In 1782 at the age of twenty-three, farm labourer James Ruse was sentenced to hang for stealing two silver watches in the village of South Petherwin, Cornwall. He was reprieved and sentenced instead to transportation…
I’ve been working with soldiers and their children for the last few years, as a researcher and as a writer. It has been instructive, about the world I live in as much as the one…
One cannot help but feel that democracy is in trouble here. It’s not on the ropes but it is getting the pounding that could leave it bloodied and reeling, ready for the count. It has…
It was 1983, I think, South London. As usual, I was in the front row of the audience. On the stage behind the canteen table were Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone, Ted Knight, and someone I’d…
My last blog post on ‘1788 and all that; poetry and the First Fleet’ has had some very welcome attention from two descendants of the first ‘convict’ farmer in Australia, James Ruse. Partly in response…
In December last year I made an application to Arts Council England to write a collection of poetry, concerned in the main with the first convict settlement in Australia in 1788. It paid off; I got the…
I‘ve been in Australia and I’ve been in New Zealand. In Australia I was catching up on family and the First Fleet. In New Zealand I was running writing workshops at Arohota Women’s Prison. I’ve…
I may very well be coming to the end of my residency as a writer at a young offenders’ institution. I’m waiting to hear. For their decision. As with the prisoners I am in the hands of the…
Let’s have it right yeah. Prison’s too easy. It’s a laugh. A right laugh. I’d never have come to jail if there was no TV, shit food… well it’s shit now but it’s not totally…
Why does liberty remind me of prison? It’s usually the case that prisoners desire to have the things that those at liberty have. It’s odd then that from where I stand for a few days…