Online writing workshops.

Meanwhile, I'm still doing the MA. And this term we have weekly, online, workshops. Three of us write about 3000 words, submitted in advance, and we gather in a virtual chat room to post our comments. The tutor does her best to keep some sort of order, making sure we each comment in turn, and tapping her virtual ruler on the virtual desk if we retreat, too often, into playing.

So - that's the practicalities. I want to write about how this feels for me - I can't speak for any of the others. There were nine of us at the beginning of term, and only one has dropped by the wayside (with, no doubt, his own reasons). We all come with our own stories and prejudices and interests.

In the real world, I also belong to a writing group. We have been together a long time; we know who is robust and can manage having work dissected until it is in ribbons, and who needs a more gentle response. We care for each other, and produce the best work we can.

I put myself in the robust category. I am quite clear that someone pulling my writing apart is not saying anything about me. Sometimes I write reasonably, and sometimes I write rubbish, but all the time I am still me. There is no way to give that message to others we meet in a writing group online. Similarly, it is impossible to know the dreams, or the luggage, that our fellow writers might have when we cannot see their faces, or read body language.

Over the term we have grown braver in challenging each other. Initially we were generous, even gushing, in our praise and criticisms were well-hidden underneath the repeated assurance of how we absolutely love this book and can't possible wait for it to be published. While that is still there, we are less cautious with our comments now. We are learning from each other, from our moments of inspiration and our countless mistakes. Which, for me, makes the workshops more useful, even though it may mean some might find them more personally challenging.

We have formed an odd connection with each other. A strange familiarity - based only on the personnas we present in the chat room and our writing. There are spin-off 'friendships' on Facebook. We do our best to support each other, in a strange, virtual way.

So - is this group, with its tutor and its structure, a more useful learning exercise than my ad hoc, chatty, hyper-critical writing group. I have no idea. They both have a role to play. And you - have any of you experience of both? Which made more sense to you?

Planning a trip, and a book?

Actually, I'm only going to talk about planning a trip. There is probably a metaphor in here somewhere for planning a book, but I'll leave that to you to work out. I need to make it clear I'm not talking about a holiday. Holidays have boundaries - in terms of where you will stay, what you hope to do, how you will get there. There is an expectation that you will come home, pick up life-pieces and carry on much as before. They are a glorious, and essential, interruption to the scheme of things.

These days, I go travelling. For me, that includes significant not-knowing. This allows for the unexpected, for changes of mind, for following that little road into the mountains just to see where it goes.

But not - I hasten to add, as my daughters read this - recklessness.

I begin, almost always, with the flights. I'm trying to think of a time when I booked flights and it was glorious weather here - and can't recall any. Prolonged rubbish weather tends to send me to the cheap-flight sites. Which is one reason why I'm off to Nepal in mid-March.

Well, why not?

It's beautiful, I have people I need to visit (for those who have read the book - Tika has a new baby! He told me he would not have another child until he could afford to pay for his education. So he must be doing well), and I want to do meander in the Annapurnas again while I still have knees. (Yes, my knees know how old I am.)

But my planning - well, I have flights. I know when I leave, and when I come home. I have a hotel for my first night in Kathmandu, and a flight the next day to Pokhara. I have somewhere to stay there.

And then what? There's a possibility that Tika can take me into Bhutan - off the beaten track in Bhutan. I can't organise that till I get there, as he has to pull strings to get me a visa. I'd love to go to Burma, but that might have to wait for another trip. And there are great swathes of south-western Nepal that I've never visited - transport is particularly 'interesting' there, but I'd like to see it. (Note to self, it's malarial down there.) I could always go back to Chitwan, and get in the water with the elephants. Tika has even suggested I go white water rafting. (Note to daughters, will check if I can be strapped in.)

So, it's back to my Lonely Planet - an up-to-date copy, as things change all the time. Check visa arrangements; make sure I still know how to say 'thank you' in Nepali. Drool over photographs of temples and markets, and suddenly wish I could go for six months.

Is this anything like writing a book? Looks a bit random, written like this. But I realise I approach a book with the same haphazard enthusiasm. I knuckle down and organise it eventually. And you - can you see parallels in the way you approach other important aspects of your life and how you settle to write?

An unsung heroine, till now.

My cousin received her OBE yesterday.

I'm no Royalist. I struggle with the idea that one woman should be more important than another. I don't suppose she'd stand up if I walked into a room, yet she'd expect me to. Having said that, I am impressed that she is still vigorous in her late eighties.

But I am hugely proud of my cousin; and - given that OBEs are the way her work is recognised - I raised a glass to her yesterday and will drool over her photographs.

