Bad news for some writers; good news for me!

This is just a quick post, because today has been set aside to get on with writing that book.

Many of my writer friends will have seen that Spirit & Destiny mag is now taking all rights from its fiction contributors. There are, of course, plenty of people who will still submit and be happy with a one-off reward, whether this be through naivety or conscious decision-making. The only story I ever submitted to S&D was rejected, but I'm still sad that it's following Woman's Weekly down this path. Who's next, I wonder.

A bit of good news for me (she says, full of her own importance) is that my winning entry in the Senior Travel Expert 'heritage' competition is now online here. Do take a look, if you have a mo.

Stay warm, folks!

Ow foot toe crate

I've just been sidetracked into listening to an episode of Tongue and Talk: the dialect poets on th'i-player. I'm supposed to be proofreading something about logistics, but when your mother sends you an intriguing email it would be rude not to follow it up.

Mum is a real poetry buff: she reads it, writes it and performs it, usually from memory, which always impresses me. It seems this gift extended to her Aunt Lucy, who Mum says was as deaf as a post but nonetheless partial to a little recitation.

One of her party pieces was a poem called 'Bowton's Yard', by Yorkshire born but Lancashire bred dialect poet Samuel Laycock (1826-93), 'Laureate of the Cotton Famine'. This gem was based on a real terrace in Stalybridge, where Laycock lived, called Bolton's Yard. It describes in turn the inhabitants of this row of houses and was, apparently, a huge influence on Tony Warren, creator of Coronation Street. It's not hard to see why. You can listen to it here.

I was brought up in Uttoxeter in Staffordshire (or, as we would say, Utcheter in Staffyshire) and still have a few dialect words in my vocabulary (nesh, mardy, two-double, plattin' em), but I haven't really got a Staffs accent - except when I get angry or have spent too long back home with the folks. If you want to know what it sounds like, say the title of this post. It means 'How to speak correctly.'

Ta-ra. Let thee sen art.

Family Favourites

'With a Song In My Heart'

I'm showing my age a bit here, but does anyone else remember (or remember their parents telling them about) Two-Way Family Favourites on the radio? Hosted by Jean Metcalfe and Cliff Michelmore (pictured), it was a cheesy Sunday morning show through which families on opposite sides of the world could send greetings and a tune to one another via the BBC. All very worthy! In our house, we used to call it 'The Yorkshire Pudding Show', because Mum would be preparing the Sunday roast while it was on. Ah, those were the days.

Last weekend I was up in the Staffordshire hills at a family do to mark the Golden Wedding of the son (and his wife, of course) of a woman who was my mum's cousin on her father's side: at least I think that's who it was. The details probably aren't important. Suffice to say I was surrounded by almost a hundred people who are related to me in some way or another, many of whom knew who I was because I was with Mum. It was a splendid occasion: pie and pea supper and homegrown entertainment in a most convivial atmosphere.

There's literary gold in them there hills

I want to say these are simple folk, but that sounds patronising and I don't mean it to. These were some of the most welcoming people I've met in a long time. OK, so I could have done with some subtitles - I've got a Staffordshire twang, but wow! - but all in all it was a lovely evening.

Then on Sunday I had a nice lunch with my brother and his family, where my little niece confounded all dietary advice my insisting that jacket potato with chips was a perfectly fine choice.

As if that wasn't enough, I've been in touch with another of my mum's cousins, but this time from the other side of the family. She now lives in America and has had the sort of life that would make a fabulous film. She has recently discovered that her son has a half-brother, and there is a whole adventure unveiling itself there, too.

The names would need to be changed to protect the innocent (and the guilty), but there's enough material in everyone's family for a mini-series. Downton Abbey? You ain't got nothin' on my kin!