The Meaning of Land

Traditional societies around the world understood land in ways different from the modern interpretation. In many countries, especially the “developed” ones, land is considered to be a commodity—in other words, something having economic value.

Yet, such a definition of land is quite a modern phenomenon. A look back at the epics, whether the Odyssey or the Iliad in Greece, or the Mahabharata or the Ramayana in India, shows the landscape to be dotted with sacred spaces—whether mountains, rivers or groves. These sacred places, where the individual could connect with the spiritual, became celebrated in literature, in festivals and in the cultural lives of the people.

In aboriginal cultures throughout the world, this understanding survives. They show a much more nuanced view of land than the dominant culture’s; one which includes spiritual, physical, social and cultural connections. Indeed, if there is one singular, distinguishing feature to all aboriginal religions, whether in America, Australia or Brazil, it is this relationship to the land.

Autrailian Aboriginal (Palyku) woman Ambelin Kwaymullina explains: “For Aboriginal peoples, country is much more than a place. Rock, tree, river, hill, animal, human – all were formed of the same substance by the Ancestors who continue to live in land, water, sky. Country is filled with relations speaking language and following Law, no matter whether the shape of that relation is human, rock, crow, wattle. Country is loved, needed, and cared for, and country loves, needs, and cares for her peoples in turn. Country is family, culture, identity. Country is self.” [1]

With the arrival of colonialism and now globalization, this relationship is being damaged. An increasingly global free market has meant disappearing borders, skyrocketing corporate profits and an increase in wealth for some. But not everyone has shared in the benefits of globalization. In every corner of the world, the traditional lands of Indigenous peoples are under threat as governments and corporations seek to dispossess the people and exploit their abundant natural resources.

Linda Bull, a Cree from Goodfish Lake First Nation says the problem of globalization is not new. According to her, Native people in Canada have been fighting it for generations under another word - assimilation. Globalization and assimilation both seek to separate indigenous people from the land, to make them disappear. The Cree people have not forgotten their connection to the place. Protection of the land is crucial for Native people because, according to her: "when our lands disappear, we too all will disappear." [2]

[1] https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/land/meaning-of-land-to-aboriginal-people#ixzz4k5lQ5cKg

[2] http://www.ammsa.com/publications/alberta-sweetgrass/globalization-blamed-cultural-losses

Mohan Ashtakala is author of "The Yoga Zapper." published by Books We Love.

Culture or is it just thinking differently? by Sheila Claydon

I have just returned from a trip to Australia via Hong Kong. During my visit I met with people born and raised in Australia and Hong Kong of course, but I also met people from Canada, Tasmania, Holland, Thailand, China, the Philippines, Greece, Indonesia, America, the Shetland Isles and various parts of the UK. Sometimes it was a one to one conversation but often there were 3 or 4 nationalities in one room, all using English as a common language. As a poor linguist but a UK born native English speaker, I consider myself very lucky to be able to use my own language to communicate with so many people from different places and cultures. It is the gift that allows an insight into worlds that would otherwise be hidden from me.

Did you know for example that in China a pregnant woman is treated like a fragile flower. Her pregnancy is considered a “hot” condition, so to balance the scale between “hot and cold” or “ying and yang”, she must eat so called “cold foods” throughout her pregnancy. From a Western perspective it gets worse. Eating food that is not properly cut or mashed will result in the child having a careless disposition. Eating chocolate will result in your baby having dark skin whereas eating light coloured foods will result in the baby having fair skin, something which is considered a big positive in China. Drinking coconut milk will ensure that the baby has good skin while eating pineapple may cause miscarriage. 

A pregnant woman is not allowed to exert herself by carrying heavy things or doing physical work. Even old people will offer their seats on a bus. She is discouraged from attending weddings or funerals to prevent her emotions being affected in ways which will adversely harm the baby. Nor should she handle any household detergents or chemicals during pregnancy without the protection of rubber gloves.

