Viking Duck

When I look out of my window, the visual display that meets me could easily have been a subject for an Edgar Hunt oil painting. Various breeds of chickens, some Emden geese and even white and blue peafowl colour the green field as they mill about eating the scattered seeds that make up their breakfast. Added to this animated canvas of farmyard beauty are the ducks. Like the chickens, there is more than one breed on show. They include the brown Khaki Campbell and the white Aylesbury. They also include the Indian Runners. These ducks are distinctly different to the rest. Despite a single member who is almost completely black, they are white, like the Aylesbury. However, unlike the other breeds of duck, this bird stands very erect and often with its beak in the air. Like a diminutive goose they march forward with purpose – and nothing stands in their way. For, although many would look upon this scene as the perfect backdrop to countryside tranquillity, I see chaos and carnage.

The Woman Writer

I have recently been in contact with Sylvia Kent, a brilliant and enthusiastic journalist who sometimes writes on the Rosaire circus family, hence our connection. However, I was recently fascinated to read about her new book "The Woman Writer: The History of the Society Women Writers and Journalists". At the risk of sounding patronizing, I find the history of women's writing an interesting and inspirational focus of study. I was drawn to the life and works of Mary Wollstonecraft through her daughter, Mary Shelley, and honoured her in my 2009 anniversaries article. Wollstonecraft is often considered to be the prototypical feminist, although I think she was far more than that. She was a philosopher, writer and intellectual working in a field that was more than dominated by males, it was a domain made virtually impossible for women to access in Wollstonecraft's time and for almost a century after her death. We tend to forget that her daughter, the Brontes, Jane Austen, Beatrix Potter and so on were the exceptions to the rule of their time. They came from more or less privileged backgrounds and had to have exceptional talent and driving force, not to mention useful contacts, to get their heads above the parapet and their work out there. Widespread literacy is a relatively new thing anyway and it was even rarer with women up until the 20th century. Women authors in the 19th century nearly always adopted male pseudonyms. Whenever I bemoan how hard it is to get a work published or, harder still, to get paid, I am often reminded that my sex has had it relatively easy when it comes to selling the craft!

The Woman Writer

The History of The Society of Women

Writers & Journalists

Author Sylvia Kent

Published 1 December 2009 at £12.99, paperback original ISBN-10 9780752451596

An account of Britain’s oldest writing society dedicated to women’s writing through its 116-year existence

· The first in-depth history of the Society of Women Writers & Journalists.

· Published to commemorate the centenary in 2010 of former president Joyce Grenfell’s birth.

· Sylvia Kent explores the lives of some of the Society’s most famous members. Illustrated with over 100 photographs.

Over a century old and still thriving. The Society of Women Writers & Journalists has just published its history which reads like a “Who’s Who” of notable women from the twentieth Century. Although the SWWJ was created for women, the concept was the brainchild of a man – a clever, enterprising newspaperman – Mr Joseph Snell Wood. Given the small number of women in journalism at the time, almost every practising woman journalist must have applied for membership.

Since its creation on 1 May 1894, the Society has attracted the company of many of the world’s most famous women writers, journalists, poets, playwrights and associated creative people involved in the wider world of literature, film, music, theatre and entertainment. Author, Sylvia Kent, delved deeply into the Society’s archives and has produced fascinating cameos of its famous members: great names of Victorian media and later are included, such as Lady Sarah Wilson who reported from Mafeking on the Boer War, Alice Meynell, who almost became the first female Poet Laureate; American playwright, Pearl Craigie our first president; Agnes Elsie Thorpe, big game hunter; Marie Stopes who campaigned for birth control; Radclyffe Hall whose book on lesbianism was banned in the UK in the 1920s though it was exceedingly popular in the USA; Constance Smedley, founder of International Lyceum Clubs, Clemence Dane actor and playwright. Latterly, the Society welcomed Elizabeth Longford, well known biographer; Nina Bawden, famous for “Carrie’s War”; Jacqueline Wilson recent Children’s Laureate, and our current Life President, Baroness Williams of Crosby.

