Just found a whole pile of rough illustrations I did for ‘The Hole in the Wall.’ There was one pic. missing so I’ve just drawn another one, which brought back happy memories of making the original at Arvon many moons ago.
I wandered off into the garden at Totleigh Barton and discovered the wall and started to do bit of imagining, then a few sketches and the poem just happened.
I love dry stone walls they remind me of one that my Grandfather had built in our back garden after the war. Grandmother had sustained a serious back injury when part of the house had been damaged by bombing so she was not able to tend the garden. Our wall was the whole length of the garden and formed a raised bed.
I tried to get my little story published and Oxford University Press were interested. I sent my sketches and one brought the sketches up to the best standard I could manage.
They had meetings and correspondence went to and fro. Unfortunately, after a few months, the person I was dealing with left the company and it never happened. But my children and later the grandchildren loved it and I made it into a film.
Thank you for listening if you did.
I have two published collections of poetry ‘Don’t Throw Away the Daisies’ and ‘The Puppeteer’s Daughter’ available at City Books in Hove, Open Art Cafe Rottingdean, online at Lulu and Amazon.