Serendipity (part one) by Suzanne Hudson

 

On a cold January morning earlier this year, I did a mad dash into the centre of town to buy some birthday presents for my Dad.  My parents were arriving later that day, to stay for the weekend.  I bought my Dad a few nice gifts but felt that I wanted to get him something else to go with them.  As I’d been driving through town during the previous few weeks, I’d noticed a sign outside the local Print Workshop and Gallery, advertising a ‘Print Sale’.  I wondered if I had time to pop in and see if they had anything already framed that I could give him for his birthday.   Thinking that it wouldn’t take long, I headed the short distance to the Print Workshop and rang the bell.

I was welcomed in by a friendly guy and taken in to the small gallery space, with a tiny shop in one corner.  The man introduced himself as ‘Martyn’, showed me around and explained which prints were for sale.   I asked him if any of the work was his and he explained it wasn’t, although he was an artist as well as being the part-time curator of the exhibition space.  He asked me if I was an artist and I said something that I’ve never said before: ‘No, I’m a writer.’  We got chatting then about my writing and I told him about the creative writing course I had done at Kirklees College, how the Writers' Lunch blog had evolved from that and about our newly self-published anthology ‘Dining on Words’.

I had a look around and selected a ready framed print of a bird for my Dad.  Martyn then told me about a project they were hoping to get funding for.  It was inspired by a private collection of original World War One postcards, sent home by soldiers from both sides of the combat.  Martyn explained that they were hoping to do some workshops with local school children, using the postcards as stimulus for artwork and creative writing.  My heart skipped a beat.  I have a deep love of history and I’m fascinated by anything to do with primary sources such as diaries, letters and postcards.  As a primary school teacher, I love working with children and I immediately expressed a wish to be involved and offered my services as a volunteer.

A thought crossed my mind and before I could censor myself I was asking Martyn if he would be interested in selling our ‘Dining on Words’ book in the shop.  To my surprise and delight he said ‘Yes’ straight away.  I said that I would come back soon with a copy of the book to show him.  When I returned two weeks later, Martyn had news.  The lottery funding for the postcard project had been approved and they were about to advertise for a Creative Writing Artist to run workshops in schools.  It was my dream job!  I knew straight away that I wanted to apply and I rushed home to tell my husband.

I checked the Arts Council website obsessively until one day a few weeks later, the advert appeared.  I shrieked in excitement and gave my six year old niece, who was in the room at the time, a fright!  Something felt so right about it…but did I really stand a chance?

(To be continued…)