{"id":545,"date":"2019-11-15T08:13:55","date_gmt":"2019-11-15T08:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=545"},"modified":"2019-11-15T08:13:57","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T08:13:57","slug":"not-following-the-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2019\/11\/15\/not-following-the-map\/","title":{"rendered":"NOT FOLLOWING THE MAP"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

HOW WE GOT HERE FROM THERE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nspent the first half of what I laughingly call my \u00b4career\u00b4 in the UK, writing\nsongs with my musical partner Colin Lever. Calling ourselves Lendanear we\nplayed the folk circuit in the North West of England and recorded three folksy\n\/ country-ish contemporary albums. We wrote about fifty songs together, a\ncouple of which were recorded by other artists, both in the UK and in America. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Colin Lever
my partner in Lendanear<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Colin\nnow is retired on Jersey and has this month issued a new selection of our old\nsongs and even of a few we never released and some we never even recorded. The\nsongs are on Bandcamp now, under our original name of Lendanear, and will soon\nbe available, too, by a new web site Colin is designing. We wonder whether\nanybody today will actually Lendanear. Nobody ever did back then!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With\nmy love of country and folk music and of singer songwriters in general I also\nworked as a freelance journalist submitting to independent fan magazines and\npromoters that served that industry, like Stillwater Times and Stampede\nPromotions. In that capacity I was thrilled to meet writer-musicians and secure\nexclusive interviews with some I constantly listened to and who were heavily\nrepresented in my record collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To\nmeet with artists from the States such as Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt and John\nStewart, and then publish those interviews, as well as my reviews of their live\nshows and recordings, was a fantastic feeling. To ensure there was an outlet\nfor my copy I even started to publish my own independent titles, available on\nmail order, and those two magazines, Sidetracks and Detour, decades later gave\nme the name for the blog I recently launched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During\nthat same period I wrote Memoirs From Bedlam a biographical case-study of an\neccentric, local businessman, and when all that seemed to have run its course,\nI went to University as a \u00b4mature student\u00b4 to study English Language And\nLiterature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And,\nyes, I know that uni and a full career would have been a better progression\nthan half a career and then University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three\nyears of study, though, massively reinforced my love of Robert Frost and Dylan\nThomas and also introduced me to the works of Raymond Carver and Cormac\nMcCarthy and to books like The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. Somehow, though,\nthe more I learned about literature, the less I knew. In the words of a great\nsong by Johnny Nash there were suddenly \u00b4more questions than answers.\u00b4 I\u00b4d like\nto borrow the title of that song to say that I Can See Clearly Now, but I\u00b4m not\nsure that\u00b4s true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strangely,\nthough, I was always aware of Wordsworth\u00b4s line in The Tables Turned that \u00b4we\nmurder to dissect\u00b4 and I have always fought hard to not let any search for\nwider knowledge and deeper understanding of literature reduce the awe that\ngreat writing inspires in me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nwas, in fact, a totally unexpected outcome of this somewhat belated University\nlife, that I learned it was ok to get lost in my own writing. I had, until\nthen, thought that I had to write from A to Z  providing solutions but those of you (if any)\nwho might have read some of my work will know that, rather than giving answers\nin a linear narrative, I instead seem only able to ask questions in a\nscattergun fashion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Pam McKee & Norman Warwick
Just Poets (but only just)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In\nacquiring my degree at the age of fifty, I realised that my younger, highly\nacademically qualified cousin had been absolutely right when warning me it\nwould have no intrinsic value. I have, nevertheless, been incredibly fortunate\nto since enjoy a wonderful working life as a \u00b4community poet\u00b4 and creative\nwriting facilitator. After founding a working duo, Just Poets, with a new\nwriting partner, Pam McKee, I found myself working in schools, galleries,\ntheatres and community groups all over the North West. We were retained by an\norganisation called Artists In Schools and so became part of a curricular add-on\nfor primary and secondary schools throughout the North West of England. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\nalso worked regularly with local authorities, library services, and the NHS and\nwere commissioned to create poetry for all sorts of special and commemorative\nevents. We also took every opportunity to collaborate with artists in other\ndisciplines and so wrote poetry to accompany visual arts, and worked with musicians\nto, for example, write with children to create a musical biography of Comfort\nTiffany at a museum where much of his work was on permanent display.