A Caribbean folklore play with the children of the diaspora in mind. The summer holidays were looming and my full quota of grandchildren were set to spend most of the weeks with me. So, I decided to try out my script on them. We were going to make a movie. We read the play together […]Read Post ›
Alex brought home a framed print of a painting of Caribbean stick fight. Three men with sticks and two women appealing or warning. It is titled The Cudgelling Fight (circa 1780). The artist, Gilda Thebaud Nassier. There was something reminiscent of the Agostino Brunias paintings, with its contrived tableau of stick fighters and spectators. I […]Read Post ›
It’s been months. Life was hectic and Birdie and Sy wouldn’t let me rest. But finally it’s complete, the final instalment in The Shadows trilogy. If you missed the first two parts you can find them here.But in the meantime… ‘Birdie and Sy’. Two lovers from similar London backgrounds (Caribbean immigrant grandparents). But Birdie lives […]Read Post ›
A spooky story for the festive season. It’s Part 2 of The Shadows Know, The Shadows Suite. The story of the man in the shadows continues.
Lamya Al-Mugheiry, singer, writer, poet. (1973 – 2009) A chance taken on an old CD. A CD buried in a charity shop, in a box of forgotten dreams. Memory lane to the 90s and early 20s. Panning for gold in a barren stream and suddenly a nugget of real weight was revealed. A gift that […]Read Post ›
Many, many years ago I wrote a short story that was a good idea but a bad short story. And for many, many years Alex insisted I shouldn’t discard the idea. Then out of the blue, he introduced me to a brilliant young rock guitarist from Hastings, Adam Nash. Who would have thought a Caribbean […]Read Post ›
Long ago but not that long, two French performers, Anouk Morel (musician) and Stephanie Gibert (actor), came across my blog, River-Stories, and approached me to write a children’s play filled with Caribbean folklore characters. Together with a theatre company in St. Etienne, Compagnie La Baroufada, they have produced the play. And opening night is tonight! […]Read Post ›
Last Friday, 6th May, as part of Caribbean Folklore Storytime’s celebration of Mother’s Day in the Caribbean, I read a story I had discovered way back in 1985 or so, Girl by Antiguan/American author Jamaica Kincaid. This very short story/poem, for me, reflects the gritty, practical truth of motherhood, the tensions of mother-daughter relationships and […]Read Post ›
About a month ago Caribbean Folklore Storytime had their Ananse and All Things Web storytelling session and Brian Richardson (actor and 1/3 of LAB productions) did a live Zoom performance of my Ananse story. It’s from my children’s novel ‘Journey as the Wire Bend, Up River where the Story End’, published by Bogle L’Overture Press […]Read Post ›
I only recently came across some writings by Mortimo ‘Kumie’ Planno, a Rastafari teacher. As a Rasta it made me smile to read and so I’m sharing this bit of history that like some much of our history seems to have slipped through the cracks. Mortimo St George “Kumi” Planno, (6 September 1929, Cuba – 5 […]Read Post ›
