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March - on memoire writing.... mostly from radio national

31/3/2015

 
Memoir writing seems to be 'in the air', particularly on the radio waves!  The book I'm just starting for my book group, 'Elephant Bill', turns out to be a memoir, with a wonderfully engaging first paragraph.

On the radio waves, I was particularly moved by a memoir from a soldier, Barry Heard, with experience of PTSD from having been a soldier in the Vietnam war.  It led me to reflect back on a friend, a primary school teacher whose PTSD was the eventual cause of a relatively early death.  As Barry recounts, I can remember my friend eventually taking the huge step of speaking to primary school children about his experience on Anzac Day, how hard this still was for him to do.  Listening to this memoir, I was glad that I had supported my friend in recognizing the severity of his PTSD and seeking treatment for it, but sad that I hadn't fully understood its impact on him and the difficulty of recovery.  The story about speaking to the schoolchildren Barry read out towards the end of the interview particularly moved me. 

Link:  http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/verbatim/memories-of-vietnam---barry-heard/2972096 

Another memoir,


Then just today I came across Phillip Adams interview with Kate Grenville on Late Night Live last week.... there's an edited version of the interview in the following Youtube video.

March - "Lost in Music"

23/3/2015

 
Ireland 1976

We were hugely disappointed.  One of the main reasons we were travelling in Ireland’s back roads in a gypsy caravan was to hear Irish music where it was born.  So when a publican told us at a pub we called at that music was off that evening we probably looked disappointed.  But, as I walked towards the jukebox, a patron at the bar asked what would be a favourite to which I responded the ‘Rocky Road to Dublin’.   The message seemed to pass down the bar.  Suddenly there was a hush as a pure male voice began to sing, unaccompanied and with great feeling ‘The Rocky Road to Dublin’ for us.   It was magical. 

The Rocky Road to Dublin is a song about a man leaving his family in rural Ireland for Dublin, then to Liverpool, of his troubles or travails along the rocky road to Dublin.   Almost forty years later the realization dawns that my maternal great, great grandfather Edward Patrick Devitt left Ireland in the 1850’s, arriving first in Liverpool, then moving on to Manchester and settling later in Newcastle Upon Tyne.  My paternal great, great grandfather Michael Lee left Leitrim County in Ireland in the 1860’s, with his younger children born in Leith, Scotland in the late 1860’s.  Perhaps they also experienced the Rocky Road to Dublin?  Perhaps the words of the song had special meaning for them?

Here are the lyrics to the first verse and chorus…

“While in the merry month of May, from me home I started
Left the girls of Tuam nearly brokenhearted
Saluted father dear, kissed me darling mother
Drank a pint of beer, me grief and tears to smother


Then off to reap the corn and leave where I was born
Cut a stout blackthorn to banish ghosts
And goblin' brand new pair of brogues to rattle o'er the bogs
And frighten all the dogs on the rocky road to Dublin'


One, two, three four, five
Hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road
And all the way to Dublin', whack-fol-la-de-da”

Interested in more verses? Check out… http://www.metrolyrics.com/rocky-road-to-dublin-lyrics-dubliners.htm


Spain 1976

Working in politically troubled post Franco Spain in 1976 and 1977, I immersed myself in the music of Spain and Latin America – the trumpet filled music of the bullfight; the guitars, soulful laments, handclapping, castanets and dancing of the tablao flamenco; the music of the exiles from Pinochet’s Chile playing to quietly intense audiences in basement restaurants.   

Forever eclectic, I actively sought out all forms of  music – from the songs of the mediaevally robed ‘Tuna’ troubadors at the Plaza Major; to classical guitar concertos in the Opera House; to Spanish light opera or’ Zarzuela’;  to the flamenco guitar of Paco Pena and of local guitarists in bars with names like ‘Meson la Guitarra’; to the castanet fuelled dancing of Lucera Tena and the stirring, rhythmic clapping of her ‘tablao flamenco’troupe at the Corral de Moreria (paddock of the Moors) near the Royal Palace in Madrid.  

