Dorothy Coates

Dorothy Coates was a neighbour who lived in the block of flats where I grew up in Southport. The building had a large garden which she took on as her own and she devoted every Sunday to work with the plants. Looking at photographs of my childhood, I can see how the bare lawn where I took some of my earliest steps grew into a mature garden by the time I reached my teens.

She was a small lady but forthright nonetheless and I remember hearing of an angry exchange with another resident whom she caught taking flowers from the border. The other lady was insisting that her late husband would be spinning in his grave if he knew she only had artificial flowers in her flat, to which Miss Coates replied that it would be good exercise for him.

Dorothy Coates

Dorothy Coates brings lavender buds
To sew into sachets with ribbons and bows
Written directions, birthday girl wishes
She'll not stay for tea, she has gardens to grow

When the faithful go by in their Sunday best
Bearing souls for an hour of devotion
She's tending her church by a chapel-grey fountain
A choir of foxgloves peals with emotion

Evergreen lady, kneeling, discerning the flower
That is worthy from a tangle of weeds
Embracing the earth with a prayer and a promise
A tulip, an internal logic, a creed

The watering can bows its head with a drizzle --
The drought never ends -- over seedlings in rows
A cycle of life at the altar of nature
A dandelion weeder, a dibber, a hoe

And she strides from the turn of a century onward
The seasons replace her in a stop-motion show
Miss Dorothy Coates is a memory suspended
In the amber of autumn's afternoon glow

November 2022

Henry Tudor, Lost at Sea

As mentioned in a previous post, I'm in a songwriting group called the DIAMC. We take it in turns to set a monthly prompt and then we get together online to share our work. There are no rules governing how closely the brief is to be followed, and it's always interesting to hear how different members have interpreted the task.

This month's theme was Displacement - to take a fictional or historical event and move it to another location. I decided to displace Henry VIII - completely, so I could write an alternative history of the six wives he never had.

We are the Drunks in a Midnight Choir

Last year, during one of the lockdowns I signed up for a block of online songwriting classes through Bird of A Wire, run by Findlay Napier and Boo Hewerdine. 

The tutors set us tasks to complete for homework each week over the 8-week course, sometimes individually and other times paired with another member of the group. It was an intense but really rewarding time and we all emerged as better songwriters by the end of the block. 

Most of us kept in touch afterwards and we're still writing together regularly after 19 months. It's an amazingly supportive and friendly group. Being graduates of Bird on a Wire, we naturally call ourselves the Drunks in a Midnight Choir or DIAMC.

A few of us have album projects on the go (more about mine soon) and doubt we would be doing any of this without the encouragement from the other members. It has been life changing.

Fin and Boo are running some weekend songwriting workshops in 2023 and I highly recommend them to anyone who wants to write better songs.

But most of all, whatever your pursuit, I'd urge you to find your tribe, connect with like minded people and support each other.  Magic can happen.