This post is about how moving to Barnard Castle helped me to broaden my fields of writing. First let me clarify my use of the terms ‘place’ and ‘space’. ‘Place’ is a physical location. ‘Space’ concerns the perceptions and emotions of people who are
in that place. A place such as a town, or a workplace, or a classroom will be experienced as many different spaces by the people who use it, depending on their individual circumstances.
Back in 2011, when my general intention to relocate from London to Barnard Castle turned into a plan, I hoped to find a house which would be a suitable place for a writer to live and work. That summer I saw such a place. ‘This would do,’ I said, peering from the street. A year later I was able to view the property and commence the buying process, and moved in in January 2013.
I had started writing for publication forty years ago, when I was in my early thirties: conference papers, light pieces in the specialised press, and longer journal articles in my field, which was education. By the time I moved north, my publications list
covered a good many pages, and included one book. I had another book at concept stage. So my intention to do more writing referred to academic and professional writing in my field. That was before the viewing. After the viewing, I knew I wanted to branch out into other genres.
It wasn’t instantaneous of course, that would be too weird, and practicalities pressed heavily. I had been interested in how writers related to their spaces, especially how the writings of Henry James were influenced by his acquisition and development of Lamb House in Rye. That train of thought was in the back of my mind. My new home would offer a variety of spaces, in addition to a main office working area along the garden frontage. Peaceful panoramic views from the Teesdale Room, scholarly reflection in the library, spooky cellars, the mysterious old smokehouse in the yard,
the summer house: all seemed, potentially at least, to evoke different kinds of storytelling. I opened my senses to them, and to the heather moors and gushing brooks of Upper Teesdale, and took up an itching pen.
The academic book which had been at concept stage two years previously was coming together; I gave it a more confident voice and tone. I write in order to make sense of things, and that book Education in the Balance was my attempt to give
coherence to the issues I had worked with over a long period. At the same time, I started a small fiction project which is ongoing, but the biggest development was in creative non-fiction. Specifically, in a flash of insight I saw an opportunity for a big project in reflective travel writing, which became my trilogy Forty Nine Steps.
In my book Zindabad! (the final one in the trilogy) I described how my work as an educationist had given opportunities to travel internationally, and how I came to realise, somewhat belatedly, that I could write about the travelling itself. This is an extract, set in Lahore, in Pakistan’s Punjab Province.
‘In odd moments of relaxation over the last two weeks, I have been adding brief notes to my list of trips, so that the document has grown to quite a number of pages. I write a final email home, with the latest bits of news and my flight times. After I have
sent it, I have an idea. I copy and paste the email into the section of notes headed “Step 36: Lahore.” It looks quite useful there as a memory aid. I copy in a few more of the similar emails I have sent recently. In the first few years of working internationally, I did not carry the equipment for sending emails. Then when I did start to do so, a lot of that material got deleted later in periodic purges of my mailbox. A pity. I browse through “sent” to see what I can find, what still exists. An hour has passed, and I have assembled 16,000 words of messy patchwork quilt. Raw material that is definitely not a basis for academic or professional writing. But definitely has the potential to be something.
This, Gentle Reader, is my birth as a travel writer. I am so glad that it is taking place here in the evocative ambience of the Avari Hotel Lahore. An apt starting point for another kind of journey.’
(Zindabad! (2021) p 17-18
Raphael Wilkins
www.raphaelwilkins.co.uk