The Fair City of Dublin - and Writing Inspirations from an unlikely source

The fair city of Dublin hosted my wife, Kathy, and me a few days earlier this week. This trip was primarily to meet up with Kathy's sister, her husband and daughter. What a blast we have had, too. 

We've visited the old favourites, which are a bit of a 'must' when in Dublin, well for us anyway, the Guinness Storehouse and the

 

Jameson Whisky Factory. Those two are, in fact, very similar products. Yes, they are both alcohol in one form or another. Whisky is distilled from a wash, more commonly known as beer. The only difference from the traditional stout beer is that the grains are roasted to more than 200 degrees, from which Guinness gets its flavour and colour.                                        

Kathy's sister and her husband, both academics back in Canada, enabled a balanced view of a place to visit.

One such place we visited was the Chester Beatty Library, known as the Chester Beatty, located within Dublin Castle's grounds.

Sir Alfred Chester Beatty was an American-British Mining Magnate and Philanthropist. Beatty became a naturalised British citizen in 1933. He was knighted in 1954. Made an honorary citizen of Ireland in 1957, Beatty collected African, Asian, European, and Middle Eastern manuscripts, rare printed books, prints, and objet's d'art.

It is a wonderful and beautifully presented collection; as a bonus, it is free to enter.

I could have spent hours with this collection. It is so informative. I have my notes and will probably work up a pitch to a magazine editor or two in the next few weeks. My notebook also has the fledgling beginnings of another story, hopefully a novel, so this collection has spurred two possible outputs. When I'm back home, I will probably be able to research a couple more pitches, maximising the haul from one visit.

https://chesterbeatty.ie/

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Travels with inspirations - Not much this week but promises to be great next week

 

This week has been a tough one for writing, sadly. Work has been busy, unsurprisingly, and I haven't been able to fit in many of my lunchtime writing sessions. That's naughty of me as I should take my proper lunch breaks. Better luck tomorrow, I'm writing this on Wednesday and thinking it is Thursday. I hate the middle of the week, but tomorrow morning I'll be over that hump.

The photograph that I have chosen this week is this one. Do you recognise that chap? No, not me, the statue. Yes, it is James Joyce.

 Joyce was an Irish novelist born in 1883 and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century.

Joyce was born in Dublin, where I shall be for a few days next week. I fully intend to get another photograph alongside Joyce's statue. I would also like to see Newman House, which in his time was the University College where he studied. 

Visiting such a beautiful and historic city will be an inspiration, which will inspire my writing. Some of the city's history can be uncomfortable for us Brits, but having been to Dublin 12 years ago, it is a welcoming and friendly place to visit.

Of course, we will be sampling Dublins and The Republic of Ireland's famous export, Guinness. The saying that the best Guinness is served in Dublin is quite correct, as is Jameson Whisky. At the end of the distillery tour, the Irish Coffee is to die for.

I'm looking forward to a few days off work, especially as it was my birthday on Friday. That's me out of my teenage years now.

There's not much writing for Mince Pies this week, but I'm aiming for more this week, one way or another.

That's it for this week: a narrative blog—many thanks to all those who read last week's piece. I will dig out more photos with stories over the next few weeks.

Memories - It Seems Like a Lifetime Ago.

 By this time next week, I shall have celebrated, or will still be, celebrating my sixty-second birthday. As for this week, I have been feeling quite rough with a cold, not near enough to be man flu, but there were times I felt all of those sixty-two years.

As I've been at home for most of this week, you would have thought I had plenty of time to think about what to write—no such fortune. I'm still here late into the week, wracking my brain on what to write. Nothing changes.

I decided this week to get a prompt from a picture and write about that. The first photo where I stopped scrolling was this one.

This is from 1986 and was taken by a Royal Naval Photographer; sadly, I can't remember his name. It is taken on the forecastle of HMY Britannia, The Royal Yacht. We were on a Royal Visit to China, and HMY is berthed alongside Shanghai; the buildings in the background are the famous Shanghai Bund. We had arrived there after a short stay in Hong Kong, where we frequented the infamous China Fleet Club. It was our second long trip of that year. We had been down to New Zealand earlier in 1986, and it is an entirely different tale.

Just before 0800, the Band and a few Yotties fell in for the Naval ceremony Colours. That is when the Union Flag is hoisted to start the day and performed daily in some manner in all Naval establishments and on vessels when alongside. We had been to the famous Cavendish Hotel the night before, where much Chinese food, beer and wine were consumed. To be expected, there were only so many bars and restaurants in downtown Shanghai, and we're more than likely to have fallen in with a hangover.