After the birth this careful approach continues with the female family members maintaining a 24 hour support service in the early months to ensure that the mother gets enough sleep. The father is often relegated to the spare room or even the couch, and once the mother is deemed strong enough she will co-sleep with the baby, often until it is 5 years old.

I could go on and on with the 'do and don't rules' for Chinese pregnancy, each one seemingly more bizarre than the last to Western eyes, but are they really? Many relate to nutrition, a wish to avoid miscarriage, the benefits of enough rest and sleep, and the joy a new baby brings to the whole family in a country that still conducts a mainly one child policy. 

Of course many of the modern Chinese mothers eschew these rules, laughing at centuries of superstition, working up until the last minute and refusing to conform to the old tradition of being confined to their room for a month after the baby is born. They do, however, still rely on their extended family for care and nurture but for a very different reason. Not because they feel fragile but because they want to get back to work, and to do this they need the help that has so willingly been given by the older generation for centuries. 

Then there's Australia where the people are almost all informal and friendly, and this is despite the fact that more than 25% of all Australians were born in another country. What is is about Australia that has persuaded all these different nationalities to adopt the same laid back attitude? Is it the weather, or the culture? Also, before my trip I didn't know that the largest Greek population in the world beside Athens in Greece can be found in Melbourne Australia, which accounts for the fact that I met so many Greek people while I was there.

Then take Holland. There adults put chocolate sprinkles on their toast, as well as eating an average of 2 kilograms of salty-sweet liquorice a year from a choice of over 80 different kinds of liquorice. Also, despite the rainy weather, they use raincoats and rain "suits" instead of umbrellas because the wind is too strong, and anyway it is almost impossible to hold an umbrella and cycle at the same time, and with more than 18 million bicycles in the country that's an awful lot of cycling.

I could carry on and talk about the things I learned about the other countries if there was the time and space but nowadays many of these facts are available at the click of a mouse. How much more interesting they are when they are part of a conversation, however, sometimes to be wondered at, but more often part of an interested and animated discussion. And of course we British are far from exempt when it comes to strange habits. Is there another country in the world where the population's accent changes noticeably every 40 kilometres? Living where I do, in the northwest of England, I can easily recognise at least half a dozen different accents from places less than an hour's journey away. And why do we enjoy meeting up in English pubs to watch a football game, play pool or just drink a beer.

The more I meet people from other countries and other cultures, the more I learn and the more I understand. How much more sensible it would be for us British, in our often rain-sodden country, to adopt the rain 'suits' of the Dutch instead of constantly fighting the wind with our umbrellas, and is chocolate on toast really less healthy than our sugar coated breakfast cereals? And maybe we would benefit from being just a little more laid back like the Australians.

No country or culture is right, everyone is just different, but it takes time to realise that, and to see that in the end it's the differences that make every single one of us interesting, not the similarities.

It's also one of the reasons that I write about the places I've visited in many of my books. Miss Locatelli is set in London and Florence, and every blade of grass and delicious mouthful of food is authentic thanks to the wonderful times I've had with Italian friends. Travel truly does free the mind to consider other ways of living.

Books We Love Author Page

Check out my books on the Books We Love website

Sheila Claydon on facebook

Gold and My Family by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

  

 

http://bookswelove.net/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/ 

 

                                                  Gold and My Family

In the late 1930s my father, Oliver Donaldson, and his brothers, Gib and Albert, made their living by panning for gold on two gold claims on the Salmon River, now called the Salmo River, south of Nelson, British Columbia. In 1980, Dad, my Mom, my husband Mike, our five children, and I went on a holiday to the Salmo River and the site of the former claims. We found the bottom two rows of logs, all that was left of one of the cabins they had lived in and the second cabin, which was still standing, on the other side of the river.

       Under Dad’s direction we all panned the river. The children were quite excited at finding gold to take home. We toured the area seeing the route Dad and his brothers had taken into town to sell their gold and to buy some staples and where they had hunted for deer and picked apples to live on. After the trip, Mike and I had vowed that someday we would return.

