To celebrate the 100th episode of Norky’s Ramblings in Yorkshire Bylines, I thought it an apt opportunity to explain how the stories develop, why I started my memoirs, and the many and varied pitfalls of producing the book based on the first 25 episodes, also entitled Norky’s Ramblings.
My future career as a writer would have been hard to predict. As many of the readers of Norky’s Ramblings will be aware, my education could be described at best as modest; I was never going to achieve any academic higher eminence. My talents lay elsewhere. I was good with my hands and always willing to ‘give it a go’. My mother encouraged me to cook, bake, sew patches on my playing out trousers, darn my socks, even to have a go at knitting or crocheting, which at the time of my childhood were recognised as the jobs of the wives, mothers, and daughters.
I would also help Dad with jobs generally recognised as those done by boys and men such as maintenance and repairs around the house. These almost exclusively man’s jobs were described as knackling, and my dad was a good knackler, a skill handed down to him by his granddad. All of these jobs with Mum and Dad I enjoyed, as long as they didn’t stray into the monotonous or routine – but of course they did, so they were accompanied by differing degrees of chunter.
Inevitably, as I cast my mind back in this way, a particular story will come to mind – the basis for an article and a chapter in my books. As an example, here it would be the memory of one of the worst of these chunter jobs.
Spit and polish: a memory becomes a story
One of my chunter jobs was putting that shine on our family Austin A40 Somerset. None of this easy on and easy off modern malarkey – oh no, it was the original Simoniz wax that required a regular helping of spit to activate its magical properties. The polish had to be applied to a two-foot square section of bodywork and then vigorously rubbed off with a clean, dry cloth until it sparkled, as I hope can be seen in this photo, and then and only then could I move on the next section. By the end of a car polishing day I had used so much spit that I couldn’t pee for a fotnit and I had developed a forearm like Hercules.
That might then lead on to a description of some of my other childhood jobs, probably reminding older readers of their own best and worst chores in the household and teaching the younger ones to appreciate the miracle of modern appliances.
It’s probably fair to say that anyone who has slapped a bit of emulsion on a wall at the Sistine Chapel, posted a picture of their pudding on Facebook or written their memoirs and expected anyone to be interested is to a little narcissistic, and of course this must be true. But where would we be without The Last Supper, or a photo of a Black Forest gateau on social media. Art comes in many forms, and I suspect that my humble offerings lie somewhere between these two, and probably towards the more modest end.
A journey from typing to writing
The reason I started putting some of my memories together came about while trying to develop another skill that by accident coincided with writing estimates and invoices to customers. I had acquired a tiddly portable typewriter. It had a correction ribbon, which I was replacing it more often than the ink ribbon! At first, managing one page of writing was like trying to play a concerto with one finger. Just as I was thinking that I had to do something about this, along came the computer with a word processor. It was a godsend.
Even though I have never progressed past two fingers and the occasional thumb, the spell checker and the ability to copy and paste made typing an almost enjoyable experience. Still, knowing that I had to improve my typing technique, I began to think of something else to write, which soon progressed to my memories of my earlier life. The more I wrote, the more I began to enjoy it. All the good and happy times came flooding back, and because of the cut and paste facility I could put it in some sort of chronological order.
Recording memories and getting others to do the same
On and on I went over the following years until I had accumulated approximately 100,000 words, some of which formed legible sentences. Never expecting nor wanting any of them to be seen by the wider public, I was just having fun remembering stuff.
My father died in 1990 and, like so many before, I came face to face with the realisation that I couldn’t ask him anything anymore. His wartime experiences and his life as a young man were gone forever – and, I thought, this is not going to happen with my mum. Not only did I persuade her to write her memoirs, I also persuaded her sister’s husband Uncle Harold, and my dad’s sister Aunty Margaret, both of whom have featured regularly in my rambles, to record their memoirs as well. I managed to get quite a lot of information from my cousins about their dad’s military career. But unfortunately, the only uncle that outlived my dad was unable to remember anything and so I was unable to learn anything from five of my uncles first hand.
Memories become published articles – and maybe a book
Years went by and then out of the blue Frances Cole, a good friend of ours, suggested that I send a thousand words of my rambles to Louise Houghton, the editor of these very volumes. I fully expected it to be rejected immediately, but to my continued amazement Louise wanted another and then another.
Only the very early ones were taken from my existing memoirs; since then they’ve been written from scratch and I find them immensely enjoyable to write – indeed, they often take on a life of their own. I will start a theme and within a few short lines I’ve shot off in a new direction. It was a good job I had thought of the name Norky’s Ramblings early on, because that’s certainly what they are.
It was Louise who first suggested putting the rambles I had written up to that date in book form. I had a tentative look around for a publisher but everywhere I looked the more confused I became. I knew I wanted to retain copyright, so this seemed to suggest that I go down the self publishing route. Still, this didn’t help in my decision-making process; if anything it made things more complicated, but I had started down the narcissist hole of oblivion and I wasn’t going to be denied.
American publisher flummoxed by Yorkshire dialect and humour
Still not knowing who to choose nor why, I plumped for the middle ground, which happened to be a company from the USA. I was unaware of the complications that this might cause at that time – in for a penny, in for a pound. It would have been very nice if that was all it had cost, as there were many of those pounds passed over in the end.
The biggest problem I found was every time they sent me a chapter back for approval, their algorithm or USA spell checker had completely knackered my Yorkshire dialect and/or humour and I then had to correct it. Then, when the following chapters came back, some of the corrections had been made and some not. I quickly discovered that trying to teach an American proof-reader the Yorkshire dialect is like trying to herd kittens. It was a nightmare.
But the book came about and a review in Yorkshire Bylines was kind enough to describe me as “a good yarn spinner” with “sharp intelligence” (past teachers: please note) and “humour”.
Book two, Norky is Still Rambling On, is in the process of being published locally. This again will include memories and anecdotes, many (but not all) already published in Yorkshire Bylines.
Find your own ramble writing corner and record your memories
I hope my story inspires you to follow a similar path and, if you do go for publication, my experience above may forearm you to some extent. If you include photos, which I did, the books will be quite expensive to print and therefore for readers to buy. However, the larger the print run, the more economical it becomes, if you think you can sell in good numbers.
Another publishing or distribution complication I have met is that, for reasons I cannot understand, companies like Amazon will sell your book for different prices on different days.
But even if you don’t want to publish your memories, I can recommend that you find your ow ramble writing corner and record your experiences in some form for either future reference or entertainment for you or your family. I can guarantee that the memories will come flooding back, some bad, but if my experience is anything to go by, the bad memories are vastly outweighed by the good.
Norky’s books can be bought directly from him (contact peter.norcliffe@hotmail.co.uk) or on Amazon.
