steepholm

In case anyone hasn't heard about it from other sources, I'm here to tell you about the kickstarter for the 2024 Diana Wynne Jones conference in Bristol, slated for 2-4 August (in other words, if you're visiting the UK for Worldcon, why not come to both?). There are only a few days to go, and the pledges are not quite there yet, so if you'd like this to happen, here's your chance to pull the probabilities...

This morning I should have been travelling to Heathrow, there to board a plane that would have taken me to Tokyo for the next six weeks. It would have been my first taste of autumn in Japan, a season that's normally inaccessible because of my teaching duties, but which a semester's research leave had prised opened like an oyster. Alas, in the words of the poet:

O moul, thou marres a myry juele,
My privy perle wythouten spotte.

So anyway, yesterday I showed Ayako Stanton Drew, which she really liked - perhaps because, unlike some other stone circles we could mention, it lacks any vestige of commercialisation. Whenever I go there there's always at least one person hanging about (yesterday a middle-aged American in Lycra), and we have the statutory conversation about what a fine circle it is, and how it's strange that no one much comes to see it, considering how close it is to Bristol. Then, quite a party of young men and women came walking among the stones, and we were forced to lament Stanton Drew's relative abandonment in a large huddle. The sky was romantic in a smudgy, watercolourish way.



In the evening I watched the Diana Wynne Jones crowdcast event, which I'd had a small part in organising. Colin (Diana's youngest), his colleague the children's writer Katherine Rundell, and Neil Gaiman all spoke very well and warmly. Gaiman mentioned that DWJ was always honest in her appraisal of his books, and gave him both praise and constructive criticism. I can vouch for this myself, but in particular it brought back the time when she read my Death of a Ghost and told me that she'd written me a long email about it. That email I never received, so I asked her to resend it, but she never did, or at least it never reached me.

To this day, I don't know whether the email was full of praise or criticism. I'd like to think the former, but the latter seems more likely, given that it never found its way to me. Perhaps it's better that way round, but not knowing is (like so many things) a little frustrating.

Before the lockdown, Ayako and I visited Diana Wynne Jones's son Micky and his wife Noriko, mostly to catalogue the books in DWJ's study. While we were there, they kindly let me photograph the original "Fire and Hemlock" picture, which inspired the novel of the same name. Today, they even more kindly gave me permission to post the photograph, which I do here:



As you can see, mine is not a great photograph: there's reflection from the glass, the angle's wonky, and the picture is in any case somewhat faded from having been hung in sunlight for some years. Still, hopefully it gives you an idea.

Micky mentioned that the photograph was not unique: Diana had bought it from a studio, but it was one of a limited print run. Perhaps, if I did a Google image search, other (perhaps more pristine) copies might turn up?

I just tried that, and, by some kind of ambiguous magic, up popped this album cover:



This is the sleeve of the Adrian Snell's debut album, Fireflake (1975). You can hear it in its entirety here, should you wish, but probably the list of track titles will give you a sufficient idea of its genre:

A1 – I Was A Stranger
A2 – Song For John
A3 – My Soul Alive
A4 – This Is The Time To Say
A5 – Making Me Real
B1 – Gethsemane
B2 – Judas Song
B3 – Simon Carry My Cross
B4 – Golgotha
B5 – Jesus – Alive!

In some ways it's hard to imagine a more inappropriate set of songs to hum along to while watching those strange figures loom in and out of the fire, threatening to take you back down that not-so-bonny road to Hunsdon House. Adrian Snell is certainly not one of the acts Seb was so into. Still, I'm sure that DWJ would have been amused by the juxtaposition.

It's been ten years since Farah Mendlesohn and I last organised a Diana Wynne Jones conference in Bristol. Too long? Well, if you'd like to see another, here's your chance...

In my Marie-Kondo-fuelled rage for tidying I came across some material from the Diana Wynne Jones 2009 conference that fjm, chilperic, lady_schrapnell and I organised at UWE, Bristol. This included a copy of the message Diana recorded for the conference, since (because of illness) she was unable to attend personally - something I know she regretted. In it she reads the beginning of the (then still unpublished) novel, Enchanted Glass.

I thought that this might be of interest to some people here, especially those of us who miss her.

This is very charming in itself (and occurred on a road I often drive down), but I put it here because the combination of an escaped horse and a string quartet is so very, very Fire and Hemlock. Needless to say, the quartet are travelling in the direction of Bristol, or possibly as far as Burnt Norton...

ETA: The escaped horse is not visible in this picture, but it's what caused the traffic jam, and thus the jamming.

ETA2: From the Telegraph: 31-year-old Lu Jeffery, of Portishead, near Bristol, said: "It was a lovely moment, one the quartet will treasure. Between us, we have played some of the most incredible concert venues globally and the one afternoon you play the M5 it all goes crazy."

A very Portishead thing to say.

I was intending to do a full report on the Diana Wynne Jones celebration on Sunday, but I didn't have a moment until today, by which time of course there are several excellent accounts already out there, such as these two by gillo, and this by Cheryl Morgan. I will also be doing a brief account tomorrow over at The Awfully Big Blog Adventure. So these are just a few interstitial notes.

ashkitty had come down from Aberystwyth the previous evening and was staying over, and at 10am I arrived with her at St George's to help get things ready for the Event. (There was, throughout, some hesitation in my mind about what to call this happening. Memorial service was too grim, while celebration - though it was the official title - seemed to evoke balloons and party poppers, especially in sentences such as "When does the celebration start?") Getting things ready largely consisted of heaving many boxes of books down to the crypt and setting them out on trestle tables. I cannot, however, claim credit for the magnificent Babel Tower of Diana's foreign editions, which had been accumulating in her house for years: that was I think the work of ashkitty and Diana's son Micky, who was directing operations. I did however nab a rare copy of the German Skiver's Guide: Handbuch zum Webtauchen. I also had to sort a set of her book covers into chronological order for a display by the bar - something I think I did more or less correctly from memory, although I was a bit hazy about the late '80s and early '90s. Upstairs, the Steinway concert grand which is a fixture at St George's (which is often used by the BBC for lunchtime concerts) was being expertly played by an array of Diana's relatives, including her daughter-in-law, grandson and nephew. I state as a matter of record that the latter two musicians are both named Tom.

