Herring House: Stories and Other Writing

  It's been a while but this blog is proud to announce the launch  of an anthology  of prose and poetry from Herring House Trust's writing group. There is in this collection lived experience, stories, poetry, a group-authored verse drama, a novel excerpt and many reflective texts. It is an extraordinary and very human book. It will be on sale to raise money to invest in more creative activity.  The launch is on September 24th - at 5.30 pm in Great Yarmouth Public Library.  The book is published by Red Herring Press and funded by Cultural Connections - it is a very local affair and thanks are due to all those who have helped to make this a reality. 

  In 2035 the sun still shines but it shines on a world that can no longer change. Too little too late. Children play in the park. The chains on the swings are rusted and frozen; the merry go round stuck in time, as it remembers going round like a planet now dying.  All eyes on handheld devices; children sitting together, but miles apart, looking at their screens; their parents and guardians occasionally looking up to see if they are still there. The birds still sing but their song takes a sombre tone with the whine of electric car motors and their tyres crunching the gravel beneath them. It’s definitely getting hotter. Smoking cigarettes in public is outlawed. Doesn’t really matter. You can’t smoke with your mask on anyway.   like I’ll be eating my d-rats {dehydrated rations} dry tonight. It gets harder to live in the moment when the moments are so much different now. 2020 was almost Utopia compared to this. Russell   Walking alone in my street, I am...

  The giant boy felt he had no place as he walked the fields on a still summer day. He noticed the windmills not turning, he went to the top of a hill and looked down at the motionless windmills. He took a deep breath and blew over the fields and all the windmills turned. The farmers were happy and all came out to cheer the boy and he felt, at last, he belonged.  Russell

Life lost in a containment of lies. Thinking the drink was the answer. I could ignore all that was real, never facing my own demons, never trying to find the inner me.  Now I break free of my containment. Looking in the mirror, seeing the damage I have done to myself. I see the changes I missed - so many years wasting away in a drunken haze. Now I face who I am.  A addict with no more addictions trying to find a reason to live, to be here. I feel unjustified to be on the Earth with all the pain and hurt I out out while I was this other person, inside the addiction side of my mentality.  When I am in such a place, I only see two options: death or drink as I can't find myself as I did when I was drunk.  Who I am Who am I? Darren 

I carried my wounds in the hole in my heart like a steel ball with a chain connected to my soul. It was with great regret I put it down and cut the chain; severing the umbilical cord of comfort it gave me. I dropped the ball that had filled that hole with great reserve...placed in a desert of regret.  I prayed for rain. The rain came with all its wrath, backed by the world, feeling the seed of discontent buried beneath the sands of my mind.  But I persevered with the strength drawn from others, those that had weathered the storm before me. The faeces this world threw at me becoming nutrients my garden needed.  I spend my days weeding the rich soil in the once barren desert as it becomes a garden.   From the fertiliser, humanity has given, all the while aware not to pull the plants that bear fruit, for they are what fills the whole. The chain becomes sentient as it lies in the Eden I have created, inching relentlessly towards my soul; its only purpose to recommen...

Last year as part of  Marsh, Arts and Us we visited Carlton Marshes. The banner was inspired by our trip accompanied by artist Ian Brownlie and writer Belona Greenwood. Together, we developed the artwork in a series of workshops held at PrimeYarc.  The project is part of the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads Authority’s Marsh, Arts and Us community arts engagement project and part of the wider Water, Mills and Marshes Broads Landscape Partnership scheme funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.   Below is some of the writing that came out of the walking. It is beautiful and profound, humble and life-enhancing. Take a walk with our words.   ***  Carlton Marshes Sleeping water dragons Lazy path   Following the lazy path along the stream, the birds were singing in the background. I had decided to take a less travelled path today. The grass only slightly trampled from the marsh creatures frolicking in the night. I stumbled over something that was partia...