Laurie Lee

The commission had begun as a work of fiction based on experience, but changed in the writing to become autobiographical.

As the poet and memoirist Laurie Lee said of writing autobiography, It is a laying to rest of ghosts and an ordering of the mind.

Two autobiographical plays and a memoir later and I confirm this is true.

Also, my mum and dad have become characters in my dramas and I've found rich seams of stories in unexpected corners of memory.

So much to unpack there.

Interesting comment at the beginning about how sort of fiction morphed into nonfiction for him, which slightly echoes what you were saying about writing your brother's story.

Laurie Lee quote, a laying to rest of ghosts and an ordering of the mind.

I wondered if that spoke to you of your own life writing and how you mentor it in other people, as I know you do often now.

And I turn up and I thought, "I've...

This is my house." And behind it, there's called Swift's Hill, and it's this hill, and it's where Laurie Lee wrote Cider With Rose.

Yes.

He's Slad, wasn't it? That's right, innit?

Slad, yes.

And so there's everything about Laurie Lee, and I'm like, "What? Where is...

I've never even been here." And it was just, I remember going to see the house, and then I walked up the lane and I just looked across this valley, and I remember seeing two hares-

Oh

And that, that scary memory of that being associated with a sport they love and a recreational activity is gonna be with them for their lives, I'm sure.

Laurie, I appreciate this.

Thank you.

No problem.

That was Laurie Lee, a pediatric nurse and co-author of CMAJ article.

We reached her in Calgary, Alberta.

[upbeat music]Very early this morning, history was made at the US Open.

And I think they had an eccentrics corner.

So it's a very small part of, so I decided that that would be the way to go because I read about some of the eccentric exhibitions and it was actually curated by Laurie Lee, but some of the, it was so ridiculous, the smoke grinding machine, which the whole time I was writing this book, I thought, well, that was one of the rejects because there's lots and lots and lots of things that were rejected, including the collapsible rubber bus.

It could go under bridges.

And I thought, I've always thought the smoke, in fact, they brought the smoke grinding machine into the building because none of them could work out what it was.

So this is where Scandinavia fits into the picture.

Well, you need that, and you need, you n- you need resilience of your supply lines, you know, and that, and that applies to, to, to metals and rare earth metals as much as it does to, to food and having Laurie Lee wanging in your ears in broadcasts.

[laughs]

I mean, y- y- you know, it's, it's, it's, it's all, it's all part of it in a time of war.