The Power of Words

I live in Gloucestershire, and recently the courts told my county council that they needed to rethink their library policy on equality grounds. The excellent Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries fought long and hard to get this result, which was won on the very thing that was closest to our hearts. Now, for a little longer the elderly users of the mobile library van service, and the many children in deprived areas of this diverse county will still be able to enjoy their local libraries. For how long we don't know, and recent developments aren't exactly heartening. http://foclibrary.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/unlawful-library-cuts-the-equality-and-human-rights-commission-step-in/ We don't want more precious money thrown away on court cases, but we do want the vulnerable protected.

In a city in the USA my granddaughter and her parents recently joined their local library. At the entrance were notices asking the customers if they'd like to vote for a few cents more to be allocated from the local council budget to the libraries in the area. Usage was steadily growing, and the extra money would enable the service to be improved.

I was quite taken by the idea of voters being able to make such choices. It's interesting to speculate what the outcome would have been if our local council had asked the electorate the same question. Funding comes from several sources at my grand daughter's library. State and county both contribute, and the library isn't too proud to ask for donations either. In fact, they explain on their website which of the libraries they run will accept what sorts of books, and in which languages. But it's not all good in the US. We in the UK aren't the only country with library funding problems. http://www.thenation.com/article/164881/upheaval-new-york-public-library

I don't know enough about the system in the US, but it seems to me that we in the UK need to look at more than one model of provision to give libraries the best chance. A US company ISS, which runs some privatised libraries in the States, has just announced that its stated intent of doing the same in England had been put on the back burner, because it seems we in England aren't ready for privately run libraries. Probably not, even if they would still be 'free'. But maybe we ought to consider more possibilities. I don't think volunteer run libraries are the answer either, but then maybe there simply isn't a suitable one size fits all.

The members of Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries have fought a wonderful rearguard action, to force the council to deliver on its statutory duty, and deserve high praise, but the library service has been underfunded for years. I am hoping that the committee to look into library provision, which was at last announced by the government, will consult and consider as widely as possible, but I'm not hopeful that it will come up with any exciting ways in which libraries can become the vibrant, well stocked places they ought to be, with wide appeal. The very real threat is that councils will tidy up their act, do just enough to be legal, and still find ways to close them.

Meanwhile, across the channel too, books are under threat. I recently signed a petition to the French government asking them not to raise the VAT on books from 5 to 7.50%.

The VAT levied on ebooks in Britain has me worried. How long will it be before some bright spark in government decides that if you can tax digital words without anyone objecting, why not printed ones? And as the French experience shows, once a tax is applied it becomes very tempting to raise it when times are hard. The written word is having a difficult time, and I don't think we can relax yet.

Yet it's not all bad. Libraries are being supported by a vociferous, well informed group of people, many of whom don't actually need to rely on the service, but still understand that for a nation to be fully inclusive, information must be freely and easily available to all, from the smallest child, through the homeless, and unemployed, to the elderly, and everyone else in between. And with youth clubs, pop in centres and other valued places at risk, where better than local libraries to take up some of the slack?

There have been some wonderfully imaginative celebrations of libraries, witness this in Scotland, and appreciated far beyond our shores. http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/11/29/142910393/the-library-phantom-returns?sc=emaf Sometimes it's hard to be optimistic, but people like the library phantom raise my spirits, and remind me that we can't give up now. One battle has been won, but the war is still being waged. And the weapons we have are words.

Journeys

Over the past twelve months I've been doing a lot of travelling. I've been moving around a bit within my own continent, and making forays into a couple of others. I've travelled into a new decade too. Psst! Don't tell anyone but I'm now in my sixth.

Visiting other countries is fun, slightly scary when done on my own, and keeps me on my toes. I'm very lucky that I'm fit and able to do it, and have had the funds. But what if I was unable to physically travel?

Arguably, the most important journey of all is in our minds, and where better to broaden our knowledge than to use a library? Books, music, the internet; it's all there, in a warm and safe environment for everyone to freely use. When times are hard what could be better than to preserve such a resource? In common with many others, I have been vocal in my anger at the closure of libraries in my country. The argument isn't over yet, with a myriad of legal challenges being heard.

Even during WW2 the government saw the huge importance of such an institution, and in spite of all the difficulties, libraries stayed open. Publishers printed as much as they could for sale too, on bad paper, which was all they could get. You can occasionally find these books in secondhand shops, with the request printed inside to pass them on to others, particularly members of the armed forces. The war was characterised for many by bursts of highly stressful action followed by long tedious hours of inactivity, which can be just as stressful in a different way. It was recognised that it can be very healing to lose yourself in a good book. We may not be at war like in 1940, but the need for libraries is certainly still there, for adults, and for children. Stressed out through lack of work, or happy and innocent at the beginning of learning about the world. We need libraries.

There's another sort of travelling that I've been doing as well, and that is the great journey of self discovery. Fortunately, you don't have to buy a ticket, and you can do it in the comfort of your own home, but it can still be scary, especially when delving into the depths of your feelings with a close relative, as I recently did. Thanks to my sister being so open we both ended up feeling enlightened, with lots of useful discoveries made.

Knowing oneself well can be fraught with danger. It can change the way you think about yourself forever. It can make your head hurt when trying to put into words why you feel in a particular way, and where those feelings have come from. It can feel like stumbling around in a dark field, without knowing if there's an angry bull in it, or a row of sunflowers waiting for the sun to come up. But it's a journey that I suspect a lot of novelists are rather good at. We're a nosy lot, poking our pens into what makes ourselves and others tick. Without such insight, how could we come up with some of the characters that live within the pages of a book? They are only interesting if they seem real, and they only seem real if they are based on a certain sort of reality.

