Here they come, The Saturday Girls

Posted on April 14, 2018 by Liz

Here is the News.

As you know, last year a new publisher, Bonnier Zaffre, bought Beyond the Beehive – my book about life in Chelmsford in the 60s – and after some additions and some editing, it was decided to rename the book ‘The Essex Girls’ and publish this April – next week in fact.

BUT…

… things have changed. The title of the book has changed (I think Essex Girls gave the wrong idea) and now it will be called The Saturday Girls and have a different cover and will come out on 23 August.

I’m sorry for all this chopping and changing. I, for one, was getting very excited about the publication date – but I think the new title serves my Essex Girls better.

Isaac Rosenberg

Posted on April 1, 2018 by Liz

A year ago I put up a post called Nobody Told Me to Oil My Boots. The post was a catch-up piece setting out my recent activities. But in the last paragraph I described a programme I had heard in the middle of the night on Radio 4 Extra about Isaac Rosenberg, a working-class poet and artist who joined up in WWI and who was killed in France in 1918. I learnt this morning on Broadcasting House, the Sunday morning R4 news programme, that today marks 100 years since his death. His poetry is powerful and moving. His story is interesting and tragic. I’ve included what I wrote last February below.

Unfortunately the original programme does not appear to be available. But you can listen to more of his story in the Broadcasting House report, about 20 minutes in.

February 2017

I had listened in the night to a lovely half hour programme on R4 Extra. Nobody told me to oil my boots told the story of Isaac Rosenberg, a working-class Jewish lad, son of immigrants, a peace-loving poet and artist from the East End, who felt it was his duty to join up and fight for his country in WWl. He joined a Bantam Regiment (for men who did not reach the required height of 5’3″). His war poetry is often overlooked, when people concentrate on poets like Wilfred Owen – who was advised to oil his boots. At the end, the R4 poet in residence,Daljit Nagra, summed up by talking about the numbers of Jews and Muslims and Hindus who fought and died in WWl for their country. First broadcast several years ago it is a delicate, powerful, heartbreaking story that is well worth listening to for 30 minutes.

Artwork at top of the page by Josie Taylor

Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This

Posted on March 2, 2018 by Liz

In 1983 I had dinner with Val Wilmer. I had met her in South London at the home of some friends a few weeks before and on discovering we lived 200 yards from each other in Stoke Newington, I’d invited her for a meal. She describes the evening herself in her book ‘Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This.’

I was having dinner one night with a feminist barrister when she suddenly mentioned Peetie Wheatstraw. I nearly fell under the table. A couple of years earlier I would have been hard-pressed to find a like-minded woman who had heard of John Coltrane, let alone this obscurest of bluesmen. Peetie Wheatstraw, ‘The Devil’s Son-in-Law’, sold plenty of 78s in the ‘Race’ market of the 1930s but his was not a name to slip readily off anyone’s tongue these days. I couldn’t get over it for ages.

The thing was, Peetie Wheatstraw was a name I had gleaned from listening to Mike Raven’s show on Radio 390 in my bedroom in the 60s. He played blues on a Wednesday night. Sleepy John Estes was another name that entranced me. I liked the music but really I knew nothing. Val was the real deal. She had been there, she had met them, gone to the gigs, had them to tea round the table in her mum’s kitchen. With her mum.

She had taken photographs, she had done interviews, and she had written articles and books. She had had an exhibition of her pictures at the V&A. And that work has gone on.

She published ‘Mama Said.’ She writes for the Encyclopedia of Jazz. Only very recently she spoke at Tate Modern as part of the Soul of a Nation exhibition.

And now this. Her book, As Serious As Your Life, about black music and free jazz, was republished yesterday (1 March 2018). And on Sunday evening at 6.45 on BBC Radio 3 there is a programme about her extraordinary and eventful life. Sunday Feature: A Portrait of Val Wilmer investigates how the girl from Streatham who loved jazz became a social historian and acclaimed photographer.

We shall all be sitting round the wireless on Sunday night.

