Continuing our Arachneversary videos, Liberty Tales, which celebrated the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, starting as an event, but too good to leave it at that, so we made a book too, and toured it across the South of England from Essex to Bath. So lots of archive video of readings!
It has been a busy time, another set of videos I’ve only just had time to edit and post:
We took part in the Archway With Words Festival back in September, reading from a variety of books at Archway Library. (5 books, 5 authors, for our 5th anniversary…)
Carolyn Eden reads at our #Arachne5 5th anniversary party, from her story Free White Towel, which is in Liberty Tales. Just audio for this one as the camera had packed up.
Here’s a picture of Carolyn reading it at another event.
More from the Arachne 5th Anniversary Party – Summer All Year Long singing songs of protest, Liberty, and Bread and Roses, followed by Carolyn Eden reading from Free White Towel, her story in Liberty Tales
As part of our Arachne 5th Anniversary celebrations, we’ve asked all of our authors to come up with a blog, that might have something to do with writing or anniversaries. Some of them responded! This one is from Carolyn Eden who we published in Liberty Tales.
One chilly afternoon a few years ago I found myself chatting to a chap in the local health club’s Jacuzzi. I’d just completed a leisurely gym work-out, swum a few lengths of the heated pool and was contemplating either a visit to the steam room or the sauna or, indeed, both. The Jacuzzi had always been my favourite place to “zone out” and often, lying there with my eyes closed and my body partially afloat, I would find that as my aches drifted away solutions to niggling problems would bubble into my brain.
“It’s great here, isn’t it?” I said to the young man wallowing next to me.
“Yup, freezing outside,” he replied.
Then the thought that inspired “Free White Towel” blasted into my brain. “Give me,” I said, “ten good reasons why we should ever leave this building.”
I don’t remember what he replied and I certainly didn’t manage to think of ten reasons to leave because I rapidly became caught up in the idea that a leisure club was the ideal sanctuary; the bolt-hole I’d run to if there were a crisis of impending doom.
At a leisure club members can eat in the café, drink free water from the fountains, watch television screens as they pound the exercise machines, read newspapers or surf the internet in the lounge area, snooze on the loungers by the pools, sweat in the hot rooms, cool down in the showers where they can wash and preen using the complimentary toiletries.
Much of the idea was inspired by the story of the man who lived in the limbo of an airport and it wasn’t much of a leap for me to then get the idea that for a homeless person this place would be an improvement on the Spartan airport home, if they could blag their way in, or just afford the monthly fees (a good deal cheaper than the rent on a bedsit). The lockers were big enough to contain a cabin-sized piece of luggage and relatively secure. And then, everywhere I went people were handing out freebies at stations, and I wondered could you keep yourself fed that way, provided you didn’t look destitute?
The clincher was the free white towel that all members were given as they entered the leisure club. Cleanliness is the friend of normalcy.
And so my story “Free White Towel” was born in a whirlpool near Woking. Pamela, my heroine, was able to run away from her abusive husband into this sanctuary of warmth and moistness.
The original was a long poem, read at the first Liberty Tales event back in June 2014 to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta. Excited by the ideas still flowing I wanted to turn it into a much longer tale; a novel. Pam was to be widowed and then the victim of a con-man, but my editor, the wonderful Cherry Potts, soon pared the story down to the essence of a vulnerable woman reinventing herself. The novel may emerge eventually, as I am still fascinated by how someone can live without a home and still look respectable, without resorting to anything more criminal than liberating a left-over portion of muesli.
The last of the Liberty Tales events: Greenstead Library
Stories and poems inspired by Magna Carta
Cliff Chapman reading David Guy‘s The King and the Light, and three poems by Jeremy Dixon, Carrie Cohen (aka Carolyn Eden) reading her own Free White Towel and Sarah Evans‘ Bothered, Jim Cogan reading his own story, Lag and Helen Morris reading her story, The Poppies.
We had a great night in Bath, touring Liberty Tales alongside Shortest Day, Longest Night brilliant readers, great audience, lovely venue, catching up with friends, and lovely friends to stay with…
Here are some highlights, complete with the explanations of poems that I don’t usually include in the videos.
You can catch the final date of the Liberty Tales Tour on Wednesday 25th January at Greenstead Library, Colchester, with an almost entirely different line up – the joys of anthologies!
You can catch us again, with our finalLiberty Tales jaunt, at Greenstead Library, Colchester CO4 3QE next Wednesday, 25th January 6pm, with stories from Carolyn Eden, David Guy, Helen Morris, Sarah Evans, and poems from Jeremy Dixon, some of which will be read by Carrie Cohen and Cliff Chapman
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here:
Our Cookie Policy