"The time has come", the walrus said, "to speak of many things"

It’s no great mystery that I’ve been living and working in Truro, (Cornwall, UK) for the last two and a bit years. My full-time job is the one that brought me down here, and having left it is my reason to leave.
It’s finally time to pursue my passion for writing, so this rite is about how writing got me here, and how writing has scooped me back out.
I intend to do freelance copywriting and chase creativity whenever I have the chance.

I have always loved Cornwall. My family and I visited south Cornwall for years on holidays, year in and year out, nothing would change except sometimes the village we visited, or the four-seasons-in-one-day weather. The beauty drew us back year on year, so when a job came up I jumped at the chance to live in such a beautiful and timeless place.

My job was in retail – after five years using the past tense sounds mad – and I was lucky enough to manage an excellent shop filled with wonderful people. I have grown. Not up – I will never grow up – but lots of useful things have been learnt, both the easy way and the hard way.

Writing has remained a pillar of calm and relative normality. Having spent the bulk of time here alone, it has acted as a constant reminder that I can escape loneliness, albeit through the page. I’ve had short fiction read and recorded, written an ad script and made some decent headway into my novel.

Now I am able to fight writer's block with no distractions. This piece doesn’t really have an ending. It’s a new start and a new chapter. Stick with me, it'll be fun.

REVIEW - Rebecca, Hall For Cornwall - Saturday 19th September.

This sea-soaked classic from Cornish author Daphne du Maurier had the ultimate captive audience in Truro on the final night of the run in Cornwall. As the book is one of my all-time favourites, I just had to see the stage version.

The production by Kneehigh theatre company opened to crashing waves, a lantern-lit stage and the endlessly quotable first line: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” The story follows an unnamed young woman as a newlywed wife to Maxim de Winter, owner of the mysterious Manderley, as she realises she is living in the shadow of his recently deceased wife Rebecca.

Image from Kneehigh

She feels gauche and awkward in her new life at Manderley, having been extracted from the company of a 'dreadful American woman' for whom she worked as a companion in glamorous Monte Carlo. For anyone familiar with the book, you'll know this woman was Mrs Van Hopper, who makes no appearance in the play which is a pity as she provides excellent comic relief in the story which is at times so tense you struggle to catch your breath.

Fog rolled across the stage to create a romantic and gothic atmosphere for the small but effective cast to spin the story. The chorus of fishermen clad in sou’westers and oil coats provided a haunting presence, and between scene changes a small band played violins and a double bass. Large branches of seaweed and driftwood punctuated the set when we visited the cottage on the beach, and dove puppets surrounded the narrator in a beautiful representation of the Happy Valley.

The cast had an obvious love for the play and the set itself was remarkable: a bridge was built into and out of the staircase depending on where the action was taking place, window frames were held in place to suggest the view and capital ‘R’s were tucked away in the wrought iron on the stairs and on vases. Manderley is based on Menabilly, du Maurier's real home on the Cornish coast. The main theme snaking through the play is jealousy, and it resonates in the clipped tone of phantom-like housekeeper Mrs Danvers, who had a wonderfully insidious presence. Clever set design placed the eponymous Rebecca’s boat both beneath the characters, then hanging above them as her ghost during the second half.

From the wobbly beginnings of the bride to her final flourish, the Hall For Cornwall was transformed into Manderley for one last time. Sea shanties rollicked and the cast spun a web of jealousy, betrayal and the wild sea; which is as much a character as Rebecca herself. 

Find the tour dates here.