       In the spring of 1992, Mike, and I found ourselves preparing for a death and a wedding in our family. At the beginning of that year, Mike’s oldest sister Sallian had been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and one of our sons and his fiancé had set a wedding date. For almost five months we visited Sallian, first at home and then in the hospital. I cannot describe the anger, sorrow, and frustration I felt as I watched what the disease was doing to her. She lost weight and the ability to look after herself. During her final month she was hardly more than a skeleton.

       For those same five months I experienced a mother’s delight and happiness as I helped with the marriage plans. I made the cake, watched my son pick out his tuxedo, found my dress, arranged for my hairdo, and planned a mixed shower of friends and family.

       Balancing my life while dealing with the opposing emotions was truly hard.

       Sallian died on May 25 at age 54. On June 27 over 300 people attended the wedding and partied well into the night.

       Like most people it took the death of someone close to me to make me realize how important really living is. I knew Mike and I had to do something adventurous with our lives, something out of the ordinary.

       That summer of 1992 we decided to leave life as we knew it in Spruce Grove, Alberta, and get a gold claim in southern British Columbia, preferably in the Nelson area. We sold our house and quit our jobs. For our new home we bought a used twenty-four foot holiday trailer. I phoned the Minerals Branch of the B.C. government. They sent us a map showing the separate gold claim regions of southern B.C. We picked out three regions, Salmo being one, and I called back requesting more detailed maps of the staked claims in those areas.

     On September 1, we began our journey west. Mike was pulling the holiday trailer with our half-ton truck, which had our all-terrain vehicle in the back. I was in our smaller four-wheel drive pulling a utility trailer with our prospecting equipment and other paraphernalia we thought we might need.

       It took two days of slow travel to reach the Selkirk Motel and Campsite on the side of the highway at Erie, about three kilometres west of the town of Salmo. We set up camp, hooking up to the water and power. We had until freeze-up to find a claim.

       Next morning we were up early and off to the Gold Commissioner’s Office in Nelson where Mike bought a Gold Miner’s Certificate and received two red metal tags, and a topographical map, and was given his recording form. We were hopeful as we headed back to the campsite.

       According to the maps the Salmo River was all staked so over the next two weeks we checked rivers and creeks in the area with little success. But the Salmo River kept calling us and we returned to Dad’s former claim and the remains of his old cabin. Just past it we stood on the bluff looking down on the river as we had done twelve years earlier with my parents and our children. The memories came flooding back: the walk to the river with each child carrying a pie plate to use as a gold pan, finding gold only to discover that we had nothing to put it in, one daughter coming up with the idea of sticking it to bandages, camping near the river.

       But we didn’t have time to linger. We were working against the weather. Mike went over our maps of the Salmo River again and this time noticed that there is a small portion on the curve of the river near the old cabin that was open. Because the claims on either side formed rectangles it was missed by both of them. We found the posts of those claims then hurried to Nelson to confirm that the piece was available. It was.

       It was possible to lay one claim over part of another but the first one had priority for that section enclosed in it. There wasn’t time to stake it that night so we had to wait until morning. We rose early, went out to the river and put one of Mike’s red tag on the post of the claim to the east of ours. Mike took a compass and orange flagging and we began to mark off the distance, tying the flagging to trees as we went. At the end of five hundred yards Mike cut a tree, leaving a stump about three feet high. He squared off the top and I nailed up our final tag with the information scratched by knife point onto it. The claim was five hundred yards by five hundred yards and was called the Donaldson.

       We hurried back to Nelson and handed in the recording form. We were ecstatic. Not only had we located an area on the same river as my father, but we actually had part of his old claim. We went to the river and found a clearing for us to set up camp the next spring. Mike took his gold pan and headed down to the water’s edge.

       I followed and sat on a large rock. As I watched the water flow sedately by, a deep sense of relaxation settled over me, the first I had felt since the beginning of the year. It helped me begin to deal with the fact that I had witnessed Death at work.

