Judith Johnson
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Cheap doesn't come cheap

29/7/2012

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I constantly struggle to choose from the enormous smorgasbord that is life. And I don’t want to complain about that -  it’s a blessing to be eager and enthusiastic about so many things, I just have to temper that enthusiasm with an acceptance of reality, which is that I can’t have everything. I mean, where would I put it? As it is, one of the things that never comes off my To Do List is de-cluttering.

My bookshelves are overloaded, my bedside book-pile threatens to topple and crush me while I sleep, the attic groans under the weight of things I haven’t unpacked since I moved house 16 years ago, (nothing valuable, I hasten to add for interested Burglar Bill types!) so I guess I don’t really need them, right?

Cheap goods add to this problem for me. Take books. In my youth, there wasn’t the proliferation of boot-sales, charity shops offering cheap reading material, supermarkets, on-line booksellers etc offering cut-price books. Now that I and my husband have actually produced and published books, we begin to see, from the other side of the counter, that actually cheap books don’t help writers. The cynical loss-leader use of books by large commercial operations doesn’t either. And if writers cannot make even the small living that so many traditionally earn – that’s some kind of a shame. Eventually, will we see an end to independent publishing houses and bookshops
because they simply can no longer compete?

Another example – we are just two at home now my son has moved out. OK, when the Book Club comes round we need extra mugs, but do we really need the 19 mugs we currently have?

There has been plenty of reporting over the last few decades about things that are made cheap, and the hidden costs of that – the sweatshops, the vegetable and fruit pickers sometimes living in less than decent accommodation, the factory farming of animals, the damage done environmentally, suppliers of all kinds expected to cut their prices more and more to gain contracts, often going out of business because they simply don’t charge enough. And at the end of that chain are consumers.

I have in the past attended a lot of meetings of the Society of Friends. Many Quakers, now and traditionally, believe in paying the right price for things as a principle. That’s something I’d like to aspire too, but I’m well aware that I am as prone as anyone else to the siren call of the bargain.

Perhaps it would be possible to have less clutter of cheap things we have too much of, and to make an informed choice of a few things made beautifully, ethically, and which we actually use.

Many of humankind’s great spiritual leaders have counselled against storing up more than meets our needs. Maybe in only taking our share, we could leave enough to go round.
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Extraordinary Ordinary Gardens

21/7/2012

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PictureVersailles
 A couple of years back I enjoyed visiting some of the places in the French department of Yvelines, including the Palace of Versailles. The gardens there are renowned, but personally the grand formal gardens are not my cup of tea. Even Sissinghurst (dare I say it!) leaves me a tad cold. 

I read this week that a huge number of front gardens in recent times have been concreted over to make parking space for cars. Many others, following a certain kind of designer-led gardening, have been covered in slate, or the kind of chippings you used to see mostly on graves. Apparently the decline of sparrows is one of the things that’s  been linked to the decrease in foliage because of this change.
 
My own garden is currently somewhat neglected, as our time is diverted to writing   activities, but I’m sure the local wildlife is finding it a sanctuary! It is currently boasting the odd bindweed trumpet (drat that bindweed – its roots go to the ends of the earth), but also a rumbustious display of nasturtiums, wild strawberries, white roses, fuschias, love-in-the-mist, rosemary etc. Cheeky cats high-wire along the trellised fences and friendly blackbirds and fat wood-pigeons visit daily.
 
I  am very fond of the homely front gardens of ordinary houses, often very small, where householders lavish love, attention and quite a lot of money on making something of beauty to share with passers-by.  I have occasionally heard the odd sniffy comment about such gardens being fussy and vulgar, but I find them infinitely charming and heart-warming, and I am ever grateful for them. Here are a few pictures of some of our Southborough gardens, with a couple thrown in for good measure from further afield. I hope you might enjoy looking at them!

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Where's my watch?!

14/7/2012

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I have owned and unfortunately lost a long line of watches down the years. For most of my life I've not had a particular place where I leave it when I take it off - hence the familiar sight and sound of me stomping round the house wailing "Where's my watch? I can't find my watch!" accompanied by the patient sighs of my family as they try and help me track down the object of my desire. And since I often take it off to do the dishes, and I rarely deign to check through pockets before I load the washing-machine, more than one watch has had a
'spring'-clean (I pun, therefore I am!). An early victim was my green 1970s Fred Flintstone Timex, which emerged all present and correct from the washer with every part tickety-boo, including Fred's eye movements! I know a lot of people use their mobiles these days, but I just don't find it as convenient as my trusty wrist-watch!