Information on the early days of many magazines and societies makes fascinating reading. Included are: The Gentlewoman, The Lady, The Stage, Good Housekeeping amongst the periodicals and the BBC, International Lyceum Clubs, the London Press Club, the New Cavendish Club, PEN, the RNA, the Society of Authors, Swanwick Summer School, the Women’s Press Club and the Stationers’ Livery Company all had connections.

Sylvia Kent is a columnist working for Newsquest and a freelance writer. She is Archivist/Press Officer for the SWWJ, vice-president of Brentwood Writers’ Circle and a Patron of the Essex Book Festival 2009/10. This is Sylvia’s seventh book, published whilst supporting other writers, particularly in the field of local history. She is a Trustee at the Cater Museum, Billericay.

Available from all good bookshops, Amazon and The History Press.

Direct sales – telephone 01235 465577 or www.thehistorypress.co.uk

For information about talks or interviews, please contact

Kerry Green at The History Press on 01453 732 512 or via www.sylviakent.blogspot.com

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There are more things in our beautiful garden...

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Because of the supernatural imagery and religious conventions used in Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet” the quote “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” is often touted by those who want to believe in the supernatural. However, I think the quote can serve in a similar vein to the Douglas Adams’ one “Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” The current scientific discussions of a gigantic bird, Haast’s eagle, before now considered to have been only a scavenger but now described as a virtual lion from the skies. Even more incredible is that this bird was only made extinct 500 years ago. This brilliantly illustrates the point I am trying to make:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/maori-legend-of-maneating-bird-is-true-1786867.html

Don’t get me wrong, I love fantasy. I love fantasy for its wonderful useful allegories and powerful metaphors. However, both of these draw their strength from our love of fantasy for the sake of fantasy. There is nothing wrong with escapism. I don’t think there is anything especially wrong with sitting around the proverbial campfire to scare each other with thoughts of magic and impossible happenings, so long as the light of day in our minds returns us to rationality. I often think this is then spoiled by those who decide to persist with a pursuit of the irrational.

The other day I bought a lovely looking hard-backed short encyclopaedia of fantasy aimed at a young audience. It looked like one of the many books that I loved to read in our primary school library, full of beautiful illustrations and details of mythological creatures. Even the introduction looked promising. The writer gave a nice description of her interpretation of fantasy, which pretty much came down to the wonderful power of imagination. Sadly the book was then tarnished with logical fallacies and badly researched data on certain subjects in a weak attempt to convince the reader that “something might be out there”. For example, she explained reports of monstrously high waves used to be thought of as seafaring legends until satellite photography in the 20^th century revealed their actual existence. Because of this discovery, she argues, it is not incredible to think that many of the sea monsters described by sailors exist. This is not a logical argument, it is and you will have to forgive the unfortunately appropriate pun, a Red Herring argument. Marco Polo came back with fantastical descriptions of the creatures he saw on his journeys; having never seen such animals before he immediately associated them with the creatures of myth such as the unicorn.

I am not quite sure about heaven, but there are certainly far more things on earth than we can imagine and often they are far more incredible. The sea is a good place to look considering the majority of its species have not been properly discovered. Like Douglas Adams there are also plenty of examples of fantasy and science fiction writers who make a healthy distinction between the realm of the imagination and the real world. Another common myth is to think those who are pragmatic, scientific or embrace rationalism lack imagination. Somehow the logical mind erases our ability to love the impossible. This is utter nonsense. Beatrix Potter, I believe, is a wonderful example of a person who could create wondrous and enchanting escapism and yet, at the same time, keep her head to break social conventions and help found a highly successful prize-winning farming dynasty. Beatrix Potter may have had her head in the clouds a lot of the time, but her pragmatic success demonstrates just how firmly our feet were planted on the ground.

Don't forget to check out Jamie Clubb's main blog www.jamieclubb.blogspot.com