More than a decade ago, I finished my second book of memoir, Beside the Dark Pool. My life seemed to have been rich, interesting and fortunate. As I confronted getting old, it seemed that nothing much more would happen, that the story was over. I would like to reassure readers that old age isn’t dull. Things keep on happening. It’s true that we lose more and more friends and family who have been significant, and this means learning new ways of coping with what we have left, to find our inner resilience. I can’t deny that grief doesn’t stalk us as we grow old. But there are pleasures all around. I find them in new friendships, books, my garden, the endless connections we make with one another.
These autobiographical essays are not in themselves a memoir, not a ‘what happened next in my life’ – or not exactly – but they reflect the progress through a time of change, and what has interested me over these years.
For those who have read my two memoirs – the first was At the End of Darwin Road – there will be echoes of some stories I have told before. Every author has their own voice. The essential past doesn’t change, but how we look at it can. I have different perspectives now on some events. Perhaps that is one of the gifts of age – a softening around the edges, an acceptance of how things have gone.
I hasten to say, however, that, as a writer and a human being, I am as resistant to injustice as I have ever been. In a panel discussion some months ago, I commented that writing is a political act. That is not perhaps the case for all writers, but it remains so for me. I don’t believe that justice is always meted out fairly and it seems to me that governments will often try to take the easy way out of their dilemmas. In these essays I have challenged perceived wisdoms about issues both past and ongoing. I have also examined the role of people who might be regarded as outsiders. They are all individuals who, in one way or another, have contributed to the way I see the world, even if I haven’t met all of them in the flesh.
Every life is extraordinary if you allow it to be. I am grateful for mine.