My husband has given up buying me replacement Timex Indiglo watches when I've lost the latest one (I love the little blue light at night if I need to check the time) - I have to buy my own now!  However, things are a little better these days - I have a bowl in my living room, and when I get in I generally put my keys, mobile and watch in there. Only took me about 40 years to find that solution! But occasionally I fall back into bad old ways, parking said
items on random book-shelves, part-time handbags, pockets of dressing-gown, jeans, coats etc.

All this week I have been looking for my watch in the usual places, but even my heartfelt prayer to St Anthony, patron saint of lost things, didn't seem to have worked. Then, yesterday evening,  when I turned up at the place where I had been last Friday, where a number of activities take place through the week, I was delighted to find my watch sitting underneath the prayer-tree on the kitchen counter. I recalled that I had taken it off to wash up the teacups. It was heart-warming to think that all the people who'd seen it lying there over the past seven days had been honest enough to leave it to wait for its rightful owner. I give my thanks to them, because I am now able to tell what time it is again!


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Dad & The Pirate Aeroplane

7/7/2012

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PictureDad as a boy - circa 1917
Recently when I visited Nailsworth in the Cotswolds for a family reunion, my eye was drawn immediately to a very attractive independent bookshop - The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop. It had a wonderful array of books laid out on its tables and shelves, a smiley person behind the counter - bright and airy - what more could a hungry bookworm want? Not only that, they had an amazing Book Festival on, located at the
Friends Meeting House in the town. I wasn't able to attend this, but I've kept the info about all the writers and books featured, for future reference!

Sadly in Tunbridge Wells, though we have 2nd hand bookshops, charity bookshops, and chain bookshops (Waterstones and WH Smith) we no longer have an independent bookshop, though in nearby Sevenoaks there is a fantastic indie. Whenever I go in there my mouth literally starts watering at all the gorgeous books on display. We are also grateful to them for stocking both of our Odd Dog Press publications.

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Letter to Sevenoaks Chronicle July 5, 2012
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When I was young, there was no internet, no boot sales, and far fewer charity shops. Nowadays, I probably buy books via a mix of routes: the odd book from Amazon, from The Bridge Trust shop in Tonbridge, and being a true addict, even from the tiny village shop en route to work, where books are donated, and the owner sells them in aid of Motor Neurone Disease charity fundraising. After all, when I'm waiting to be served with bread or milk or a postage stamp, what else would I do but look through the book box? But where I can, I try and include the independent bookshops in there from time to time.

 When I lived in Islington in the late 1970s, my boyfriend (now long-time husband!) and I had no TV. Instead, we read a lot. There was a  wonderful 2nd hand bookshop in Upper Street then, the Compton Bookshop, run by a very nice gay couple. We used to pop in on a Saturday morning and spend a couple of quid each on a pile of books (good clean paperbacks at 20p a throw then), and go back a month or so later for another lot.

My mother told me that my Dad, in his 70s by then, had been reading a Graham Greene autobiography which had mentioned a book Greene had loved as a child - The Pirate Aeroplane by Major Gilson. My Dad also had read this as a boy, and had longed to read it again but never been able to find a copy. I spoke to the guys at the Compton, and they placed an ad in the book trade papers. A month or two later I received a postcard from them - they had been offered two copies, one in very good condition, with an excellent
dust-cover, and could sell me this at the princely sum of £2! Of course I bought it, packed it up and sent it off to Spain. Mum told me that Dad had wept with joy and pleasure when he opened it. I have the book on my shelves today. Still not got round to reading it - it's a very early 20th century boys' adventure book of its pre-World War One time, so not entirely politically correct today - but I treasure what my Dad has written on the inside cover, including the following: This "discovery" (Foyles couldn't help me!) seems to me to have
something of "magic" about it. I only know that this amazing 'find' has done
something wonderful to my morale. I feel that God MUST like me a little bit to
give me this lovely surprise!

