Sally Kindberg and islands

Islands are like magnets to me. Some I’ve visited because I was commissioned to write about them, or run workshops on them, others simply because I was curious. Sometimes my notes stay in one of my drawing books, biding their time before they emerge, perhaps in another iteration, or woven into another story. The stamp featuring Jean Grey was a chance find. I didn’t really know who she was, but apparently she has special powers, which I wish I had too.  Jellyfish appear on the Hven (aka Ven)  drawing because I went swimming  from one of its beaches.  I’m terribly shortsighted, and suddenly realised I was surrounded by a crowd of beautiful jellyfish, swimming alongside.  Luckily the non-stinging type. Or maybe it was island magic. After all, the island, floating in the Oresund between Denmark and Sweden, had once belonged to a 16th century astronomer and magician.

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With the Society of Authors outside Meta’s London headquarters

Last week showing solidarity with other authors outside Meta’s HQ in Kings Cross.

 

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Sally Kindberg and some family photos

A week or so ago I was sent a copy of this photo of me with an older sister (top right) and two cousins.  It was taken in my Nottingham grandmother’s garden I think. She also had a large dressing up box in her ‘haunted’ attic. A tiny and sickly child, I was sent briefly to stay with my aunt and uncle in Skegness for a few days.  I was in heaven as my cousins, seen here, had copies of just about every Dandy and Beano annual.  I was later mortified during that visit by my falling into Skegness boating lake and being rescued by my boy cousin (here wearing a blonde wig). He then carried me, dripping wet, back home on his shoulders.  What a hero! I found his father, my large uncle, rather terrifying.  In charge of Skegness lifeboat and a keen birdwatcher, he blew on a hunting horn before his dinner. In a good natured way, my aunt assured me.

This is my mother with two of her dogs. She once told me she had named me after one of them.  My mother hated any form of domesticity, loved dancing in her youth, especially the tango, and rather liked babies.

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Sally Kindberg and the House of Mysterious Objects

Another workshop event at Swedenborg House on April 16th. Check their site to register for a free ticket.  You could bring your own mysterious object to draw, although there are plenty of mysterious things in situ.  You could also could bring a friend. For ages 6 – 100.

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Sally Kindberg and a happy school visit

Last week I visited an infants and junior school in Windsor. Recently my school visits have been to Sixth Forms, running workshops for the Royal Literary Fund encouraging writing skills, although in the past I have run many workshops in schools and other venues. This visit was with a much larger group of very lively younger children! I went through a slide show of some of my work, emphasising the importance of having curiosity and of reading as much as possible, telling the school assembly how I had been a very late reader. I just didn’t get it, until I was about seven or eight. Then I couldn’t stop.Then, volunteers from the audience pulled faces showing different moods.  Children drew them as characters and gave them a voice.  No actual cats involved.

Just a small sample of the wonderful drawings made that morning by a group of fifty or so.  Early the next day a box of flowers was delivered with this card – how lovely!

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Lunchtime excursion 1 – tennis soup

There were two types of soup at the tennis club cafe – lime green and bright orange. They tasted the same.  The occasional sound of laughter and lovely plocking of tennis balls outside made up for the dreadful soup.  I wondered about the identity of the owners of the two racquets on the wall.

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Tricky Tricks

Yesterday experienced a bit of nostalgia … for when the world wasn’t quite so bonkers, and when you could actually go and visit a publisher with an idea and some pictures after talking to them on the phone. The publisher said come round but you must demonstrate how at least two of these tricks work.  My list  included Tangle Torture, Stuck to the Floor and Unexpected Goose.  I did the demo but one of the tricks went badly wrong (the publisher was  … briefly incapacitated), so I expected the worst.  Tricky Tricks was commissioned the following week.

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The Queen in my suitcase

‘Aha!’ said a member of Glasgow airport’s security staff as a small Royal person was revealed lurking at the bottom of my suitcase.  Ten years ago this summer, whilst returning from the Outer Hebrides, my luggage set off a shrill alarm.

For two weeks that August I’d been running workshops in seven schools dotted round the coast of the Isle of Lewis, showing children my books, and encouraging them to write and draw stories, often in comic strip form.  And doing a bit of exploration.