I was expecting a bedraggled Polly to turn up, but instead nineweaving came, amongst various others of Diana's friends and relatives, and after a while she, ashkitty and I made our way up the hill to the pub where an ever-increasing number of DWJ's fans were assembling, including fjm, chilperic, gillo, Cheryl, Gili Bar-Hillel and her husband, who had come from Israel, and (all the way from Australia) splanky, who was doing Eastercon and this on a kind of fan scholarship (I had no idea such things existed), as well as many friends from the 2009 conference and other DWJ meets past. Apart from having to wait almost an hour for a burger, it was a very pleasant lunch - and our party eventually ran to four concatenated tables, taking up much of what was, thankfully, a particularly cavernous pub.

The Event itself is already well described elsewhere. I thought it went very well, and managed to stay dry eyed until Dave Devereux's account of being with Diana at the end of her life - but there was plenty of laughter too, and I think Diana was approached from enough angles that we managed by a process of - not triangulation, perhaps, but polygonization? - to see her before us, if in a fitful way like a Star Wars hologram. It was the kind of event where one thought, "I wish Diana could see this - she'd really enjoy it!"

In the interval and afterwards, I met more old friends, including a student (whom I didn't recognize because she was in the wrong context - agh!), and the indefatigable and generous Jessica Yates, whom I never see but she gives me some carefully-selected photocopies from her bag. Blackwells had taken up position in the crypt, and were selling advance copies of Reflections, which looks a handsome volume. I hear that David Fickling, its publisher, was also somewhere about, but I managed to miss him.

Speakers, partners and dogsbodies went to Diana's house for a bite to eat afterwards, and I did a bit of ferrying of both people and unsold books (giving directions to Diana's house is like playing three-dimensional chess: it's generally easier to give the person a piggy-back). This occasioned my meeting the charming Megan Whalen Turner, who had come over with sdn and who helped me defy gravity by carrying dozens of books in a box that had very largely ceased to be. My opening conversational gambit was, "I guessed the twist in The Thief!" (I am so gauche.)

nineweaving was staying overnight, as was ashkitty, and we spent the evening watching The Owl Service on DVD - or at least a portion of it, for ashkitty, despite her expertise in matters Mabinogioniac, had somehow neglected ever to read the book, and I didn't want to give her too many spoilers. In the morning I went with nineweaving in a rather chilly drizzle to see the underestimated stones of Stanton Drew, the pockmarked grimness of which is mitigated by the rosy pink with which they are flecked, and by the little rock pool worlds of moss and lichen that have evolved on the flanks of their fallen. It was both too wet and too early to have lunch in garden of The Druid's Arms (where three outlying stones stand next to the picnic tables - the Cove of the monument), but we went the extra mile to Chew Magna and ate there. I've been round Chew Magna church several times, but only on this occasion did I stop to read the list of incumbents and their patrons. Most of the latter are local noblemen, although in the mid-16th century several of the Chew Magna vicars seem to have been installed directly by Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth (I wonder why?); but the most strking entry was for 1643, in which "Stubbs - a Preacher" was listed as vicar, while the entry in the column of patrons read simply: "The Mob".

Later that afternoon I took nineweaving to Bristol Airport, whence I hope and trust she made it to the next leg of her European tour - and so came home to catch up on marking, European bids, and proofing of articles - from the tight deadline parts of which I have just emerged.

Altogether, an excellent weekend.

I suspect that most of the people on my friends list who would wish to know about this already do so, and I beg their pardons, but this is by way of a signal boost.

A celebration of the life and work of Diana Wynne Jones will be held on Sunday 22nd April, at St George's, Brandon Hill, Bristol. St George's is a rather lovely early nineteenth-century ex-church (now concert venue) in the heart of Bristol.

The doors will open at 2pm, and the event proper will begin at half past. It will feature short contributions from Diana's family and friends, editors, fellow writers, fans and others. Subject to gaining the relevant permissions, it is also hoped to show extracts from film, TV and ballet adaptations of her work, and there will be a display of photographs from her life. There will also be about five minutes of audio from her last interview, which I conducted with her in February last year.* The event will end by 5pm. (There will be an interval.)

The event is free, and open to all.

* This interview is due to appear in full in Reflections later this year.

To cheer myself up, I unearthed some pictures that I took back in 2005, when I arranged a pre-birthday treat for Diana by giving her a picnic in Castle Park. This was followed by a trip in the tethered balloon that used to summer there. The light was wonderful, the balloon had a touch of Miyazaki, and we had great views of the bombed-out church, the old warehouses, and everything else that time and the Council had left standing in that part of Bristol.

Somehow the height and space and light and warmth feel like a good antidote for today.









More photos here.

Very sad to hear of the death of Diana Wynne Jones this morning.

I visited her in the hospice a few times over the last week, and it was noticeable how rapidly she was declining. They had been hoping to bring her home yesterday, but she was pronounced too ill for that - so I'm not surprised by this, but still shocked.

She had been in a good deal of pain, and the painkillers were making her drift in and out of consciousness much of the time. Also, the cancer had affected her eyesight. But when she was awake her mind and her humour were still there, even when I last saw her on Wednesday. I shall miss her a great deal.