Thanks to Steve Urquhart, producer of the Val Wilmer programme, who alerted me to this clip.

2017 – what happened?

Posted on December 28, 2017 by Liz

On 10 January 2017 President Obama made his final speech as president. The New Yorker Magazine showed its cover of November 2008 – Reflection by Bob Staake – originally published to celebrate Obama’s victory.

I ended my 2016 round-up letter by saying ‘holding our breath, let’s hope 2017 is a better, kinder, safer year for everyone.’ Well… we all knew times were about to change. And we were not going to let it pass unremarked. In January there was the Women’s March.

In February the big event was a Labour Party dinner in an Indian restaurant on Green Lanes, at the bottom of our road, hosted by David Lammy our MP. The guest of honour was supposed to be Dianne Abbott but she was ill. A surprise guest came in her stead – it was Jeremy Corbyn! Ours was his constituency when he started in politics as a local councillor.

He was very charming and did the raffle. I took a moment or two with him to make some policy suggestions (more Youth Clubs! more apprenticeships!) and a good evening was had by all.

We were on the streets again in March, thousands marching to defend the NHS.

The other big news in March was that I signed a contract with Bonnier Zaffre, a relatively new (2014) publisher which has recently added Linda La Plante and Wilbur Smith, and me obviously, to its list.

Specifically, they have bought my Sixties novel, Beyond the Beehive, which will return in August 2018 as The Saturday Girls.

The wonderful thing about writing books about your home town, people come out to meet you! At an Authors’ Day in Chelmsford Library, part of the Essex Book Festival, in March I met old friends from our Estate and from my primary school. And in April All or Nothing, the Small Faces musical came to Chelmsford. A gang of gals from my secondary school, Chelmsford County High School for Girls, dressed in mod gear – some more successfully than others, attended. We clicked our fingers, sang and only being seated in the balcony stopped us from running to the stage to dance.

The other claim to fame of Gill, Amanda and Chris is that they wrote, directed and appeared in Cinderella, the school pantomime, in 1965 [See The Essex Girls, The Pantomime].

In May a wonderful package arrived in the house.

In Came Horace was my favourite book as a child – my Auntie Sheila gave it to me, because at the time we had a cat called Horace. The Horace in the story was brave and saw off any dogs that thought they could protect Horace’s little old lady owner. I lost the book years ago then recently found it online. What a treat.

I love the Regents Park Open Air Theatre, even if we sometimes have to see a show two or three times to find out the ending, because of the rain. In May this year we went to see On the Town, starring Danny Mac, a Strictly finalist!

It was a great (dry) evening with a picnic beforehand – great burgers – and a good show. New York, New York, it’s a helluva town.

And there was another treat in May – a day course on the International Brigade and the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) at the Bishopsgate Institute. It’s a fascinating, inspiring story, the struggle against Franco and his fascists. The history was well told, and then we were able to touch and leaf through the books and papers that the Institute has in its archives. That was quite thrilling.

By way of light relief we went to the Barbican to see the jazz pianist, Brad Mehldau, a belated birthday present for Maureen Who Likes Frasier (WLF). I say light relief – modern jazz is a bit hard for me. I try to find a tune to follow, and then it runs away from me. The evening was enjoyed by Caroline and Maureen.

June of course was the Election. Ours is a safe Labour seat (David Lammy MP) so Caroline and I went out canvassing in Brent and secured a victory for the Labour candidate!

July brought more open-air culture. This time for free! There was a screening of Turandot on the sloping lawns around Alexandra Palace. We took wine, food and blankets and had a fun evening of death, betrayal and high voices.Then I shot down to Chelmsford where for the first time in my life I cut a ribbon and declared something open. It was Chelmsford’s Listening Bench – an Essex Record Office scheme, funded by the Lottery Heritage Fund, putting benches in Essex towns and villages with recordings of local people talking about their past.

The big event in October was Rafi being born to my niece Billie, brother to Rudi.

And there was the fascinating, uplifting and heartbreaking exhibition Soul of a Nation at Tate Modern, which I’ve written about here.