       Sallian was the first one in either of our immediate families to die. I had seen the tragedy of death strike my friends but didn’t understand how devastating it could be until it happened to me.

       We spent the winter in our trailer in Vancouver visiting with my sister, my aunt, and some cousins.

       Near the end of March we drove out of Vancouver eager to get back to our claim. We pulled our trailer in and set up a campsite was in the middle of tall pine, birch, spruce, and cedar. We could just barely see the mountain tops to the south. The mountains to the north were higher and made a lovely backdrop to the trees. In the morning I walked through the bush to the river. I sat on a large triangle-shaped rock and watched the water drift by. A partridge drummed in the distance. Birds sang in the trees. I took a deep breath of the cool, fresh air. It was a good place to be.

       It rained just about every day for the next couple of weeks. We sat under the trailer awning and listened to the drops hitting the canvas. Sometimes the awning sagged with the weight of the water and we had to empty it. Sometimes we let it overflow, creating a waterfall.

       Rain or shine it became my morning ritual to go to the river before breakfast. I loved to sit on my rock and stare at the water. Because of the rains and the snowmelt in the mountains the river level was rising each day. Soon I was watching logs and other debris rush past in the torrent. The water dipped over some boulders, and created a backwash when it hit others. The force of the water was mesmerizing.

       One rare sunny day we went for a walk down the road past our camp. I carried my camera. A short distance from camp we saw spring water seeping out of a hole under a large rock in the embankment beside the road. Mike reached in the hole to feel how big it was and found a bottle of wine. It had been opened at one time and then put in there to keep cool. Mike set it back.

       We followed the long, hilly road as it wound its way through trees and past cow pastures. On our way back we encountered a herd of deer. They did some scrambling to get into the bush while I did some scrambling to take pictures. They were faster than me. We reached the spring and Mike decided to set up a water system. He went for a pail and a hose. When he returned he put one end of the green hose into the hole and soon water began to trickle out of the other end. He let it run for a while to clean the hose then filled the pail. Mike carried the pail back to camp. We had fresh water for our camp.

       There was always activity around us. We heard rustling and cracking in the bush and it wasn’t unusual for a deer to trot through the clearing at any time of the day. Birds sang, a woodpecker occasionally tapped on a tree, partridge thumped, and trees scratched and rubbed against each another in the wind. All day and night there was the thundering of the boulders as the whirling river water rolled and bumped them against each other.

        As the days warmed the air became filled with the scents of pine and cedar, sweet wild flowers, and the intertwined fragrances of the bush. Colours sprang up, from pink roses, white dogwood and hazelnuts, and purple and yellow flowers, to the bright green of the ferns. Butterflies flitted throughout the clearing and there was the buzz of flies and mosquitoes and the drone of bees. The few rainy days were humid and the clouds never stayed long. Sometimes the moon at night lit up the clearing and we sat by the camp fire in the soft light.

       With the rains and spring run-off over, the river level began dropping. I sat on my favourite rock and watched the slower, shallower water flow by. The roar was gone. In the peace and tranquillity I was able to think about death. As best I could, I acknowledged that many of the people I loved would probably die before me, though I found it harder to actually accept the fact.

       Mike and I spent time digging dirt from around rocks in the water and working it in the pan. We found enough small flakes to keep us trying.

       But soon our adventure was over and by summer’s end we were back in the real world. We never did find much gold but then, for me, it really wasn’t about the gold.

       Since then I have written two novels about gold and people’s quest for it.

Seeing Boston With Bostonians

For more information about Susan Calder's books or to purchase, visit her Books We Love Author Page.

                                                                              * * *

"We'll meet at The Taj, walk through The Common and have dinner at Ward 8," my nephew Ryan said.

It was almost like he was speaking another language.

In May, my husband Will and I visited Boston, Massachusetts, to attend Ryan's university graduation ceremonies. Since Will and I had only seen the city briefly around thirty years ago, we added five extra days to take in the sights.

