudleigh, Devon, a place I’ve visited only once?

A couple of years ago I was a guest speaker at Chudleigh Lit Fest, an ancient wool town in Devon. On my way to the festival marquee, passing by the local playpark, I noticed that its perimeter railings were festooned in colourful knitted scarves .

The WI had yarnbombed the playpark.

(If you’re not familiar with the concept of yarnbombing, there’s a helpful definition here. )

A sign on the railings explained the WI’s mission: to make scarves for the homeless while also raising awareness of their plight before visitors to the playpark and to the festival.

As a lifelong knitter, this arresting sight inspired me not only to pick up my needles and start a new knitting project, despite it being a hot summer’s day, but also to plot a story that centred around a village yarnbombing event.

The Westonbirt Connection

It took another knitting-related encounter two years later to germinate the seed of the story that was planted on my trip to Chudleigh. When I put a call out on social media seeking a charity that might welcome handknitted items, my former colleague Joy Bell, Head of Textiles Technology (amongst other things) at nearby Westonbirt School, drew my attention to her pupils’ project to knit blanket squares to be turned into blankets for an Indian orphanage they were sponsoring.

A few weeks later I called in to the school to drop off some squares I’d knitted for them. Manning reception was Irene Smith, who is also the school seamstress, running up impressive costumes for school plays. We started chatting about knitting, and her enthusiasm for real wool from Cotswold sheep, as well as from those of her native Scotland, added a further strand (ho ho) to my story. We were talking for so long that at the start of our conversation, girls in lacrosse kit passed by on their way to a PE lesson, and we were still going strong when they returned.

The Natter of Knitters

By the time I got home, the plot of The Natter of Knitters, about a village yarnbombing event that goes wrong, had fallen into place. The story features lots of familiar characters from my Sophie Sayers Village Mystery series (Carol, the shopkeeper, teaches Sophie to knit, much to Hector’s annoyance), as well as introducing some memorable new ones.

It’s a quick read, at around 20% of the length of one of my novels, and it’s available either as an ebook or as a tiny postcard-sized paperback. If you’d like to read it, you’ll find the buying links at the end of this post.

Forever Knitting

In the meantime, my passion for knitting continues, and I’m currently alternating between tiny knitted flowers for fun and to use up lots of oddments:

photo of knitted flowers — Tiny flowers an inch or two across, including roses, dahlias, tuplips and pansies

and a “lockdown blanket” for function, made in colours to match my favourite Harris Tweed cushion. (There’s a nice piece about the concept of a lockdown blanket here.)