At last the short portrait I wrote about Ivor, the old man I encountered on the road to Biddulph Moor, has gone to print, and should be available to buy online next week through the writing section of this website. (A pdf version is already available).
Working on Ivor was a welcome distraction from the much more difficult task of writing The Green Table. Often I could hear his voice, and I vividly remembered our encounters. The letters I sent to the editors of the Leek and Congleton newspapers, resulted in many phone calls from people who knew Ivor. I had a sense of how rich a life can be, and how much, and how little, we can ever know about a person. ‘People die, and you wish you’d asked them things before they’ve gone,’ said one of his friends. This is exactly how I feel. I often drive past his house. It’s empty, the paddock is long in grass, there’s brushwood across the entrance. I miss him a lot.
Working on Ivor was a welcome distraction from the much more difficult task of writing The Green Table. Often I could hear his voice, and I vividly remembered our encounters. The letters I sent to the editors of the Leek and Congleton newspapers, resulted in many phone calls from people who knew Ivor. I had a sense of how rich a life can be, and how much, and how little, we can ever know about a person. ‘People die, and you wish you’d asked them things before they’ve gone,’ said one of his friends. This is exactly how I feel. I often drive past his house. It’s empty, the paddock is long in grass, there’s brushwood across the entrance. I miss him a lot.
RSS Feed
