Fifty years ago, in March 1971, Mum finally qualified as a chartered librarian and became an Associate of the Library Association. To achieve this at that time she had to have been a member of the Library Association for three years, go to college full-time for two years, and have three years’ experience of working in a library, one of which had to be after she passed her library exams.
She was really pleased about that, especially as it meant that she was paid more money for doing the same job…
…but something happened two months later which pleased her even more. On May 11th 1971 her very first short story, Travellin’ Man, was published in an Irish magazine called Woman’s Choice Weekly!
Now in the past Mum’s told me that, when you start trying to write short stories, you’re always given two pieces of advice. The first is to write about what you know and the second is to study the magazine you want to write for to make sure your story will be suitable for it.
But Mum didn’t do either of these things with Travellin’ Man. She wrote it for the last lesson in a correspondence course for short story writing and, although she was a 22 year old woman…
…she told the story from the point-of-view of a 35 year old man – and it started out in Philadelphia, a city in a country she’d never visited at that time.
And, on the recommendation of her course tutor, she’d sent it to a magazine she’d never even heard of, which was also based in a city in a country she’d never visited.
Reading it again – with 50 years’ more writing experience behind her – she can see places where she would have written it differently now. And her main character would certainly not have smoked a cigarette as that soon became taboo in stories for women’s magazines.
But she still likes the story itself – which was partly inspired by the Rod McKuen poem, Lonesome Cities, which she first read in a book given to her as a birthday present from one of her friends in the USA.
I like it as well, so I’ve persuaded her to type it out below so that you can also read it if you like. Just remember that it was written 50 years ago, when the world was a very different place – and Mum was 50 years younger. Thank you!
Follow my next blog: 146. MY MUM THE STORY-TELLER – PART THIRTY-NINE
23/05/2021
Wilf the bear-faced blogger 