Ten Years Have Passed, Part Two : At Uni, Queen of the World & the Places Writing Took Me

I moved into my studio at Lancaster University at the beginning of October 2009. So far in this three part blogpost series, I’ve only covered a year. I could tell a million stories about uni but I will try to be brief for now.

I’m still not sure I really got four grand’s worth of my hard-earned money. I know how many years saving while working full time that was. This was the fees that year, though it did include a week’s residential in Wales. It’s an oft-seen debate whether it’s ‘worth’ doing a MA, a discussion that will run and run I’m sure. For me though, it wasn’t just about the writing. It was about the whole experience. And I was doing that moving transition thing that normal people do at eighteen. I was just a bit later. By twenty-five years.

I had a really good group. Diverse, interesting and supportive, some of whom I’m still in touch with. One is the famous FGE of #TheImpossibleThing posts, who lives quite near & I’m so lucky to have a friend.

I absolutely loved the workshops. This was a massive fear for me before uni. Showing a load of strangers what I’d written? I just couldn’t. It was a fear which had stopped me from joining a writer’s group for decades. But I just went for it. ‘Feel the fear’ and all that. Even during the very first workshop I was thinking ‘Why didn’t I do this years ago?’ Of course we were all in the same boat. And sometimes it felt like us against the tutor. One workshop at the residential certainly felt like that.

At Lancaster, you’re encouraged to experiment. I submitted short stories to the group in the first term, then moved onto my first ever flash fictions, a monologue, some not too successful dabbling in poetry and in the final term I wrote a play and discovered how hard that was. I’ve not read or thought about it since. I think it’s a tad self-indulgent, drawing on my Christopher Eccleston obsession, the madness of shopping channels, my experience of coast-walking and the wisdom of a lost friend. Maybe one day I’ll read it again.

A Lancaster University Rainbow

 

I planned to start swimming at uni, to go for lots of walks and be careful what I ate. I’d lost a stone before I left and hoped to continue. I guess it wasn’t my time. I discovered the uni chippy; chips, onion rings and add your own cheese. Not exactly healthy but so delicious. I had no oven in that studio. I couldn’t even do jacket potatoes. I was on a budget but was enjoying food freedom. I’ve never liked expensive foods. I did walk but not as much as I could have. I spent a lot of time in my studio writing or in a café reading the group’s submissions at the weekend. Doing feedback took a long time for me. I like to be thorough.

This was how I discovered Morecambe. I hadn’t realised I’d be so close to the sea in Lancaster. Morecambe felt a lot more real than being on campus. Not sure I ever really belonged there. I would go to Eric’s Café or the one on the Stone Jetty and sit eating and drinking and writing notes all over my fellow student’s novel extracts, stories and poems, ready for discussing in the workshops.

So I basically put my stone back on plus another ten pounds. This was for later. Quite a bit later as it turned out.

So I cobbled together a portfolio of ten short stories and a play and wrote the critical assessment that went with it. I had a fifty-one week let at the uni. In the last few weeks of the final term I sorted my CV and sent it to two dozen nurseries. I had to get a job and fast. And somewhere to live once the summer was over.

In the May my aunt had died. She had no husband or children. Just a bungalow in Norfolk that my Dad, as her next of kin, had inherited and said straight away he would sell it and give my brother and I the money. I travelled from Lancaster to Diss for a very strange few days with my parents. The funeral, a kind of party afterwards, sorting the bungalow’s contents out, finding a load of cash stashed in various places my Mum said was mine, sitting on the kitchen floor trying to scrub it clean and wanting to throw up from the smell of cat. One cat, thirty years.

 

My Brother Andy and I with Auntie Margaret in 1968

It was sad my aunt dying at only sixty-four & I hope I do a lot better than that but I suddenly had some money that would help me in the future I began to see for myself. I was going to live by the sea, (something I’d only ever played at before, staying in holiday cottages in Whitby and the Isle of Wight), get a part time job and write.

