Writing On The Run

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Sending a text on my mobile as I jogged past Hawkesbury Monument the other day, it occurred to me that I was only a stone’s throw from writing my blog on the run. So many of my friends update their Facebook status from iPhones and Blackberries that I’d been thinking about investing in a smart phone myself, so that I could post to my online blog while away on holiday.

It’s not the first time I’ve hankered after equipment to help me write while travelling. Years ago, long before the rise of the internet or the miniatiurisation of the mobile phone, there was a clever little gadget on the market. A bit like a miniature version of the shorthand machines used by courtroom stenographers, it was like a tiny typewriter but with just four keys, one for each finger of one hand. You tapped the keys in a different combination for each letter of the alphabet. Even in a shaky commuter train, you’d be able to write legibly, because when you got home, the machine would spool out what you’d typed in normal letters. One of these devices would have made my daily commute across London suburbia more productive, but my salary as a lowly editorial assistant wouldn’t stretch to one.

Another reason I wanted it is that I’d never learned shorthand. Several times in my teens I had bought teach-yourself books, but even with daily practice, I knew that it would take a long time to master. With the short-termism of the typical teenager, I couldn’t make the commitment. Every year or two after, I would think to myself “If only I’d stuck at it, my shorthand would be fluent by now”.

So if I do write my column on the run, I’ll have to use an even more old-fashioned device to record it – my brain. I just wish my head had a USB port so that I could back it up with a memory stick.

(This article originally appeared in the Hawkesbury Parish Magazine, May 2011.)

Not Written Off Yet

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Although it’s taken me a long time to label myself as a writer, writing has been at the core of all the jobs I have ever done – reporter, PR, marketeer.  But what I most enjoy writing – and reading – are letters.  Among my most precious possessions are airletters penned by my grandmother when, aged 8, I lived in America for a year.  (Her not-so-subtle parting gift to me was a writing case, so that I might write to her too.)  I cherish boxes of letters from old schoolfriends, received when I moved to Germany at the age of 14.

So I was terribly disappointed to discover last year that I’d missed by a few days the deadline to apply for a job writing letters for Steve Webb, our local MP, responding to his constituents’ enquiries and requests.  For a long-term supporter of the Lib Dems, what a dream job that would have been: getting paid for writing about issues that really mattered to society and playing a small but significant part in changing our nation for the better.

My disappointment was short-lived.  In the wake of the General Election, as the new coalition emerged, I decided I’d had a lucky escape.  I would not have relished responding to the wrath of the disillusioned masses.  I began to feel sorry for Steve Webb, even though he’d been elevated to Cabinet Minister. But I still couldn’t stop myself firing off a few letters to him expressing my dissatisfaction with some of the new government’s policies.

Then last week I had the chance to meet him.  He visited the village school to plant a tree donated by Morrisons and I was invited to take photos for the school.  My disenchantment quickly melted away.  He came across as a sympathetic, dedicated representative of our community with a genuine interest in our children.  Some of them will not be eligible to vote for another 14 years, so no cynical fishing for votes there. He may be a Cabinet Minister, but he gave himself no airs and graces.  No formal silver spade for him – he got stuck in and muddy.  And no cynical kissing of babies, either – instead he played “Rock, Paper, Scissors” with the Year 6 boys.

A little later, we spoke briefly and he asked me my name.

“Ah, yes, Debbie Young,” he smiled.  “France Lane.”

My goodness!  I thought.  A Cabinet minister knows where I live!  What stroppy message had I put in my letters to make my address stick in his mind? But really, that doesn’t matter now.  Next time there’s an election, I know who’ll be getting my vote.

(This post was originally published in Hawkesbury Upton Parish Magazine, April 2011)