The Writing Class

It’s on a Thursday evening and I’m tired from a full day at college.  Weary teaching adolescents who have far too much energy and fed up with chemistry, a subject I have hated since I was fourteen and at school myself.

But on the way to Ballysally or Ballybosnia as the locals like to call it, something magical happens.  I pick up Joan, in her early eighties, and her sweet radiance fills the car.  We talk and I love how she memorises all her poems.  Funny, touching, pieces that bring another generation back to life.  Then we enter the centre surrounded by burnt out houses, bricked up doors and broken windows.  Into a small terrace house and we climb the steep staircase.  Joan says we could do with Sherpa’s to get up them!

Into a room already beginning to fill with our usual bunch.  A girl from the women’s refuge, an autistic girl, an English women, a jokey middle-aged fellow, a twenty four year old who loves fairies, Eleanor who has her leg removed , quiet Susie, young single mother Mary and finally Jackie who finds writing tricky and has her creative words transcribed by me.  It sounds as if it should all be very sad our odd bunch.  But the magic begins and as creativity kick starts all of us, laughter takes over.

Howls of appreciation for quick wit or screams of fun at misunderstanding.  If no one has written anything they have to bear the brunt of questions from everyone in the room.  Terrifying in their unexpectedness and intrusiveness.  “Who was your first love?” or “When did you last have sex?”  Better by far to read aloud a short piece of prose than face the firing line of such unpredictable attacks.  United in creating, nervous to see others reactions to our words we write like mad.  Emotions are exposed but confidence is not just gained, confidences are shared.  Our cheeks glow and ache from laughing too much.  My stomach muscles complain and all our immune systems are topped up with this unexpected happiness.  From weariness to accomplishment we have travelled far.  And even more inspiring than the words on paper is the unity generated in our small class.