I got a few responses from my CV and sorted my new job during the summer. It was in a nursery in Morecambe. I was already thinking I’d like to live there. But I had known from the start I wasn’t going back to Coventry. I knew. Stella knew. No one else did. I was, once again, holding my nerve. I somehow found a rented place in the nice quiet part of Morecambe where I still live. By September I was in, albeit camping out with next to nothing in the way of furniture, and already settled into the new job, which was fine for now though not enough hours or money.

In these first few months, I was scared I wasn’t going to carry on writing. I worked ten till one and the nursery was a mere seventeen minute walk away so I began doing ‘morning pages’ of a thousand words, inspired by one of my favourite writers, Paul Magrs.

One of the first flashes I ever wrote in early 2010 featured a character who could control the weather. Her name was Marjorie and I began to write about her. Within a few weeks I realised I was working on ‘a project of length’. I began to think about where the story could go, the other characters, the journey they would go on and it just grew and grew. As pretentious as it sounds, Marjorie and the others spoke to me as I walked along the prom to work. I kept going back and adding a little more, splitting it into chapters and working it all out. I wrote scenes I never thought I’d write, I made stuff up, took stuff from my own life, set scenes in real places and imaginary places, in different times of the year, in times past and the present.

 

Early Morning on the Front in Morecambe

 

Yes, I was writing a novel, something I shied away from while I was at uni. It’s called Queen of The World. This was the name I used for the owner of the horrible nursery. Not to her face. So I was able to reclaim Queen of the World and turn it into something good and exciting and positive. More on that in the next part.

After graduation I joined Twitter, thanks to the encouragement of two friends. Stella and Al, I bless the days you were born ‘cos I can’t imagine not being on Twitter. The best thing about my first year there was finding out about lots of writing competitions, entering them and getting shortlisted or placed and even winning a couple.  I got invited to read too. My first reading, aside from uni, was in a room above a pub in Chorlton (Flashtag Manchester) and then, later in 2011, I won the Calderdale prize, with a story from my portfolio. I read the whole thing at Halifax library. Being the winner is great. It’s unbelievably exciting that, out of all those stories, yours came out top for that particular judge. Writing was taking me to new places. And, crucially, I was still writing and submitting and getting stuff published. A monologue in Mslexia, flash online, short stories and yes, I really was writing a novel.

After a year in Morecambe the nursery I was working at closed. I vowed I would get whatever job I could find. Luckily another better and bigger nursery, which was part of a chain, was looking for a cook. More hours, more money. In Lancaster so an hour’s walk-bus-walk commute each way but just what I needed. I’ve now been there over seven years. Before I started something happened – I forget what - that made my manager say ‘You’re one of us now.’ What a delightful and rather sinister thing to say? During my first week there, my lovely Nana died and I was given a day’s paid leave for the funeral. I’d been visiting her in a care home in Carlisle for the past couple of years. She was ninety-seven and she finally got what she’d wanted for some time.

Nana!

 

I was pleased with what I’d achieved in the year after uni but I knew, if I was staying in Morecambe, I had to invest my money, to buy a flat rather than rent.

I had no idea what I was doing.

But then I never did.

 

Coming soon in part three … more Impossible Things!

Ten Years Have Passed, Part One : Leaving, Leaving, Leaving.

It’s exactly ten years today since I left the horrible job and set in place the train of events that led me to change my life.

I was at the end of my tether in that job. I’d done four years. The nursery moved buildings after about two and half years.  I fell and cracked my ribs around the same time and I just carried on. Only told two friends. I was painting skirting boards at the new building after my eight hour day in the kitchen. Skirting boards? Someone was having a laugh with me. Ridiculous now I look back on it.

I had been expected to design my own kitchen but most of the work had been done by the owner's DIY-inept husband. We should never assume all men know how to do this stuff. Of course they don’t. I had to get my Dad - who can do that stuff - in to put up shelves. I couldn’t store food on the floor, could I? Everywhere I turned in that building was chaos. Moving day was a nightmare not to be thought about for too long.