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When\nPam retired I nervously delivered my first solo project with a local High School\nof Performing Arts, who were about to undertake an ambitious theatre production\nto re-launch after a re-build. I worked for a term facilitating ten pupils aged\nfourteen to sixteen to become a journalistic team, providing The Rochdale\nObserver with a weekly page of photographs and news, previews, interviews and\nreviews about the progress of the re-build and the students\u00b4 approach to the forthcoming\nperformance. Those pupils eventually left school after twenty six weeks of\ndelivering two weekly pages of 650 word articles, to word count, to deadline\nand proof ready. Not only did they learn important literary skills but also\nequally essential soft life skills such as politeness and punctuality and\nattention to detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After\nthat initial period, The Rochdale Observer allowed me to continue the page and\nI did so, under the title of all across\nthe arts<\/em> that we had employed with the Performing Arts class. Over the next\nfew years I also\nserved as publicist, interviewer and host for the annual Rochdale Literature\nAnd Ideas Festival. I was fortunate enough in this capacity to interview,\nlive in front of an invited audience, the likes of actor Kevin Kennedy,\npoet Roger McGough and the political spin doctor, Alistair Campbell. The page\nregularly included interviews with politicians, actors, painters and writers\nand poets like Ian Macmillan, Anne Cleeve, Denise Greenwood, and comedienne\nHelen Lederer. These exclusive interviews were then frequently adjusted to word\ncount for our all across the arts<\/em>\npages and were occasionally played in full on our weekly all across the arts<\/em> programme that I co-presented on Crescent\nCommunity Radio with jazz broadcaster Steve Bewick. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\ncollated a small group of occasional contributors to the all across the arts<\/em> page, including local poet Eileen Earnshaw,\nJenny Roche, who will be known to some readers as a Writing Magazine\ncontributor, of course, and young science fiction writer Louis Brierley,\ncurrently studying at Manchester University whilst his literary agent negotiates\nwith prospective publishers for rights to his five already completed novels!\nLouis certainly showed himself to be already fully professional in his respect\nfor content, word count and deadline and we always found him a reliable\ncorrespondent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
a typical page
all across the arts<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The\nManchester Evening News Group syndicated our all across the arts<\/em> page to The Rochdale Observer, The Heywood\nAdvertiser and The Middleton Guardian and was still doing so several years\nlater when I retired here to Lanzarote. I left everything in the capable hands\nof Steve Cooke, who had followed Robin Parker as my partner in the writing of the\npage. Steve\nstill produces the page each week, and has also established a small arts\norganisation called Stories We Could Tell based on a project we ran together,\nwith Vibe Music, working with disenfranchised youngsters in my final few months\nin the UK <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost\nimmediately on arriving here in Lanzarote I joined the weekly meetings of the\nLanzarote Creative Writing Group. Having facilitated several such groups for\nmany years over in the UK, most notably Touchstones in Rochdale and Write Now\nin Blackburn, I was afraid the transition from \u00b4teacher\u00b4 to \u00b4student\u00b4 might\nprove a step too far, but Sue Almond, the organiser of the group, made me\nreally welcome into a very friendly collective of like-minded people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sue\nwould occasionally invite published authors to speak to the group, and I took\nthe opportunity to interview novelists like Isobel Blackthorne, a writer living\nin Australia but who was on Lanzarote to promote a new book, The Drago Tree, a\nnovel set on the island, that also somehow served as a travel guide. I also\ninterviewed writers like the Austrian feminist novelist, Karen Ricks, and Stan\nArnold, like me a retired guy from England, who had set a series of three\nnovels in the British pop scene of the sixties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those\ninterviews appeared on the group\u00b4s Writers\u00b4 End blog and on the Lanzaarote\nInformation web site, https:\/\/lanzaroteinformation.co.uk\/<\/a> as well as in\nan audio format on local English speaking radio stations here on the island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nhave also worked as a consultant to LCWG member Jim Loughrill on his\nforthcoming book, My Silent Voices, in return for his help with the\npracticalities of establishing my blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After\nfour years here on Lanzarote I feel firmly settled and I am still operating as\na freelance weekly contributor to the Lanzarote Information web site, under my\noriginal all across the arts<\/em> UK strap\nline of \u00b4news, interviews, previews and reviews.\u00b4 I have now written for the\nisland-based site for a number of years, delivering positive reporting of the\nvibrant arts scene over here, as I had done about a similar scene in Rochdale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing\nfor Lanzarote Information often leads me down happy trails trying to establish\nplatforms for some of the artists who ask for information. I am currently\nexploring opportunities in the education system over here for a classical\npianist who has created a unique workshop that would complement the curriculum\nand provide transferable life-skills and there is a UK based Opera Company\nhoping to organise a working tour over here, that would see them collaborating\nwith school children and those students at our musical academy to deliver a\nperformance of The Pirates Of Penzance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All\nthis has seen me acquire so much archive and interview material that I have recently\nlaunched these Sidetracks And Detours postings to this all across the arts<\/em> blog to complement my continued writing for\nLanzarote Information site. I feel confident that a slow exploration of the\nSidetracks And Detours that lead me to classical music, folk lore music and\ndance, theatre, drama, comedy, poetry readings, food fayres, artisan markets\nand visual art galleries may allow me to take a more leisurely yet more\nforensic look at the arts and reach a wider, discerning audience. I might not\nhave put much cash in my coffers but I have regularly paid into a wealthy\nmemory bank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HOW WE GOT HERE FROM THERE I spent the first half of what I laughingly call my \u00b4career\u00b4 in the UK, writing songs with my musical partner Colin Lever. Calling ourselves Lendanear we played the folk circuit in the North West of England and recorded three folksy \/ country-ish contemporary albums. We wrote about fifty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aata"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}