We're wearing our Blues; I don't think the Royal Party could have been onboard then, as we would have been wearing our Divisional Tunics. I'm proudly wearing my first good conduct badge. There were a few '3 Badgers' in that Band, so we youngsters, I was just twenty-four, had to mind our Ps & Qs, but they were the first to drag us ( yeah, yeah) out for a run ashore.

This photo pops up on FaceBook at least once a year, and it brings back many happy memories but, at the same time, is also a very sad one. 

Six of my colleagues in this photograph are no longer with us. Three died of Pancreatic Cancer; one was killed in the IRA bombing of Deal Barracks only three years after 'Snaps' took this photo. Another tragically took his own life, and only in the last few weeks, one has died of a brain tumour. One has also spent time at Her Majesty's pleasure and is now on a register. 

The power of social media means that I am still in touch with several of those in this photo, and some of them may read this blog.

This Band is made up of members of the Commander in Chief Naval Home Command Band members. We were based at Eastney Barracks in Southsea. In a couple of years I spent in that Band, I think I spent most of the time at either sea or in a field somewhere. Our Director of Music and also the HMY DoM was Captain Peter Hemming. Peter was a bit of a 'marmite' chap; if he liked you, you got on well; if he didn't, well, less said the better. His nickname for me was 'Bon Ouef', don't ask. It was a band that worked hard and played hard. We were all 'Chums and Chaps'.

Seventeen of us flew to Beijing on a plane from the RAF Royal Flight as part of this visit. Walking across the apron to our aircraft at Shanghai Airport was rather hair-raising. The Aircrew treated like lords, and we were greeted at the top of the steps with Buck Fizz. Newspapers were only twenty-four hours old, and Gin and Tonics were next before the stewards passed around the menu for the Luncheon. With lunch, we drank HM Queen's favourite red wine. We played for an event at the British Embassy and then had a whistle-stop tour of the city.

We arrived back in the UK in early December after completing further Royal Duties in Saudi Arabia and having to be escorted through the Suez Canal and up the Mediterranean Sea as far as Gibraltar by the US Sixth Fleet after the US had bombed Libya. For the rest of December, we travelled around the country performing Christmas concerts. We were nothing but busy.

That was a happy two years. I was drafted back to Dartmouth when Britannia went into for a £50m refit at Devonport for a year. I often think things might have been very different had I stayed at Portsmouth. I can't complain though. 

 

Writing Opportunties - How many can you get from one trip?

Writing opportunities. As a writer who has researched articles to pitch to editors, you can make further opportunities to pitch towards editors from that one idea.

We're going away a few times this year, and I have been thinking about the opportunities that may pop up.

I bought the Writers & Artists Yearbook for several years, but since the pandemic, I have yet to keep up with them. Nonetheless, I have been researching for titles that could be interested in pitches.

What will I be noting in my trusty notebook or on an app on my phone (I must remember to take the power bank)?

In preparation, I shall be doing some research on the places we are visiting. The aim will be to get the maximum out of each location to achieve several pitches to different publications. I haven't written much travel writing besides exercises, and it will be nice to have the opportunity to pitch something different. I have travelled much of the world, but never on a holiday. Oh, to have had a MacBook in 1986 when I was floating around worldwide.

If I tell you that we will be in the lovely city of Dublin in a few weeks, there's much more to it than the Guinness Brewery. It was the first trip that my wife and I took twelve years ago. We principally went for the Rugby, Exeter Chiefs' first game in the then Heineken Cup against Leinster. We had a fantastic time, and yes, we went to the Guinness Brewery, but as I mentioned earlier, there's more to Dublin than that. I know what I will look out for, so the notebook will be in great need.  

In March, we will be off to London for the Mountbatten Festival, the Massed Bands of His Majesties Royal Marines; before that, we will spend some time in Camden. There was a superb Italian restaurant there the last time we were there. I hope it has survived the pandemic and the government's mess of the country. It certainly deserves a review, another writing opportunity.

While searching out these opportunities for pitch ideas, I shall continue to write for my second novel, and I've also got the first to start editing. It is going to be a busy few months writing. I also love giving myself a couple of weekly deadlines for writing this Blog and my Substack.

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On this week's Substack, I shall review an article I have read. It's a bit of a hint; it won't be too favourable. Please join me over on Substack. It is free; have a look.

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Beasting is finished, anyone for a Mince Pie?

 

There isn't anything else I could write about this week. On Friday, 19th January, I finished the first draft of my debut novel, Beasting Dartmoor—nearly 67 thousand words and 210 pages and one word. To say I feel pretty chuffed is a bit of an understatement.

