#millie bird

"Clouds" - a piece of my Grandma's writing, read by me (if quickly and with no editing). It's not dated, but there's a clue (thank past-me for typing up all the lil notes)

In my defence (sort of) I haven't finished typing up all the short stories yet, and there's a handwritten novel (maybe pieces of, or first draft?) that I haven't looked at yet at all, and I'd feel bad doing something with A Gallery of Faces (her first novel, charting the various lives of people living in a building of flats in 1950s London, some of which is autobiographical) until I've finished everything else

There's no clear thing of, like she didn't leave all her writing specifically to anyone in writing - because she couldn't, because he was nominally disowned, she just made sure my grandad, her middle son, got her writing box, made sure of it before she died, you see, and then I'm the one that's typing everything and actually working on it - very slowly, mind, there's all sorts of short stories I haven't got to, and a whole handwritten second novel, tho I think I've finished all the poetry

But erm like

How do you say to a publisher, here is a book, it's not mine, it's my dead great-grandma's and she wrote it at least 30 years ago, d'you want to publish it?

I spose that, really, in more fancier words

I spose, they publish things posthumously all the time, even tho those are usually already famous authors like, rather than some random schoolteacher from the Wirral, y'know

Or, I'd've thought self-publishing is a thing, but I wouldn't the first how to go about that, and besides back to my first point, if I did that then surely the money ought to go to someone closer related to her than me, tho her eldest son has died, her middle son (my grandad) is disinherited so far as I know (tho I don't know if that was in writing or just by social/religious pressure), and I've never met her youngest son - but it's grandad that got the box, and me that's done the work

I just think other people should see this, I'm sure it's not family bias, it is really actually good - and there's 60+ years of short stories, for kids and for adults, and reams of poetry, and two (one and a half, maybe, I've not read the second one yet, cs her handwriting can be tricky and I've not had the time besides) novels

The first one is a good 500 pages, following all the different people living in one house in London in the early 1950s, all their lives and how they intersect and differ - some of it's autobiographical, I know, taken from her early married life, and my grandad said that she said it was the sort of idea that wouldn't leave her alone, she'd put it down and pick it up again for years and years, but it was typed up, and my copy is one we found on a floppy disk, so she kept at the same story for years and years - there's bits in there referencing her life in the 50s-60s, and I'm sure some bits that are about my mum if you know to look at it sideways, and that all happened in the 90s - but besides all the bits that mean a lot to me cs I sort of get to know her through them, it really is just a good read, honestly

Oh I don't know, I haven't got the time or brain to do anything about it right now anyway, I don't even have the wherewithal to get my fucking dishes done, so

I just looked in a bookshop on my way home, and it always makes me think, to go in a bookshop, her name should be up on the shelves too, with all these others

Anyway, I’m on page 8 of 10 of “The Wallflower” - typing it up, I mean, I am that distractable it’s taken all day

There’s a bit here, the man, the main character, he’s remembering back on his life, how he met his wife an all - and it goes

--

“Teaching English is a good idea but is that what you want for the rest of your life?”

Rob, at twenty two, had known exactly what he wanted. “Yes,” he’d answered, a little too loudly

...

“Robbie have you never thought of settling down, finding a home,” she’d faltered. “Having a family?”

Appalled, he turned his face away, not speaking ...

--

Then there’s the character in A Gallery of Faces, her novel, who - I can’t remember her name, but she’s an English teacher, newly married, who is initially let’s say not thrilled to be pregnant (tho her also-a-teacher husband and posh parents convince her - give her the stability - a nice suburb house if I remember, instead of the bedsit they were in - that she feels okay to keep the baby, in the end).

A whole paragraph on his grey eyes and long lashes and hair that might be curly but he keeps it “in check” with some “concoction” and then “what else? Oh yes, lovely teeth, deep and crisp and even” - Mildred!!