inspiration strikes! image from Dreamstime
I know I’ve blogged about this before but ‘Where do ideas come from?’ is one of the most common questions I get from children and adults on school visits, so here goes again.
Sometimes I don’t know. I haven’t got a clue but often it’s from something I have either seen, heard or read. Newspapers and magazines are an obvious source. As E L Doctorow once said: ‘The responsibility of the artist is to reflect the times in which he lives.’ Newspapers and magazines do just that.
Heres’ an example. I was having a tidy up of my office the other day (another displacement activity I do when I’ve finished a book) and came across a folded piece of paper from the Newark Advertiser dated June 27 2008. Headline:
Immigrants discovered at layby. ‘Eight people from Afghanistan, including two children, were arrested at Foston on Monday night after being seen leaving the back of a foreign-registered lorry. A member of the public contacted Lincolnshire police at about 2pm after seeing a number of men leave the lorry which was parked in a layby on the A1.
The police took the group to Grantham police station before handing them over to immigration and border officials.
A UK Border Agency spokesman said: ‘Six of them were immediately taken into detention where they were fingerprinted. Two minors were taken into the care of social services. We are using state of the art technology, fining lorry drivers who fail to secure their vehicles properly and working closely with port authorities, airlines and shipping companies to clamp down on illegal entry into the UK. Last year we removed one immigration offender every eight minutes.’
The spokesman said they had no information about where the lorry had come from as it had already left by the time the police arrived.
I know why I kept that cutting. There is so much drama in that short report, isn’t there? So much going on. What a play that would make; what a story. Already we know those 8 Afghans have somehow traveled 3,500 miles across who knows what terrain; endured who knows what conditions and dangers. They’ve left a war- torn country, paid money they don’t have to dealers they don’t know who promise them freedom and hope. Somehow they arrive in England undetected, got as far as Lincolnshire. But the key sentence for me – the one that made me keep the cutting is: ‘Two minors were taken into the care of social services.’ My heart immediately went out to them. To come all that way, to overcome all those odds, to travel with those six adults – who were they? Uncles? Brothers? Neighbours? Strangers? Then to end up being separated after that dangerous journey and ‘taken into the care of social services.’ What does that mean? What happened to them? Where are they now? So many questions.
But back to that balmy night in June 2008. Or was it balmy? Just because it’s June it doesn’t mean it’s warm – we’re talking England. (NB: fact to be double checked with the Meteorological Office website later!)
Anyhow, here’s the cast:
Act 1: Lorry driver
8 Afghans(including 2 children)
1 passer-by/member of the public
police (at scene)
Act 2:
police (in Grantham station)
Immigration officials
social workers
The setting for Scene 1:
It’s night-time. A lorry pulls into a quiet layby. The driver lights a cigarette, staring ahead. He looks tired, anxious. He constantly checks his rear view mirror. After less than a minute he dashes out his unfinished cigarette into a meat pie foil tray, jumps down from his cab and strides to the rear of his lorry. He opens the doors furtively, hisses orders. Figures emerge, jumping, stumbling from the doors, standing in the layby looking bewildered.
Cut to: Half a mile further down the road. A middle aged man is walking his dog. Let’s call him Wayne (the man – you make up a name for the dog). He’s in a bad mood is Wayne; he hasn’t slept properly for weeks now. He’s taking his mood out on the dog, yanking at the dog’s collar every time it stops to sniff anything. Up ahead, he sees a lorry in a layby. Envy bubbles inside him. Lucky git, that lorry driver – all snug in that cabin of his; snoring away knowing he’s nothing to do but drive down the road in the morning. What’s his worse problem going to be? Getting stuck in roadworks at Peterborough? Big deal. He wants to take a walk in his shoes, Wayne thinks. He stops; what’s that?
Over to you, dear reader. I’ve got 3 more Girls FC books to finish and several other ideas on my back burner. I’ve no time to develop this idea. Off you go…