My expat friends were amused by my love of flamenco and propensity to take off, alone, to flamenco bars, usually the Corral de Moreria, if I hadn’t been in recent weeks.  I was quite besotted –a visit to Corral de Moreria was always was on the itinerary when friends came to town. 

I’m not sure where this identification with flamenco comes from…we don’t have Spanish ancestry….

Wait a moment …  It’s coming back…. I remember…  …a beautiful red dress with yellow polka dots and a multi tiered flamenco skirt!...  Flamenco music was part of my early life!   I learnt flamenco dance movements at Heather Scott’s Ballet School at the Masonic Hall in Clayton during the early 1960's.

We danced to flamenco music!
   


I’m remembering more… …castanets…we even learnt to use castanets! 

So, it seems that while Lucero Tena was learning about flamenco dance and castanets in Mexico and Spain, I was learning about them (to some extent at least…) in the back streets of Clayton - a working class suburb of Melbourne on the other side of the world!

Perhaps this is why I fond it so easy to immerse myself in flamenco music in Spain in 1976!  


March... Lost in Music

17/3/2015

 
David gave me some terrific feedback today which will help to shape the 500 words I'm eventually going to finalise!  In my 500 words I'm exploring music I became lost in during travels overseas in 1976. 
As it turns out I won't be drawing on my time in London when I was introduced to Mozart's Flute and Harp concerto (followed up by attending a Royal Opera House performance of it in Madrid a few months later) so I'm putting it here instead... The whole concert is moving, the second movement particularly so ....

London (and Madrid...) Mozart's Flute and Harp Concerto

    'Our Stories'
    Picture

    Bev's stories

    As I look through the stories I've written since setting up the memoir writing group some years ago, it seems quite a number of  my stories reflect on my experience of aging! 

    Stories

    All
    2020'
    A Bed Time Story - 'The Little Wallaby'
    'A Childhood Memory'
    'Advice'
    A Friendship Tested
    Alexander Theatre
    'A Love Letter To Travel'
    'A Test Of Courage'
    'Aunts And Uncles'
    'Car Stories'
    'Car Story
    'Causes'
    Claire Bowditch
    'Cockles And Mussels'
    'Community'
    "Cringe"
    'Dear Unfinished Business'
    'Deja Vu'
    'Election Day 2022'
    'Experiencing The Unexplained'
    'Faking It'
    Family Ritual
    'Family Treasures'
    'Fear Of Failure
    'Fiesta Of Festivities'
    'Fish Out Of Water'
    'For Better For Worse'
    Gliding
    Grandparents
    'How I Came Here'
    'I Broke It'
    'If Only!'
    'I Grew Up In...'
    'I Quit'
    'I Was There'
    Jack Manuel
    'Lost And Found'
    Lost In Music
    'Making Waves'
    'Memoir Review'
    Molyullah Sports
    'Monash Modern Dance Group
    Monash University
    'New In Town'
    'Once'
    'On The Job'
    'Paulie Stewart'
    'Peter And The Wolf'
    'Precious Objects'
    'Rebellion'
    'Right Here
    Right Now'
    'Rise And Shine - Waking Up To Milk Arrowroot Biscuits)
    'Running With Scissors'
    'Shaped By Childhood'
    'Stock And Land'
    'The Music Of My Madrid'
    'The Separator Room'
    'The Sky's The Limit'
    TheSydney Tunnels
    'Things I've Left Behind'
    'This (...) Life'
    'This (Time Travelling) Life'
    'Three Wise Monkeys'
    Time
    'Too Hard Basket'
    'Travel Tales'
    'Trees'
    'Trigger'
    'What Happens In Vegas'
    'What I Was Wearing'

    Twitter ....

    @Lee_Bev

    Links

    Coping with Criticism (ie editing!)

    Hannie Rayson memoir interview video link

    The subconscious mind and the creative writing process

    Writing Historical Fiction

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    Image--copyright Mary Leunig; owned by Beverley Lee; permission to use Mary Leunig.
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