There’d been five managers in four years. The staff turnover was so fast one actually left in her morning break. Just walked away. I longed to do that but I was also trying to be the perfect nursery cook. I'd done the job elsewhere for twelve and a half years but the place had closed. This was a brand new nursery & all vegetarian. I loved not cooking meat and the challenge of developing new menus. All systems had to be set up from scratch. Nothing was ever organised or simple and yet I was constantly being told how wonderful it would all be one day, about how much I’d earn, about all the new equipment I would have. I didn't care about that.

I was saying same thing over and over – to manager and owner - and getting nowhere, obsessing, I’ll admit, about little things that didn’t really matter. I used to get home on a Friday, fall asleep watching Corrie then wake up thinking about work. This sometimes made me cry tears of frustration about all the unsolvable stuff, about the lack of communication with the staff, about how disorganised it all was. I often wanted to lie on the floor and weep and, okay, I did do that once.

I would buy a load of crisps, cheese and chocolate, usually from M&S and eat them secretly after I’d cooked a modest tea for myself and my parents. I was rewarding myself for getting through another day, comforting and treating myself. And keeping my weight up, of course.

During this time I was talking to Stella, on our Saturday lunch and theatre trips to Birmingham, about how I wanted to do an MA in Creative writing. I'd been researching this online. I’ve told this story many times now but am so, so, SO glad I sent that email to her in which I mentioned entertaining a fantasy of doing it full time on campus in Lancaster. Her answer ‘why should it just be a fantasy?’ set the ball rolling. But after a while I really felt I had gone on about it so much that I actually had to do just bloody do it. Stella was right; I had savings, no commitments and the kind of job I could do anywhere.

But I had to get out of this horrible job first. For my own sanity if nothing else. After a pathetic attempt to get a job in the Food Technology department of a senior school. (Terrible interview and a feeling of really not wanting to go back to school just yet. Or ever.), I went for another nursery cook’s job. With over sixteen year's experience cooking for pre-school children and babies, it was easy to sell myself in this interview, though I did spill the beans a bit too much about the situation in which I was working, though thankfully it was in a different town and just into Warwickshire. Whole different area. The manager and deputy understood my frustrations and were so kind to me. No,I didn’t cry but I was close. But I got the job, worked my notice and left ten years ago today.

SO HAPPY. 😊😊😊💃

My leaving present was perfume. Can’t stand perfume. I’m damn sure in the four years I was there I never once smelt of perfume. They didn't know me at all.

I had a long commute to the new job in Leamington but loved it from the start. Here’s my dairy entry from 11^th October 2008 …

  ‘Have  now completed the first week. What a beautifully organised nursery. They have a similar amount of staff and children, similar layout & logistics. But G---- can’t do it & T------- can. UNBLEIEVABLE! It is down to good management & staff & a system that everyone follows and passes on to new people.’

Simple as that.

On my first day the manager kept popping back to the kitchen. By teatime she said ‘I don’t have to worry about you, do I?’ I asked her for various things and she sorted them immediately and without fuss. She gave me some money in case I needed to buy anything. In the previous job I had been left doing all the shopping for a 62 place nursery for weeks and weeks and was owed a few hundred pounds which I did eventually get back, after much pestering. I shopped before work, in my break, and after work. I had no car and carried the shopping a good half a mile through town. The nursery proclaimed it was organic. At lot of the time it wasn't. This concerned me. The owner would lie to me about there being no organic vegetables in the supermarket and would tell the manager she must think I was stupid. I scared we would be found out and it would be my reputation.

But back to the new job. I made two stupid mistakes during my first week and managed to happily laugh them off, something I was struggling to do back at the horrible place. I suddenly didn't mind if I'd made a fool of myself. I was amongst friends.