First up on many Boston tourist agendas is the Freedom Trail, a walk past Boston locations related to the American Revolution (1775-1783). With our trail map in hand, we rambled through the Granary Burying Ground, final resting place of Boston notables like Paul Revere, Benjamin Franklin's parents and possibly Mother Goose.

Granary Burying Ground

The map then guided us to the site of the Boston Massacre, where five men were killed in a clash between Colonists and British Troops. After Faneuil Hall, a meeting place and market since 1742, we reached Paul Revere's house and the Old North Church. We gazed up at the church steeple in which the sexton famously hung two lanterns to signal the beginning of Revere's ride that ignited the Revolution.

Old North Church, Boston's oldest church building

Day Two took us to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, built on the waterfront because JFK, an avid sailor, loved the ocean.

JFK's sailboat outside of the museum

Images, memorabilia and replicas of the White House took us through Kennedy's life and presidency, which loomed large in my cultural awareness during my youth.

Image of young Jack on a rooftop suggests his adventurous nature

The Kennedy family: Can you name them all?

JFK's inauguration speech. The red words are ones he changed while delivering the speech. 

A few days later, we would visit the house in suburban Brookline where the future president was born and lived until the family grew beyond four children. After her son died, Rose Kennedy purchased the house and had it decorated the way it was when the family lived there.

JFK's relatively modest birth home in Brookline, MA

The small table in the Kennedy's dining room was used by Jack and his older brother Joe. 

A few steps from the JFK Presidential Library is the Edward Moore Kennedy Senate Museum. In the exact replica senate room, we debated a current senate bill: The Dairy Pride Act, which would forbid the use of the word 'milk' on labels for products not produced from hoofed animals. If this actual bill passes, good-bye soy milk.

Senator Calder in the EMK Museum

Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted resided not far from the Kennedy's house in Brookline. Olmsted, who designed Central Park in New York City, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and numerous other public and private gardens, built a home/office that is now a National Historic Site open to public tours.

Me with my sister and brother at the Olmsted home/office - Yes it sometimes rains in Boston

     

Another Bostonian who showed us an aspect of her city was Isabella Stewart Gardner, art collector, philanthropist and larger than life character from the early 20th century. A visit to the art museum she founded to house her collection made my bucket list after I read the novel The Art Forger by B.S. Shapiro, a suspenseful tale about the 1990 theft of 13 works from the museum, including paintings by Rembrandt and Degas. It remains the largest unsolved art heist in history and the Gardner museum is currently offering a reward of $10 million for information leading to the works' return. Will and I were awed as much by the museum design of an Italian palazzo as we were by the art.

Gardner Museum Courtyard

Isabella had so much clout in her day that when she moved from her home in Boston's prestigious Back Bay to live on the top floor of the museum, she convinced the city to change her old address from 152 to 150 Beacon St. so no future owners would have her number.

Works by artist John Singer Sargent feature prominently in Isabella's collection. Boston has claimed Sargent as its own even though he spent most of his life in Europe. Sargent's murals are a highlight of the magnificent Boston Public Library.

Sargent murals in Boston Public Library

Boston also claims numerous authors, including one of my childhood favourites Louisa May Alcott. Before the American Civil War, the Alcott family lived in a house in Beacon Hill, near the apartment Will and I rented for our stay.

Louisa May Alcott home

Another book from my childhood, Make Way for Ducklings, written and Illustrated by Robert McCloskey, led to a fun and interactive statue in Boston Public Garden. The book about a pair of mallards who decide to raise their family in this city park is the official children's book of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Who knew states had official books? What a great idea.

Make way for these ducklings

Boston Public Garden merges into Boston Common, the city's central park and, of course, The Common in my nephew's meeting instructions. The Taj turned out to be a historic luxury hotel facing the Public Garden. Ward 8 is a restaurant in the North End, former neighbourhood of Paul Revere and now inhabited by numerous Italian restaurants. We sampled some delicious local specialties - cannoli pastries and the favourite pizza of honorary Bostonians Rob Lowe and Leonardo diCaprio.

