Ways with words, expressions, phrases, proverbs, aphorisms, turns of phrase, rolled around my childhood home like a golden ribbon brightening every day with exciting ways of communication. Songs, poems and stories made everything we did, from cleaning our teeth, to deep life lessons and career choices, more interesting and fun. None of us had degrees or Phds in language, it was just the way my mum and dad were and gave us a love of language and gentle pleasing communication.
As life went on, my husband and I were blessed with three funny, entertaining, kind-hearted children. We couldn't believe our luck and not a day went by without giving thanks for their presence in our lives. I loved telling them stories,entertaining them with funny antics just to revel in the sound of their childish giggles and later to hopefully help them heal from the knocks and blows that life inevitably throws at us.
When they left home I wanted to carry on feeling close to them and so I started writing emails to record all the heartwarming and funny anecdotes about my daily life and stories about my many greatly loved relatives and friends.
My children said they enjoyed these emails and one day my day daughter suggested that I wrote a blog so I could have an outlet for all this 'stuff'' that was rattling round inside me, so she set one up for me. I went home and started writing on my brand new blog and found I couldn't stop. Fathoms of things I would like to have spoken aloud but never could or never had the opportunity to, or was afraid of boring people with, came pouring out, or 'gushing out' as my dad might have said.
Then one day, while reading My weekly Telegraph, which was a lifeline for people like me that lived abroad in the days before social media and internet, I stumbled across the Creative Writing Group.
Again, it was my daughter who encouraged me to join and the first month I entered there was a free topic. I knew immediately what I wanted to write about. The deepest most intimate pain of my childhood; my mother's illness. I wanted to express this feeling which had never been talked about because my parents were from a generation of 'roll your sleeves up and get on with it'. I will just say now that my mother was diagnosed with MS at age thirty and lived to be a great-grandmother and reached the age of eighty-nine, while being greatly loved and bringing joy and comfort to everyone she met.
My first story was about her. I wrote it in the third person and entered it in the competition.
I had offered a precious, delicate part of my life to the group and waited with great apprehension to see the reaction to my first short story for the TCWG.
When I saw the comments to my story, the kindness, the banter of the group, the generosity of all the writers, I was overwhelmed. Only I knew the huge personal significance of the story, but the respect and kindness with which it was treated started a healing process within me. My story was to be the first of many others.
From then on, this group has given me comfort and encouragement. Reading everyone's stories over the years has been enriching and rewarding.
Bleda, Atiler and Mervyn have guided this group with wit and wisdom, entertainment and affection for many years. Through his stories, we have become familiar with his eternal love for his wife, the heartache and pain he has gone through from losing her, the beautiful caring family he has surrounding him. The word that surely springs to mind for all of us when thinking of Bleda is that he is a real gentleman.
I am so grateful to Sabina for hosting the party where we were able to meet the members of the group. Although some years have passed, I remember it vividly and with great affection and warmth.
Bleda's bar is a place where we would all like to go on a Saturday night to restore us and give us hope. The songs and poems that were often supplied to listen to as voting concluded were a rich soundtrack to a life well-lived, full of love and kindness and a fitting ribute to the love of his life.
What a privilege to have been a small part of this life, to have shared his journey from the heartache of losing his life-long companion through to being a great-grandfather.
Thank you Bleda for keeping us together through such challenging times. Thank you for sharing your wonderful rich warm personality with us, thank you for your enriching stories. Thank you for treating us all as prospective winners of a literary prize as we poured out our life experiences into our stories. Thank you for giving us a home for our writing. Thank you with all our hearts.