Her award is for 'Equality and Child Protection in Sport.' (No, I'm not sporty either). She has spent forty years working to protect children who join football clubs, swimming clubs, fencing, yoga, basketball - anywhere adults volunteer to help children and young people in sport. When she first launched her campaign it was acceptable to joke about coaches ogling little boys in the shower; to turn a blind eye at the gym teacher stroking a little girl's thigh as he held her handstand. All this is no longer funny - and my cousin was the first to make herself unpopular by standing up and saying this is wrong.

Yes, it still happens. We may never find ways to deter the most determined and persuasive abuser. But the systems are there for children to report anything that worries them, and for allegations to be investigated. The message is out there - sexual abuse in sport is wrong.

And it all began with my brave, independent, bolshy cousin. Celia Brackenridge - I'm proud of you.

Do you do as you're told?

I'm trying to remember the current Government advice on how much wine we should drink. It seems to change fairly regularly; but we are all, presumably, meant to note each new communique and respond obediently. (I think advice about water-drinking also fluctuates, but somehow that doesn't arrive with the same fanfare.)

We must also exercise. This isn't tightly defined, and again the amount seems to vary. Sometimes we only need to walk for twenty minutes a day; other times we should make ourselves puff three times a week (so the newly-married should be ok?). I'm not sure if there is an allowance made for age: should I be striding down to the gym three times a week? Does yoga count - I can manage worshipping the sun, though not when it involves getting down on the floor and up again several times a second. And I can manage a tree-pose provided I can prop myself up on the wall.

Then we have to eat - no salt, unless you have low blood pressure and then you must eat salted crisps. But you must avoid fats. Fruit and veg: good. Sugar, chocolate: bad. Red meat - who knows?

I am aware that there are people who need help to look after themselves. They haven't got the hang of eating to keep well, and moving around comfortably.

But most of us - well, what is your response to each new Government edict? Do you measure your salt intake, study the ingredients on the side of tins for saturated fats, wake up on Tuesday and know that if you don't go for a swim today you'll turn into a pudding? And drink - have you ever said, 'sorry, I've had my fourteen units this week, I can't have any more until Sunday?'

So - tell me I'm not a rebel, just because I think for myself. Sometimes I drink more than the recommended units; I taste my food and decide if it needs more salt; I eat fruit - because I like it. I walk the Wiltshire's glorious Downs because they are beautiful; I walk through Savernake Forest because some of the trees are over a thousand years old and they remind me just how ridiculous - and insignificant - I am.

And you? Do you think for yourself? Obey Government advice to the letter? Or do the opposite just because you can? (Or do you simply not notice when this stuff is in the papers anyway?)

The Bamboo Train

This, I promise, will be my last post about Cambodia for a while. You will have gathered that I love the place, and its people - and maybe I go on a bit when I talk about it.

But I can't leave the country without talking about, no, not Angkor Wat. Though Angkor Wat, of course, is spectacular. I spent a week there, pottering about temples and soaking in the enormity of the place. (Yes, there are enough temples to keep you enthralled for a week! That is how big it is).

Most visitors to Cambodia fly into Siem Reap, spend a day or two at Angkor Wat, and fly out again. A few may make it down the Mekong to Phnom Penh, to sit by the riverside with a coconut ice.

But the really inquisitive head for lesser-known towns. (Not into the countryside, however, tempting it looks. There are too many landmines there; even straying behind a bush for a pee can cause and explosion.) Which is how I ended up in Battambang, on the bamboo train.

Imagine, if you can, a fence panel on its side, an axle at each end, and an engine no bigger than that powering my lawn mower. There are cushions for wimpy tourists, and even a small rail to hold onto (at the front, not the sides.). The driver is barely old enough to shave. And the rails - they were constructed when the French were here, and built this track so that local farmers could take their goods to market. The track once extended from Battambang to Phnom Penh, and most of it is still in use. But the rails, subject to tropical sun and monsoon rains, have warped over the years. In places they have disappeared and the wheels lurch, somehow, over the gaps. Bridges over irrigation canals might once have been sturdy, but much of the structure has worn away and one bridge we went over was nothing but track balanced at each end with nothing underneath.

It is, of course, a great game to frighten the tourists. Drivers race along, the whole thing clattering beneath us, the wind in our hair, while bottoms bouncing over every gap in the rails. Health and safety - pah!

Something coming the other way? This, you see, is a single track railway. Drivers come to a quick agreement as to which train has the least cargo, and then dismember than one - putting the pieces to the side of the track - the fuller train chunters through, and then the first is reassembled. (I was excused train-construction duty; tourists who are young and fit are expected to do their bit!)

Even now, it is used by local people taking goods to market. We were there for fun, but still shared our little train with a man wearing an unlikely smart hat and his bicycle.