November of course marked 100 years since the Russian Revolution. There have been a couple of exhibitions, at the Royal Academy.

and Tate Modern,
both with a rather disappointing commentary, where it seems to be forgotten exactly why there was a revolution in Russia and elsewhere. But also 30 years of my relationship with Caroline!

December – There was a knock at the door and a new(ish) neighbour from down the road was inviting us to a Christmas party. She was just going up and down the road knocking on doors inviting people to come. And we went and had mulled wine and mince pies and met people we have never seen and never spoken to! Such a good idea.

Throughout the year I’ve continued to be involved in Housing for Women – the charity that provides accommodation and support for women who have suffered domestic abuse, who have been trafficked, and who have just been released from prison, as well as older women. We still go to Paris – lovely city. We were there around the time of the election which was won by Macron.

And I’ve carried on with my monthly BBC Essex radio spots, when I review the newspapers – from the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph to the East Anglian Daily Times and the Basildon Echo, at 6.15 in the morning. I try to find some uplifting stories amidst the gloom – but I also talk about the gloom and try to give a different perspective whilst avoiding slander.

It has been an extraordinary year. Let us hope for a peaceful and sane 2018. This is a cover from the French newspaper Liberation in 2016, but it may be the best we can get.

Soul of a Nation

Posted on October 20, 2017 by Liz

Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power

Two weeks ago at Tate Britain Val Wilmer was in conversation with Zoe Whitley, co-curator with Mark Godfrey of the exhibition Soul of a Nation at Tate Modern. It was one of a programme of talks and events accompanying the exhibition.

Val told extraordinary stories of the extraordinary people, writers, musicians, photographers, she has interviewed and photographed throughout her career, including James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Sun Ra and Jayne Cortez. Interviewing James Baldwin she ran out of questions. Bravely she admitted this to him and his response was immediate. ‘No problem, let’s have a drink.’

Today I went to the exhibition at Tate Modern. It was fascinating. Some of the issues I remembered, the Civil Rights Movement, the formation of the Black Panthers, Malcolm X, Bobby Seale, but other pieces and artists were completely new to me, as was the representation and imagery of the events. But the anger and the shame that I felt walking through the rooms were as fresh as they were in the 60s and 70s.

The show begins in 1963 with the formation of the Spiral Group, a New York–based collective who questioned how Black artists should relate to American society. They responded to current events in their photo-montages and abstract paintings. Artists also considered the locations and audiences for their art – from local murals to nationally circulated posters and newspapers – with many turning away from seeking mainstream gallery approval to show artwork in their own communities through Black-owned galleries and artist-curated shows. The exhibition uses archive photographs and documentary material to illustrate the mural movement, including the ‘Wall of Respect’ in Chicago.

Away from New York artists across the Unites States, in Chicago and Los Angeles, engaged in the Black Art debate. AfriCOBRA (the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists) in Chicago devised a manifesto for Black Art during this period. In Los Angeles the Watts Rebellion of 1965 had a direct impact on the art being produced there. Back in New York the Just Above Midtown gallery (JAM) was a pioneering commercial gallery that displayed the work of avant-garde Black artists. Soul of a Nation ‘showcases the debate between figuration and abstraction’.

Taking photos was permitted in the exhibition, so I was able to capture a few of the images and exhibits. I am going to leave the art to speak for itself (accompanied by the excellent and helpful notes provided by the curators). Be appalled, uplifted, shocked, and thrilled. Thank you to the Tate Modern and the curators for producing such a powerful exhibition.

The exhibition closes on Sunday, 22 October, and after that will go on tour to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas and the Brooklyn Museum, New York. A wonderful exhibition, not to be missed.

Intermission

Posted on September 20, 2017 by Liz

There has been a period of quiet on this side of the blog world. The summer has passed so quickly. We had so much hope – there was sunshine and heat. The promise of barbecues hung in the air. I unpacked all my summer clothes – shorts, linen dresses, linen trousers.

A June trip to Thessaloniki, on the mainland of Greece, was hot, so hot.