9^th Nov 2008 …

‘It’s Sunday night & it’s so nice not to feel as if I am dreading going to work. I’d rather not but I don’t have a feeling of dread like I did at that place … thank goodness I was brave enough to leave & this is just the start.’

Then I booked a couple of days off. I was heading to Lancaster Uni for an open day. I was doing it. Thinking about doing it. Taking the next step towards doing it. That was the key, not to think too far ahead. Hold your nerve, Sal.

Lancaster was a place I’d passed through umpteen times on the train for years on the way to Cumbria where my Nana lived. I always had to look up the river at the Ashton memorial in Williamson Park. I looked at the little houses and imagined living there. I was drawn to the place and had no idea why.

At the open day, there were various talks about the uni in general. And then there was a room with representatives from different departments. There was a Creative Writing sitting tutor at a table. Dare I speak to him, I asked myself. Time was ticking by. I had to speak to him. This was my window of opportunity. So I did. He waffled excitedly about the course, said the personal statement was the important part of your application and also said something about the different people applying, including the words ‘mid-life crisis’. I laughed at this. I was forty-two years old and not sure whether I’d make it to eighty-four, the age I was halfway to. And was this a crisis? I felt I was being terribly brave and still doubted I could see this through but a crisis? No way!

After I came out from speaking to the tutor (who later became one of the tutors for my course) I texted Stella with the words ‘I have not been put off.’

I came home and began working on my application. I was also at this time getting rid of 25% of my stuff, decluttering in preparation for a move I didn’t know was really happening. I did a short course on Playwriting with the OU (where I'd previously done my first degree) so I could get a reference from the tutor. I enjoyed the course and at that stage, I still wanted to write a play.

My application had to be in by February. I gradually gathered together everything I needed, wrote my personal statement and chose some pieces of example writing to submit.

 15^th Feb 2009 …

‘I am submitting – about to click ‘SUBMIT’. Here goes – DRUM ROLL ……… It said ‘Are you sure you wish to submit?’ YES!!! IT IS DONE!!!’

I planned to apply to Salford, Huddersfield and Northumbria too. That never happened.  I had my heart set on Lancaster. Did I KNOW I would be accepted? No, I didn’t. At the end of March I said …

‘I feel like I’ve been waiting to hear whether I’m going to uni or not forever.’

Then, on 21^st April I received an email and was able to write this in my diary …

‘I DID IT – I HAVE BEEN OFFERED A PLACE ON THE CREATIVE WRITING MA AT LANCASTER!’

Of course, the first thing I did was text Stella. Told my parents. Handed my notice in at work. Planned to leave at the end of August. To have a whole month off, something I hadn’t done since starting work at seventeen. Then it was holding my nerve and making my plans, doing my research, sorting out my finances. I set a budget. I wanted my savings to last as long as possible. My plans went beyond a year at uni. 

In August I had to teach the new chef my job. He had plenty of catering experience but had not worked in a nursery before. I talked and talked at him for two days and gradually stepped back and let him get on with it. He was perfect for the job and that made leaving easy.

On my last day the manager suggested I spent time in the pre-school room. It made a change. I did a bit of play dough stuff with the children and watched the new chef bringing in his Vegetable Lasagne. I was, for now, no longer a nursery cook.

My leaving present was two mugs and a set of pens. And a balloon. They knew me so well. Okay, the balloon was a bit of a liability on the bus but such a great send off after a mere eleven months in the job.

So I’d left my job & I was off to uni at the age of forty-three. I was also leaving my home town and leaving my parent’s house. No big deal.

Er … Massive deal.

At uni, I wrote seventy-seven thousand words in emails to Stella alone. So you see, this isn’t so long after all.

In all of the above I was helped a little by the book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway … and a lot by Stella Turner. Thank you, Stella ... and Sybil, your life coach alter ego.

 

 

Fold Out 'Pros & Cons List' & 'To Do List' in my diary of that time.

Coming soon in Part Two … ‘At Uni, Living By The Sea, Queen of the World and the Places Writing Took Me 2010 – 2013’