Walking with Fay and Ted - a touch of writer's block on a writer's retreat in Yorkshire

Poetry by Ted Hughes and photography by Fay Godwin

I wanted to get away. Somewhere different. To see some new scenery.

Somewhere with hills.

So where better that Lumb Bank, for a writer's retreat with the Arvon Foundation. Five days of peace. To write.

Or not, as the case may be.

Lumb Bank, Yorkshire

Lumb bank is the former home of Ted Hughes, the poet. His wife, Sylvia Plath is buried in the graveyard just up the road. Fay Godwin, the legendary landscape photographer, and Ted Hughes created a book together 'Remains of Elmet'. Ted Hughes wrote poems in response to photographs by Fay Godwin.

I found the book in the library and was taken by the words and images describing the local landscape.

I felt sure I would find inspiration here.

With a view like this what could go wrong?

The view from Lumb Bank garden

My fellow companions were writers in ernest.

Autofiction, a comic travel novel, a wellness book and the story of a goldfish on adventures in the Gulf of Mexico were all being worked upon seriously and diligently.

I felt a fraud. I was really there for the scenery.
I tried to write.

I really did.

I wrote some 'morning pages' every day before so much as  a cup of tea passed my lips.

I wrote some 'breakfast pages' too. Mainly about how I was not really enjoying breakfast 'in my room'. Something to do with covid...... and featuring a banana and a soggy croissant wrapped in plastic.

After recording my daily temperature......taken by me, myself and I, I set to work.

covid daily temperature chart

I sat at my tiny writing table with its puritanical hard wood chair, and tried to write.

a writing table

If in doubt. Go for a walk. That is my motto.

Something always comes from walking, even if it is just a calmer frame of mind.

So I loaded up my OS map onto my phone, and away I went.

Up hill and down dale. Along the Rochdale canal and up onto the moor.

up on the moor, following the Pennine Way

I talked to cows and sheep.

Stepped in bog.

Walked by lush, peaty rivers.

moorland sheep

---

ancient stone path

I strolled by the Rochdale canal.

towpath, Rochdale canal, with dog.

back yards beside the rochdale canal

Rochdale Canal

And then, when I was completely exhausted, I tried to write.

I learned a lot about writer's block. I read self help books for writers.
I felt frustrated.
I went for more walks.

I got my typewriter out.

Olympia Splendid typewriter

Eventually I gave up trying and instead made a book about writer's block. The cutting, typing and sewing were very therapeutic.

artist book - writer's block

Having completed that, I allowed myself to give up trying to write, and to spend my remaining day beside the river, in the damp beech forest, and watching cherry blossom drift by on the Rochdale Canal.




There is a moral to this tale......

Creativity cannot be forced...... it comes when it is ready, and while I can work at it daily, first and foremost I need to feed my soul .

I had a wonderful time. And if nothing more comes of it, then at least I am refreshed and ready for my next adventure.

wild garlic and beeches

'

In wild places

I went on a ‘writer’s retreat’.
To Hebden Bridge; the home of Ted Hughes.

But really, all that I wanted to do was to see some hills and green fields,
running water and moors.

To step out in a different landscape,
climb on boggy paths and feel the wind on my face.

I needed to walk beside rivers and streams;
to leave my footprints once more upon the Pennine Way.

I didn’t write.
No words came.

Instead I walked
and walked,
and walked some more.

There, in those wild places,
I was reunited
with my true self.

 

on memories, the pennine way and the perils of ageing

on the Pennine Way ; many years ago........ my brother and I

A week for unashamed sentimentality.

My favourite uncle died.

The one who first ignited my photographic flame and took me hiking on the Pennine way when I was about 18. I don't remember dates. I have no idea what year it was, or even how old I was.

But finding this photograph on his desk pin board last week I realise that it was special for him as well as for my brother and I.

He had no children. My father died when I was very young. Our bond was strong.




I try to remember the trip.

I remember we that we had Wainwright to guide us, with his diagrams and notes.

That we got lost in a  deep river valley and had to climb a steep, scree slope to find our way back to the path.

That he thought we could manage 20 miles a day......... which was a long, long way when hills and map reading are involved.

I remember the peat bogs with snow; black and white. Lunar landscapes like nothing I had seen before.

A youth hostel in a cobbled street. Bread and jam for tea.

A red rucksack with a metal frame.




And that's about all.

Four days and nights.  Lost in the recesses of my mind.





That's why I need my photos. To bring back those memories and keep them alive.


I have a load of old negatives in a safe in the cellar; so worried was I when the children were young that I would lose my most precious belongings if ever the house was on fire. Photos from the last 30 years until digital took over. My most treasured possessions.

It is quite possible that they have disintegrated significantly in that cold, damp environment. Time to do something with them. There is nothing else in the safe; I have no other possessions that I feel the need to save.

So I am going down under tomorrow, into my cellar to open the safe. I have been meaning to do this for ages. I am going to explore the past, and hopefully retrieve some of those lost memories.

And in the meantime I will share some views from a hotel in middle England, a bit up North, where things are a little bit more traditional.

man with dog

girl with teacups

girl with chrysanthemums ( red, white and blue)

horse with candlesticks

I am so aware that my memory is bad, that I  keep a notebook of my most interesting dreams, for if I don't record them immediately they are lost forever.

The fascinating thing to me is that just by writing down a few words, a whole series of visual images spring to mind.

Probably the most telling one recently was the three inch long hair growing out of my chin, that I couldn't remove. I wondered how it had got there without me noticing..........

Ah, the joys of ageing, going half blind, deaf, wrinkled and growing a beard..........


I am so glad I can remember that one.