And then, just as I began editing of The Essex Girls, illness struck. It was a cold – or, in the words of a long forgotten advert – was it flu? But flowers have adorned the house which has been very nice.

But it means everything has slowed down, meetings missed, films abandoned, reservations ignored.

But as the days draw in and rain spatters the window, I’m feeling better. So, much to look forward to. And Strictly back on Saturday.

21 Rue la Boétie

Posted on August 8, 2017 by Liz

In July I was in Paris, in time for the last days of this exhibition, 21 rue la Boétie, at the Musée Maillol. I wanted to see the paintings as examples of modern art – I had no idea of the story behind this particular collection. On the very last day, 23 July 2017, a Sunday, I joined a small queue of people waiting patiently in a narrow street in the 7th Arrondisement, before the doors opened, our bags were searched and we were welcomed inside.

The exhibition brought together about 60 works of modern art (Picasso, Matisse, Léger, Laurencin…), many of which had transited through the Paris and New York galleries of Paul Rosenberg. Other paintings were ‘representative of the era’s historical and artistic context.’

However, the main emphasis of the exhibition was the story of 21 rue la Boétie in Paris. This was the gallery of art dealer Paul Rosenberg (1881-1959). The gallery opened in 1910 and Rosenberg promoted the work of Picasso and Georges Braque. Later, alongside the work of impressionists like Renoir, he exhibited paintings by Seurat, Monet and Matisse.

In 1940, the Nazis invaded Paris. Hitler had condemned modern artists like Picasso as ‘degenerate.’ In this context ‘degenerate’ meant works deemed to be ‘an insult to German feeling’. Rosenberg was a Jewish dealer in ‘degenerate’ art.

In one room where paintings from the Degenerate Art exhibition were displayed beside ‘Aryan’ paintings from Hitler’s art collection described by William Cook as ‘not entirely without merit, but all terribly samey.’ My own view was that they were simply boring – chubby faced children, meticulously transcribed horses, cheerful people, which lacked the energy and originality of the so-called degenerate art.

Rosenberg’s gallery was appropriated by the Gestapo as a centre for Anti-Semitic ‘research.’ Hundreds of his paintings, and as many as 20,000 other paintings were looted by the Nazis from national collections and private Jewish-owned art in France. They were placed in the Jeu de Paume gallery in Paris. Rose Valland, an art historian and member of the French Resistance, working in the Jeu de Paume, kept detailed lists of the paintings deposited there and where they were being transported, unbeknown to the Nazis.

In 1944, with the Allies closing in on Paris, the Nazis packed the last hundreds of the paintings onto a train to Germany. However, this train was hijacked by the Free French Army, and the paintings saved. One of the soldiers who stormed the train was Rosenberg’s son, Alexandre. This incident was the inspiration for the 1964 film, The Train.

After the war, Paul Rosenberg – whose French citizenship had been removed by the Nazis and who became an American citizen – worked to reassemble his collection. About 400 paintings had gone missing. Eventually, over 300 were retrieved.

The exhibition was fascinating, both for the art and for the story of the Nazis’ involvement between 1941 and 1944.

So it seemed appropriate to watch the film, which also features Jeanne Moreau, who has so recently left us. It’s a great film, and even though you know how it ends, it’s gripping and heartbreaking and powerful. Burt Lancaster is a wonderful railwayman, all grease and passion, and Paul Scofield is excellent as the Nazi officer, cold, cruel and obsessed. They have changed the story somewhat but it’s a fascinating depiction of an intriguing piece of social history and well worth watching.

Listening Bench

Posted on July 20, 2017 by Liz

Unveiling the Chelmsford Listening Bench

On Tuesday 18 July on the banks of the River Chelmer, the Chelmsford Listening Bench was declared open.

At 1 o’clock the sun was shining, a light breeze was blowing and a crowd of fiends, passers-by, relatives of contributors and the volunteers who had worked on the selection of voices, gathered for the ceremony. After a short speech from the mayor of Chelmsford Councillor Duncan Lumley, I cut the ribbon and pressed the first button. I was really delighted to have been asked.

