I can’t quite remember when I first came across the ground-breaking World in Action television series which began with Seven Up! in 1963. Whenever it was, I was gripped. Under the slightly autocratic leadership of Michael Apted, the programme’s director, a group of children who turned seven in 1963 were brought together for something which was part social experiment, part genius programming and part ongoing historical documentary. There had never been anything like it before and there would never be anything like it again. The series concluded with Seventy Up this year.
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Keeping it simple with the laptop and a mug of some delicious beverage. Note the out-of-control Writer’s Fringe
Turn it On!
When I first started writing blogs back in 2019, it was all relatively straightforward. I sat at my laptop and stuff came out of my head. Then I found some pictures, uploaded everything to Blogger and posted it. Bosh. I didn’t have a lot of writer’s equipment back then. The aforementioned laptop (long since worn out and replaced), my phone for photos and the kettle, vital for all aspiring writers. Sometimes I employed electricity via the light switch. Simpler times.
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Having Your Cake and Eating It
I spent the first eighteen years of my life in an Essex village. Everyone knew everyone. In the graveyard at St Mary’s church on one side of the village green, the same names appeared on the gravestones. On the other side, the Baptist Church (still referred to as the Chapel by many of the older residents) had replaced the original tabernacle in the Sixties, but when I was little, child-related activities were held in what was essentially a hut on stilts.
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Me, Miss Jerrold and Mr Krasonis at Farlingaye (guess which one of us isn’t a fan of having their photo taken)
Back to School
Sometimes I hear people saying that their school days were the best of their lives and I always think, “Really? Those were your happy times? Being put into an institution with a bunch of random people and being made to follow rules you had no control over?”
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Flushed With Success
One of the most common questions asked of authors is this:
“Where do you get your ideas from?”
From my actual life, is the answer.
When all my children were still at primary school, I helped to run an ambitious Christingle. We had around twenty-five angels of varying sizes, seven Wise Men, eight shepherds, an innkeeper and the Holy Family, comprising Mary and Joseph plus the Baby Jesus played by somebody’s doll. At the dress rehearsal, there was a punch-up between the innkeeper and one of the shepherds. Central Casting (me) had forgotten that they loathed each other. A wrangler was appointed for each people group to ensure there was no recurrence of violence. Nits broke out amongst the heavenly host. There was a lot of scratching.
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The Writer's Life
April is one of my favourite months for several reasons. It’s Mr Leigh’s birthday, the bluebell wood next door bursts into bloom with its intensely blue fragrant carpet, daffodils are over, camellias are on their last gasp, but the wisteria is starting to come out as are leaves on the trees and the forget-me-nots which I definitely didn’t plant last year. 7th April is the anniversary of the creation of Isabella M Smugge and reminds me of that moment when a ludicrously self-satisfied woman with everything money could buy sprang into my mind and started off my fiction career.
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Don't Get Involved
Since I became a fiction writer, I’ve been privileged to go and help with Year Nine and Ten Careers Days around Suffolk, to give talks on World Book Day and to deliver inspirational workshops. What, you might be asking, has a woman in her riper years got to say to a bunch of GenZs who know more about technology than she ever will, who are inheriting an earth which looks entirely different to the one she inhabited at fourteen and fifteen and who, we must hope, will make decisions as adults that mean that love wins over hate and compassion over greed.
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No Call for Buckets
Back in 2001, along with much of the rest of the UK population, I started watching a new kind of television show. It purported to be a documentary, set in a fairly ordinary, Slough-based company. The camera lingered too long on participants’ awkward expressions, it picked up whispered conversations which weren’t meant for public consumption and it kicked off one of the most hotly debated, “Will they, won’t they?” office relationships in the shape of Tim and Dawn.
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A Good Clear Out
This month marks the fifth birthday of the publication of my first novel, The Diary of Isabella M Smugge. I made her up as a joke for a blog I wrote in April 2020, sick of people on Instagram banging on about baking banana bread, living their best lives, making memories and doing Joe Wicks every morning. There was a point when I was publishing four blogs a month. I was rarely stuck for ideas. Fifty-four years of life experience and obsessive reading had filled up the header tank in my brain to the very brim.