Well gentle readers, that's what an independent bookshop did for me and my old Dad! I know that Amazon has made it possible for us all to access practically anything from around the world through the post, and of course, that is pretty amazing and welcome in its place, but let's not forget that without libraries and bookshops, and the love and hard work which so many people who work in them put in on a daily basis, those books might not be there to buy. And at least some of the time, in order for the hard copy industry to survive, and for writers to earn an honest crust, we need to pay the full price (another blog, another time!).
 
Support your local independent bookshop!

www.sevenoaksbookshop.co.uk

www.yellow-lightedbookshop.co.uk

www.odddogpress.com


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Fifty Shades of Green

4/7/2012

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This is a beautiful view of at least fifty shades of green which I see almost every day. They say that hospital interiors used to be painted green as it was one of the most relaxing colours for humans, and it certainly has always been of my favourites, though as I get older I find that my favourites gets to be an increasingly wide field!

Of course the rain in this Sceptred Isle contributes to its lush greenery, as a New Zealand relative reminded me at the weekend. At the moment there is a green woodpecker to be seen in this garden fairly regularly, and just now a robin is nesting nearby. Every time I go down the path to make a cup of tea, he flies out and up into the copper beech. Poor thing! I wish I could convey to him that I would not ever harm him or his family!

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Past & Present

1/7/2012

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Researching and writing up the stories for my book
Southborough War Memorial was a labour of love. I had always wanted  to set down the stories of some those people who had lost their lives in the World Wars, and I was no doubt inspired to get started on the task by a 21st century tragedy - that of New York's 9/11 terrorist attack. I had visited New York in April 2001 in connection with my job at that time, and had met with Janny Scott, writer on the New York Times.
Immediately after 9/11, if I recall rightly, it was Janny who suggested that the stories of the people who died in the Twin Towers might be honoured by interviewing their families, and writing up their stories. These appeared daily in the New York Times, and I read them every day online, and was very moved by them.

A substantial part of the first printing of Southborough War Memorial has now sold, and I am not planning to reprint, but I am really pleased that with the advent of online   publishing, it has now been possible to make it available as an e-book. It is an interesting project to present in this way, as many of its pages have live links to other pages or websites, which are not possible in the printed version. I have also taken the opportunity to add new details that have come to my attention, eg on Ronald Moon, to correct the entry for William Roy McMillan, and  include an entry for a name being added this year to the Memorial, that of Denis Livingstone McPhee. It will also ensure that the book and the names and what is known of those of our community who lost their lives will continue to be  available in the years ahead and after the printed copies have been exhausted, thus fulfilling my main aim.
 
I was talking to a cousin from New Zealand yesterday, over for a family reunion, who has also, like me, found himself unofficially appointed the family archivist. It sounds rather grand - in my case it means having the old family photo albums piled in my attic! We agreed that you have to keep the focus very narrow, or family history, like local history, can mushroom
out of control. Certainly with Southborough War Memorial, with such a large number of names, I had to be disciplined about not going off on a tangent, however enticing the extra information being offered was.  

In reading an excellent 'micro-history' of just one house in London, next to the Globe Theatre - The House by the Thames by Gillian Tindall, the following passage (quoted with permission from Pimlico) seemed particularly resonant:
 
 “Indeed, this is a common experience of researchers who study the Census returns: you begin to feel the weight of all those spent, packed-away lives pressing in on you, as if innumerable stilled voices were yearning wordlessly for recognition. Almost any one of the names, you believe, might be rescued from the oblivion of time and brought forward in some recognisable shape and substance if you devoted time itself – enough time – to delving away in further archives, combing parish records and ancient rate books, speculatively ordering up birth and marriage certificates, browsing among probated Wills, running an eye down the meticulously handwritten accounts of long-extinct charities, bingeing on local newspapers full of ancient quarrels … But how much time? Many years of a current life, you begin to realise, could be expended on the excavation of a handful of these past lives: ultimately the desire to re-confer humanity and personality on the lost runs the risk of compromising life in the present.”
 
It is important to honour the dead, and to remember their sacrifices with gratitude, but it is also vital to give at least equal attention to the present, and to love the ones we're with.



 

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    Lifelong bookworm, love writing too. Have been a theatrical agent and reflexologist among other things, attitude to life summed up by Walt Whitman's MIRACLES.

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