The night before I had been able to listen to the recordings – a selection made from a great number of oral history recordings for the Essex Record Office. One recording was from a man born in 1909 who remembered Chelmsford in WWI, another recording is from someone born in the 20s, who went out walking all day with her friend with a jam sandwich, when Chelmsford was so much smaller and surrounded by fields. Someone else remembered when Hoffmann’s ball-bearing factory was bombed in WWII.

After I had cut the ribbon a man came up to me to explain he was the son of the man born in 1909. What was also wonderful was that he had been a mod, with a scooter and had gone to the Corn Exchange on a Saturday night. We swopped a lot of names. Who knows, he may have stood behind me in the Orpheus in the queue for a frothy coffee and a glass of hot blackcurrant.

What is a listening bench?

It’s a bench with a panel of buttons that anyone can press and, through built-in speakers, hear local people telling stories and talking about the history of the area.

The benches are part of the Heritage Lottery Funded project, You Are Hear: sound and a sense of place, organised by the Essex Record Office.

The idea is that through these benches, the Essex Sounds map,

and touring audio-video kiosks, sound and video recordings will help people develop their sense of place. The Essex Record Office is digitising and cataloguing a number of recordings from the Archive to make them available online, to preserve the county’s past, ‘for the enjoyment, interest and benefit of future generations.’

Listening benches have already been installed in communities across Essex. Each bench plays a selection of clips from Essex Sound and Video Archive recordings – clips about the area chosen by volunteers from that community.

It really was a lovely occasion – and such a good idea!

Find the bench in Backnang Square, behind the Meadows shopping precinct.

Weekend in Rowhedge

Posted on May 31, 2017 by Liz

The second book is on the way – working title The Girl in the Green Mac – and I have a deadline to meet. So to find somewhere cool, calm and beautiful to write is an absolute joy. And last weekend, that place was Rowhedge, in Essex. It’s just outside Colchester – where I did my A-levels – so I do know the area a little, but Rowhedge was somewhere quite new.

I was staying with Eve, an old friend of my mum’s from way back in the 60s, CND, drama and trad jazz. She had a drama group that I joined, all black leotards and method, swaying across the stage. As I mixed Horlicks in the Milk Bar I dreamed of being an actress, nothing showy, not Hollywood, just doing rep in a small town in middle England – Derby? Leicester? – with a good crowd of chums and a new play every week. I hadn’t seen her for years, but dropped in for coffee when I was doing a talk in Brightlingsea in February this year. A pretty village, a river (the Colne) and a Co-op – what more could you want? ‘Can I come and write here?’ I asked.

And so last week I packed a bag, jumped on a train and arrived at 2.30 on a glorious, sunny afternoon. Eve showed me to my room – and what a joy! It was a real Room of Ones Own, as if Virginia Woolf had stood beside her as she arranged the furniture. A writing desk, a chaise longue (a chaise longue! how long I have yearned for a chaise longue…), a window onto a small terrace, and a view of the long, meandering garden down to the woods. A narrow bed and a teeny bathroom completed the magical scene.

And did I write? Readers, I did. Possibly not as much as I should have. There was so much to do – having breakfast in the garden, exploring the highways and byways of Rowhedge, finding the Co-op, dining at the Anchor, meeting Eve’s lovely friends, asking them about their memories of the Sixties (research!), and being a good guest. Maybe next time…

The news

Posted on May 1, 2017 by Liz

I have already written about my big news here but I’m so thrilled I just want to say it again. My Sixties novel, Beyond the Beehive, has been acquired by Bonnier Zaffre. They will publish a new edition in early 2018, which will have the trademark Z on the spine.

Shortly after that a second Sixties novel will appear. Now I have to get down to writing it, which is quite a challenge, but I’m looking forward to it. There may be tears, laughter, sleepless nights and a certain amount of tearing my hair. I’m hoping that you will share this journey with me!

Elizabeth Woodcraft

writing about the law, books and other matters of obvious importance