So this is a celebration of journeys. Trains, and planes, and relationships, and into the depths of our minds. All slightly scary, but I wouldn't want to miss out on any of them.

Time for a tea party?

Tea. Is any other drink so adept at being acceptable in all walks of life, at any time of day and in so many parts of the world? I'd venture to speculate that tea was the first hot drink ever made by man (or some form of tisane made from leaves, fruit or flowers and hot water). Most houses I know have some form of tea worship paraphernalia. This is my everyday form. A kettle, and several pieces of mismatched crockery, depending on my mood. I do love a cup of tea, especially taken in the company of friends.

The most basic method relies on me dunking the teabag straight into a mug, so bypassing the teapot altogether. We all have our most sluttish...and most stylish way of serving tea. The smartest tea pot I have is an inherited silver one, which I use just for the hell of it, when the fancy takes me.











But receptacles for tea can be very basic indeed. Here are some little clay cups, sometimes still used by tea sellers at railway stations in India. They are the best of throwaway cups, much more ecologically friendly than paper or plastic, and far more elegant.

I'm sure I have read somewhere (to my horror) that sales of tea in the UK are declining, and have been for a while. Coffee, that altogether more sophisticated beverage is in the ascendancy, and soon we poor Brits will have totally turned away from our so called national drink. I don't believe a word of it. Have you seen the tea section in most supermarkets recently?

Besides, a lot of our literature depends on it.

How would the dormouse have fared if the Mad Hatter had dipped it into a coffee pot, and then presumably depressed the plunger? Get rid of tea and you immediately lose one of our finest mealtimes. Rupert Brooke knew that in 1912. Honey for tea, tea and biscuits, tea and sympathy...You can bet your life that in the background of all the Streatfields, Nesbits, Blytons and Cromptons, long suffering parents or guardians were busy drinking a reviving cup, while their offspring got into ever more alarming scrapes.

I suppose all this is why I'm so offended that the words tea party have recently been usurped. A small part of me rages when those most agreeable words are put together to describe political values that are far from my own. To begin with I hoped that the label wouldn't stick, but with the Republicans in the US beginning the long road to choosing a candidate for president, it seems that tea party is going to be used used more and more frequently to describe a certain kind of republicanism. And do any of them even drink the stuff? Surely there must have been a more recent, all American tax event that could have been used, rather than objections to the tea act in 1773?

But I'm not going to react by stamping my foot and behaving badly. No. I'm going to boil the kettle, select an appropriate tea for my mood, and sit it out, preferably at a tea table in an English garden, wearing a hat, with some good friends. So spread the word. A tea party is not an offshoot of a foreign political party. It is a British institution, the most irritating aspect of which might be the occasional visit from a wasp. Reclaim the tea party and put it back where it belongs! Bring cup cakes if you must, but with the weather turning cooler, crumpets would be better. So fetch the cake stands, man the tea tables and repel all usurpers of our wonderful institution, the tea party.

www.cindyjefferies.co.uk

Battles, kings and elephants. Cindy Jefferies

One thing you can depend on for a writer is that if you ask them what they're thinking , whatever they reply you can be pretty certain that at least a part of their mind is thinking about a story. It might be no more than a slight itch at the back of the mind, but it'll be there.

So, being a writer, it is hardly surprising that when I was in Paris in the Spring stories were taking up a corner of my mind. After all, even a desert can be fertile ground for a story, which makes ideas for fiction seep out at every turn in Paris.

Fortunately, the friend I was staying with understood, and on the last day of my trip came up with something for me to take home. It was a quote in the frontispiece of a novel by Mathias Enard called Parle-leur de batailles, de rois et d'elephants.

Puisque ce sont des enfants, parle-leur de batailles et de rois, de chevaux, de diables, d'elephants et d'anges, mais n'omets pas de leur parler d'amour et de choses semblables.

Here's a translation:- Because they are children, tell them about battles and kings, horses, devils, elephants and angels, but don't neglect to tell them about love and things like that.

Not being able to find an attribution I assumed the author must be Mathias Enard, but I wished that I knew for sure.

I loved the quote. It seemed to sum up exactly what I thought was important. Yes, of course a fast moving plot is paramount, especially in the sort of fiction for the 8-12's that I usually write. But, and I think this is particularly important for boys; love, and things like that is also vital. Girls tend to be better at talking about feelings, while some boys, I think, can find it harder. Of course, both boys and girls can feel pretty lonely at times, when what they're feeling is muddled and difficult. I believe that one of the best ways of understanding that you're not alone in your feelings is through a good story. So the quote resonated with me, whoever had written it. But the story doesn't end here.

Some while later, a review from an American newspaper fell into my inbox. It was a glowing review of a new novel that had been in the final selection for the Prix Goncourt in France. It was being translated, and would soon be available in America. To my delight the book was the very one that had contained my favourite quote, and at last I found out what I wanted to know.

The reviewer wrote that the quote came from one of my own countrymen, Rudyard Kipling, in a collection of stories published in 1915 called Life's Handicaps. It's a little known collection, but I tracked it down, and found those wise words in the preface of that book, which takes the form of a discussion between two storytellers, one an elderly Indian who speaks his stories, and the other an Englishman, who, like Kipling writes with pen and ink. The discussion is about the art of storytelling, and the wise words come from Gobind, the holy, one eyed Indian.

And so, the quest for an author led me on a long journey, from England to Paris and back again, and across the Atlantic, with a nod to India, only to find that in true and pleasing storybook form, the answer lay in my own land.

I'd love to hear about your favourite quotes, and why they are special to you. I have mine pinned up by my desk, and my eyes are drawn to it often, as I ponder the twists and turns of the story I am conjuring from behind my eyes. And I will try never to forget to include at least something about love, and things like that.

Cindy Jefferies

Cindy Jefferies

Girls heart books