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On What I Hate I Feed Not: Or The Strange Case of the Medlars
Welcome back to the Ruth Leigh Writes blog! If you’re reading this, it’s because you subscribed (thank you), you follow me on the socials, you read my books or we’ve met at an event. However you know me, it’s good to have you along.
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Newsletter Time! Sparkles, School Talks and Colin’s Antics
Welcome to this month’s round-up from your friendly neighbourhood author (that’s me, Ruth Leigh). I’ve finally handed over My Own Darling Child for editing—yes, it’s happening—and I’m already plotting the next book with some familiar Issy Smugge flavour stirred in. Between literary festivals, creative writing workshops, school visits and the ongoing adventures of Colin (who is, once again, upright and adored), it’s been a joyful whirlwind. There’s even a surprise book review and a chance to meet me (and possibly Colin) in person. Pop the kettle on and have a read…
Peaks and Troughs
I’m back! It’s been a while since I wrote anything for my own blog. I’ve been busy writing the three Isabella M Smugge books, my first collection of Jane Austen short stories (I’ll tell you about that in the next blog) and generally throwing myself headfirst into the life of a full time writer. Back at the end of 2021 when I considered what that would look like, I visualised days full of ideas and creativity, books selling in huge numbers, people coming up to me in the street and murmuring, “Aren’t you – Ruth Leigh?” Lots of fun stuff has happened and it’s been great, but glamorous it ain’t.
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Andy Chamberlain interviews Ruth Leigh as part of the blog tour for The Continued Times of Isabella M Smugge
Writer, Andy Chamberlain, interviews Ruth Leigh as part of the blog tour for The Continued Times of Isabella M Smugge.
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Creating a World: Hashtags, Selfies and Self-Plumping Pillows
It’s been quite a while since I published anything on here. In my defence, I have been quite busy, writing novels (three published in eighteen months), doing my freelance work and keeping the family alive. But you know, it’s time! It really is. These days, all the evidence points to me being a Proper Writer.
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Happy Second Anniversary, Isabella!
Just for a laugh, I made up a woman who was the complete opposite of me. Rich, posh, skinny with an agent and a publisher and a gorgeous Grade II listed house. Out it went in April and got good comments. On 7th May, I wrote about her again and to my utter amazement received the following message from Tony Collins, a literary agent.
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And She's Off!
The online book launch for the Trials of Isabella M Smugge. Back in the day (by which I mean when we didn’t routinely wear masks and bandy terms like, “LFT” and “PCR test” around), authors, what had written books, would have book launches. These would take place in bookshops, or pubs, or libraries, they tell me. Lots of people would come, buy their signed copy, listen to the author speak and sip fizz and nibble canapes. It was all jolly good fun, apparently.
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No More Eeros Anymore
Simple elements of modern life, which everyone else takes for granted, pass the Leigh household by. Suffolk isn’t known for its fast internet speeds, and that’s fine. If I wanted super-duper all-singing all-dancing full-fat broadband I’d have stayed in Essex. However, even by the county’s standards, out here it’s lamentable. It drops out at least twice a week. Even when we upgraded to the Very Posh Router it still disappeared from time to time, waiting until I was up against a deadline and then deciding to go off and do something else.
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#shoplocal
Only a few days till Christmas. How did that happen? It seems like yesterday that we were struggling through yet another lockdown, unsure of what the future would bring. It’s been quite a year. Queues at petrol stations, new Covid variants, Christmas parties that happened, then didn’t happen, then probably did happen but it was OK because everyone stuck to the guidelines and they were really, really tired with running the country and all, so they deserved to let their hair down.
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Shameful is the head that wears the crown
A lifelong Guardian reader, I followed the links my friend sent me. The embers blazed up into those old familiar flames as I read about the shameful part the then Foreign Secretary (our current PM, bless his fluffy little blond noggin) had played in Nazanin’s incarceration. Anger grew in my heart as I did the background research I should have done when this story made headline news the first time around.
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Isabella Smugge says #challengeaccepted Part Two
PART TWO - I love a challenge and so does my heroine, insanely successful lifestyle blogger Isabella M Smugge. Some kind person (I know not who) came up with a book challenge, helpfully named #31daysofoctoberchallenge. The idea is that you post every day on your socials with that hashtag, in whatever style you like. Top mate and writer Wendy H Jones alerted me to the challenge – thanks Wendy!
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