Will, Leonardo and Rob at Regina Pizzeria

Cannoli

 Will and I loved Boston and are grateful to all of the Bostonians, past and present, who shared glimpses of their city. And we can't forget our favourite Boston resident, my nephew Ryan Calder. Congratulations Graduate.  

    

Who Doesn't Love a Misplaced Modifier? by Karla Stover

bwlauthors.blogspot.com karla stover  


Trust me; I am not a writer snob. One of my critique groups, once, broke up  when I referred to a bunch of trees as a corpse rather than copse. And since I make mistakes, I give myself permission to enjoy an internal tee hee at those of others. In the May 27, 2017, a staffer for The News Tribune, our local newspaper wrote the  following:


Ferries cost $13 for car and passenger, $7 for bike and rider. Free for kids. They run on the hour.

     I, for one, prefer an hour with no running kids.

     In Mary Poppins, Mr. Dawes Sr. director of London's main financial center says:

"I know a man with a wooden leg called Smith."

     Did the non-wooden leg not rate a name?
 
     "A misplaced modifier is a word, phrase, or clause that is improperly separated from the word it modified or describes."

     Here's one I found in a book discussing English schools:

"Bedford School was another [public school]; endowed by the Harper Trust, which kept its fees
low . . ."

Further reading explained it was the school, not the trust which kept the fees low."

When Go Set a Watchman, the original To Kill a Mockingbird came out, it seemed to fade fast. However, the edited version remains a classic. An article on www.telegraph.co.uk says Tay HoHoff, an editor at the firm, J.B. Lippincott, would not have published the book in its original version. In fact, it was HoHoff who advised Lee to scrap the original version of Scout visiting her father as an adult and instead tell the story from a child's point of view. The rewrite process took three years. It also says, "The differences between the two books call into question how much of To Kill A Mockingbird was written by Lee, and how much was shaped by Hohoff."

Which brings us back to the point I'm trying to make: Publishers no longer have the time or wherewithal to spend three years molding a book. It is up to we the writers.  The website, www.writingcommons.org suggests authors  do the following:

1.  place the modifier as close as possible to which is being modified.
2.  place adjectives in front of the noun, adverbs in front or directly behind or at the beginning or end of the sentence.
3. words such as almost, even, just, nearly, only, or simply go in front of the word (or words) being modified.
4.  do not put the modifier between the word, "to" and the verb. It creates a split infinitive. "To quickly move" should be "To move quickly."

The same article suggest circling the modifier and drawing an arrow to the word it modifies and read the sentence aloud.


     Of course, we could imitate Ernest Hemingway's style, i.e. use plain grammar and "easily accessible language" in "short, rhythmic sentences that avoid reflection, skip the adjectives, and concentrate on the action. and avoid adjectives where ever possible, but where's the fun in that?

     These faux pas are everywhere, from Groucho Marx--One morning shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll never know,"  to street signs, "Caution Pedestrians Slippery When wet."

     It's best to soldier on, I think, and if we misplace a modifier, well, it will be someone else's tee hee.

Do you see them?

There has been a lot of media coverage lately about bees. How they are on the decline. If you like to eat anything the least bit healthy, you need bees. The collect the nectar and pollen from flowers. This is used to feed their colony. As they collect they pollinate. The nectar eventually turns into honey. 

I live in rural Ontario. Our property is bursting with flowers and trees. Enough trees, we rarely use our air conditioner. Even on the hottest days, we sleep with our windows open at night, allowing a beautiful breeze into our bedroom. 

Spring is beautiful around here. The trees and perennials are coming to life after the winter. We have a cherry tree on the property that the birds love. We were outside in mid May, doing some yard work. My husband was working a short distance from me, close to that tree. 