If you click here and scroll down, you'll see a picture of the train. Don't you think commuting would be much more fun if we did it this way? Treat yourself - imagine Paddington Station, or Waverley, or Penn Station in New York, full of bamboo trains ...

Phillay - what happened next.

Thank you, everyone, for the wonderful reaction to my little poem about Phillay.

The Khmer Rouge were in power for four years, and then there was a long war with the Vietnamese, who invaded as a liberating army, before the regime fell and Cambodia could begin to rediscover herself. 

Phillay escaped through the minefields to the refugee camps in Thailand. And here is where his recovery began. I've seen the same images of refugees that you have: rows of tents, people sitting around with nothing to do, waiting for the next meal to appear. Yes, sometimes it is like that. It takes time to provide everyone with the wherewithal to cook for themselves. Central kitchens, clean water, medical centres - all need organising, if people are to stay alive.

But UNHCR, who ran most of the refugee camps in Thailand, see their job as much more than warehousing survivors while the rumpus dies down. Lying about waiting to have essentials provided is no preparation for a return to one's own home, even if you are traumatised by what has happened.

They regard education as fundamental to recovery - and particularly crucial in Cambodia where the Khmer Rouge closed all schools and regarded writing as evidence of bourgeois thinking. Education - we take it for granted. But for refugees it is precious. Not only are reading, writing, and basic numeracy essential, but practical classes make it possible for people to consider how they might earn a living, feed a family, on their return. There were workshops for motorbike maintenance, the use of sewing machines, how to construct a simple dwelling.

As well as basic skills, many people were taught a second language. Why, you might ask, learn a language? Don't they have enough to deal with without coping with language lessons. But these lessons served several functions: they gave people who felt totally helpless in the face of everything that had happened to them a sense that they could achieve something. If they could learn English, they could do anything. Some still use it - working with tourists. (Wherever I went in Cambodia, people wanted to practise their English.) In addition, the discipline involved in learning a language helped to quieten fragmented thinking: by filling their minds with words some of the terrifying images of the last few years took a different shape.

Phillay spent two years in a refugee camp. Meanwhile UNHCR negotiated land deals, ensured that everyone returning home had a basic shelter and a cow (he also had a wife, met in the camp, and the first of his ten children. He is a happy man.) As the country settled, and opened for tourists, he sold his cow to buy a tuk tuk (he calls it his tuk tuk cow) and makes money by careering all over Battambang. (His driving is, er, interesting. He warned the short cut might be bumpy. He did not say we would be hurtling through a cemetery!)

He is a man of great courage - yet doesn't recognise it. Though he does acknowledge his gratitude to UNHCR, without whom he would have no home, no wife, no children, no tuk tuk, no language. Next time I whinge about winter, please remind me just how lucky I am.

Poem from Cambodia

I've been asked to blog this.

I met Phillay, driving his tuk tuk, last time I was in Cambodia, and he told me his story of survival from the  Khmer Rouge. (I'm assuming you all know something about the terrible times that the Khmer Rouge brought to Cambodia.)

I promised to tell his story when I came home - this is an extraordinary tale of terror and courage that we need to hear it, however uncomfortable that might be. But when I came to write it, as a story, I found it simply too painful. I couldn't hold it together in the boundaries of a story - somehow the horrors fell out of the edges and contaminated everything.

But I could write it as a poem. By attending to rhythms, and line lengths, and the general sound of the piece I could, at last, give his story a shape. This is not everything that happened to him, but it gives you a flavour of how his life has been. (You need to know that Pol Pot was the President of the Khmer Rouge, and that Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia.)

THE UNBEARABLE RIGHTNESS OF BEING

His father was a military man; with house and car

and uniform and no defence when Pol Pot knocked.

Phillay, then seventeen, was driven from Phnom Penh

to dig canals from daybreak, with the promise of

just one small bowl of rice at nightfall and

anything else that might float by:

fish; crabs; snails; leeches.

His body soon cadaverous.

Malaria bit him. 

A friend carried him to hospital, protection

from the last indignity of dying in the fields and heaped,

like compost, in stinking ditches.

He found a brother and a sister there,

shared their bed, kept breathing

while they died beside him and he ate their rice

until the smell betrayed their non-existence.

It saved his life.  He tottered from his bed to glimpse,

across a compound wall,

the Director’s daughter.

With his eyes he loved her; and in his head:

he rested on her breast and slept.

Yet dare not touch her, knowing babies

would be ripped from her, swung by the ankles

against a tree, their brains in offal fragments

lest they tell the tales of loving

They moved him on, the men in black,

to jute mills, to the rice paddies.

But love hung, like a window, above the fields of bones.