It has been something that has been with me for over three decades. The first efforts were saved on 5.25-inch floppy disks; to be brutally honest, it's more likely to have been writing paper.

I used some of my many life experiences, except the murders, for the story, and yes, there are a couple of characters based on colleagues I may or may not have worked with. If anyone of them is reading this, they'll be panicking. 

So, what now?

The plan for 'Beasting' is to put it aside for a few weeks before starting to edit. Some parts may need a rewrite, and I need to drop a few more hints earlier. And as writers, we're always on the lookout for plot holes.

What now for my writing? After a week where I felt a bit malaise after finishing the book, I'm back on here for this week's blog, and over the weekend, I shall be writing for my next Substack email/post. I can also announce that I have started 'The Mince Pie Murders'. It's a cosy and humorous novel or novella. I need to see where the story goes. I would like to see this work turn into a series if possible. I have started the first chapter and have written a few character sheets. I'm also using an app called MindNode to plot and plan the story. This time, I am writing directly into the Scrivener app rather than copying and pasting from Pages into Scrivener. I intend to use all the bells and whistles of Scrivener this time. 

With the start editing date safely set in the calendar and mince pies already in the oven, I will not likely be slowing down anytime soon.

Writing Letters? Who does that these days?

The days of writing letters have passed, I feel. That's quite a bold statement. But let's have a quick think about it. Most, if not all of us, will send important information via email. We receive almost everything via email these days. Annoyingly, I still get a bank statement through the post and am still looking for a way to stop it; it just goes through the shredder and is recycled. I may be able to stop it on my banking app if I can get that working.

Let's face it: if we need to send someone a message, we are more likely to text, WhatsApp or Messenger. Those last two, of course, are owned by Meta. There are other ways to message that I'm unaware of. 

There are many collections of people's letters, and one of my Christmas presents was a book of letters written by my hero author, David Cornwall, also known as John Le Carré. It is interesting to see his life in letters and how his life has interacted with his writings.

Many other collections of letters by writers and others detail life in different times. In the future, will there be such collections to read about the current turbulent times that we live in?

When we cleared my parent's house, I found that my mother kept the letters and postcards I had sent during my time on HMY Britannia and throughout my other travels in the Royal Marines. My brother Andrew's 'blueys' that he had sent when he was deployed with his RAF Squadron during both Gulf Wars were all there, too.

Is it the same for service men and women these days? There is email and internet access these days, albeit restricted for security reasons. However, I would like to know if writing paper and envelopes are still available from the NAAFI shop.

Letter writing is a dying art in the 21st Century. I certainly can't remember when I last hand-wrote a letter. That is the sad reality of the digital world. I can think of areas in our social lives where we would be better off with pen and paper rather than cruel comments on digital media.

I might go away now and have to think about who I can send a letter to, and then there's the problem of negotiating the Post Office ( now that's another piece, indeed).  

 

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We all talk about the weather, don't we?

It's almost a national pastime in this country to talk about the weather, and hasn't it been shocking over the last couple of weeks? At a time when the country expects and wishes to have snow for Christmas, we are paddling in the damp weather.

For those of us who are still sending and receiving Christmas Cards, we love the snowy scenes pictured on them. One of the most famous scenes is of the Frost Fairs on the Thames. These were brief events between 1309 and 1814 when the Thame froze 23 times. Of those 23 occasions, only five were cold enough for them to be able to hold a fair on the river. From the amount of scenes we see depicted at this time of year, you would have thought that the Frost Fairs would have been a regular occasion. 

The last time that the Thames froze over was, in fact, the winter of 1963, when the country suffered a long period of winter weather, with the thermometer dropping to -20 degrees on occasion. I was barely one year old, and we lived on a farm at least a mile from the village. My mother used to tell me that we were snowed in until March that year, and the water froze in the pipes. Thankfully, my Grandparents lived in the village, and my Grandfather was the Shepherd for the farm. He could get through on his Massey Ferguson tractor and bring food and water to my beleaguered parents and presumably our next-door neighbours in the other cottage. We moved out of that cottage into the town on the day of the World Cup Final in 1966, but that's another tale. 

In the 21st Century, we have to contend with storms, the latest of which 'Henk' has been causing havoc this week. Climate change is said to be the main culprit, and I have to agree. We are looking at a period of much colder weather next week, but generally, this winter so far, it has been a lot milder than we would expect. It's getting colder next week. Time to get the winter coat out, methinks.

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