"Heather. Come here. Listen."

As I walked toward him, I heard the buzz. A small orchestra could have been suspended in the air. I looked up at the white blossom filled cherry tree. Honeybees surrounded every branch of the vibrant tree, buzzing around those blossoms. What a gorgeous sight, and sound. 

I just smiled.

The joys of living in rural Ontario. I buy my honey and honey products from a local bee keeper. I support our local famers and buy pure Canadian maple syrup from a 'Sugar Shake.' We can watch them tap the trees.

An interesting little fact. Bees don't sleep. They have a short life span, around thirty days. They work the entire time. Keep the bees alive and healthy. We need them. 

If you're able, buy wild flower seeds and plant them. The honeybees will thank you. 

Home Town Inspiration by June Gadsby

June Gadsby Author Page

HOME TOWN INSPIRATION:  It’s amazing how places and the people who reside in them inspire you as a writer. I haven’t lived in many places, but have travelled quite extensively and the countries I’ve visited invariably end up as the background to my stories. 

But there is one place that turns up more than most and that is the little mining town where I was born. Felling is perched high on the banks overlooking the River Tyne in north-east England. As a child, I would stare out over the wide valley below and wonder what kind of world was out there, and this memory inspired the beginning of my latest novel, “Rosa”. My world, at that time, was a small miner’s cottage, where my ancestors had lived since the street was built in 1901 over an old, disused pit. I lived there with my grandparents [my grandfather was one of a long line of miners], my mother, my aunt and, sometimes, her sailor husband, who was something of a rover, but such a character that you couldn’t help be fond of him. 

The street and part of my grandparent’s house sloped because of the ground sinking. It was condemned just before the second world war, but was still standing many years later. I was eleven when we moved into new housing a few miles away, but I paid a nostalgic visit to the town when I was in my thirties and there was my street – George Street – in process of being demolished. And the end wall that was visible was highly recognisable as the room at No. 15, in which I entered this world to the sound of the All-Clear siren. The floral wallpaper had never been changed.

My name is June, but I was born in January, so it was something of a joke, especially when Bing Crosby came out with the song: “It’s June in January”. And that’s how I became known. Our milkman used to greet me, singing ‘my’ song. I still get a tingle of nostalgia when I hear that song and think: “Oh, they’re playing my tune!”

Moving forward too many years, when my life took twists and turns that some people would find hard to believe, I was no longer living in the north-east of England, but in south-west France, where my husband and I have been for 26 years. No longer working full-time, looking after two of three step-children and two houses, I could now devote all my time to my passion of writing.  While doing some research for the book I was writing [When Tomorrow Comes], I came across a Facebook site for my birth town of Felling. Although much changed from the town I knew and for which I carried a warm spot in my heart, the Felling residents welcomed me with open arms. Some of them even remembered me from my school days.

Although advertising was not allowed, it soon came out that I was a published writer and the founder of the group, who has read all my books, christened me as “Felling’s own Catherine Cookson”.  Catherine, whom I knew personally, was born only a few miles from Felling and we had a lot in common.  It was quite an accolade, but I could never attain the same fame as she has and, I must say, that my books are quite different in many respects. However, she did inspire me to write my first saga, “Rosa” – originally titled “Where The Wind Blows” long before I was published.

Now, I have a growing band of readers from Felling and the surrounding areas, who are supporting me. Who would have thought that the working-class miner’s granddaughter would have her stories in print? My family, if they were still alive, wouldn’t. But I think I always knew that the dream of ‘June in January’ was just waiting to be realised – and it was, even though it took half a century to achieve.

Rosa by June Gadsby	The Jealous Land by June Gadsby	Voices of the Morning by June Gadsby
When Tomorrow Comes by June Gadsby	The Raging Spirit by June Gadsby	The Ironmaster by June Gadsby
To The Ends of the Earth by June Gadsby	Glory Girls:FA... by June Gadsby	The Real Thing by June Gadsby