The first school I visited, on the west coast of Lewis, was at Bernara, where all seven children had colds. We made a Book of Germs from their drawings, which cheered them up. The second workshop was at Uig. Recently I found notes and drawings from my visit:

Afterwards I nip into a nearby Pictish jelly-baby house. Named after its interior shape, not ancient diet. Later take a brief walk on Uig beach, where the tiny twelfth century Lewis chessmen, carved from walrus tusk and whale tooth, were discovered two hundred years ago.

Locals thought they were elves.  No one knows for sure where they were from, but probably from Norway?  ’Where exactly were they found?’ I asked at the little shop, but locals won’t say.  They don’t want visiting treasure hunters digging on their beach.  The beach is beautiful, miles of white sand. ‘It’s very crowded today,’ a new friend observed.  There were five people on the beach.

Nobody’s exactly sure how many original chess pieces were found, possibly more than those now in museums.  Secret sales probably took place. Some of the originals are in the British Museum, some in the Museum of Scotland.  I’m impressed by the berserkers, so called because they’re biting their shields, presumably working themselves up to a battle fury.

One theory about their origin is that they were carved by an Icelandic woman, Margret the Adroit, wife of a noble priest, but who knows?  And the Queen in my suitcase? I wasn’t smuggling a precious artefact out of the Isle of Lewis.  She’s a metal-bottomed replica given as a parting gift from the arts centre who invited me to the island.  The Queen has settled in my small London home now, but is her disconcerting stare a longing for the sea and the far islands?

Background for the Isle of Lewis Queen photo is a detail from a print by Emerald Mosley

 

 

 

 

 

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Travelling to Mars by boat

As a pre-Christmas treat last year I visited Mars, travelling by boat. After all I’ve worked as a travel writer,and was always interested in space.  But it’s an uneasy interest now, after intentions for space colonialism were made by a US president’s billionaire buddy and CEO of SpaceX, vehemently voicing his plans for Mars amongst other things. My feelings about sending humans into space have changed drastically since I was younger and had astronautical ambitions.  I stick to my robot collection these days, which includes a few clockwork space explorers.

My riverine journey to Mars was a gentle affair, sailing down the wintry and slightly choppy Thames … the tide was on the move … on an Uber boat to the elegance of Greenwich’s Painted Hall, where artist Luke Jerram‘s glowing replica of the planet Mars was suspended, shuddering slightly.

The Painted Hall itself is part of the old Royal Naval College, where once pensioned off sailors took their meals.  Paintings of historical and mythological characters celebrating power, including Mars the god of war, adorn its ceiling and walls.  It’s the work of 18th century artist Sir James Thornhill.  He was paid £3 for each square yard, and seems to have painted every surface he could find, spending nearly twenty years doing so. Here he is posing with his brushes and palette …

An enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide, met by chance, related how during restoration of this wall, where naval officers dined at the raised end of the Hall, traces of gravy were removed from its painted surfaces. Thrown by boisterous officers after an over-indulgent meal perhaps.

Lying on the floor to get a better view of the ceiling, I spotted the portrait of the only pensioned off sailor included amongst the celebrities, an old bearded seadog called John Worley, here posing as Winter. Tucked into another corner was 16th century Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe.  Years ago I was commissioned by London’s Evening Standard to visit and write about Ven, Tycho’s island home and site of his magical observatories. Years later Tycho was included in The Comic Strip History of Space, I ran school workshops around his life and achievements and more recently revisited the island for more exploration.

It was dark by the time I set off upriver to Embankment Pier, the Thames lit up by reflections of riverside buildings. Sadly no sign of Mars or any other planets in the cloudy sky that night.

Luke Jerram’s Helios is at the Painted Hall in Greenwich from 25th January until 25th March 2025

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Sally Kindberg and Smithfield Market

Recently I took a short cut through Smithfield Market. The gates’ colour scheme reflect the Victorian’s invention of super bright colours, especially green and purple.  The meat market has been here for over 800 years, and is currently under threat of closure.  In the 18th and 19th century it was the site of an annual ‘wife sale‘.  I was once told by a cheeky 21st century worker ‘That’s the only reason I got a job here’.

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