Snowdrops, Chaos, Cake and Emotional Timescales ~ by Minnie Birch

The Prison Book Group is running late. The prison book group

photo courtesy of  91.7 Coast FM

quite often runs late. It is my first day back here after a few days, and chaos has hit minutes after opening the library door. The strangest of things happen here which you take in your stride, but are a stark reminder that you are in a prison, that this is an unusual place to be. Then as the chaos starts to settle, you boil the kettle, gather biscuits and a pile of books, and sit down in the comfy corner of the library, which looks just like any public library, and book group begins.

“How was your week?”

“What’s new?”

“Are you watching the football?”

“Who has read the book?”

And there, all of a sudden, in the most unusual of places you are with a group of like-minded people about to discuss a book.

This month’s book was Snowdrops by A.D Miller. We have been

Cover photo courtesy of Amazon

sent copies of this book from the National Literacy Trust, who run a scheme called Books Unlocked, which is about getting high quality books into prison book groups – they send us shortlisted Booker Prize novels to discuss. 

There are a lot of fantastic organisations that are all too aware that low literacy levels are rife in prison, that many people do not read or struggle with reading, that many never have read for pleasure at all. Encouraging people to develop their literacy skills is a key part of what the library service does, but this scheme is not about that.

This scheme plugs another gap, this scheme is for the readers, people who have spent their lives immersed in a good book, for whom reading has always been an escape, for those who can be “snobby” readers, want to dissect their books apart and have a shared reading experience. That’s who these books are for. 

As a bit of a slow reader myself, I can admit to struggling sometimes to get on-board with the narratives of this sort of fiction. Snowdrops, however, is a quick and easy read. I galloped through it and enjoyed the language and the story line. 

The overall feeling from the group is that it isn’t developed enough, we are left wanting to know a bit more about the place in which the book is set and the characters we are meeting.There’s a feeling the book is autobiographical and we have a lot of discussion around this. 

Then, as is inevitable (and important I feel) in any book group, we digress and we talk about other things. I find there is always something that makes me stop and think. This month my “stop and think” came from someone who was talking about how time has different faces. 

photo courtesy of Pexels.com/John Tong

He says he has been in prison 21 months and it has actually gone quite fast, it doesn’t feel that long, it all feels quite new still and the time is, thankfully for him at this point in his life, passing quickly. But he also mentioned how emotional time is different. He has been in prison 21 months and that has passed quickly, but due to his sentence, he's been away from his wife for 21 months and he says it feels like an eternity. You can see why I need to stop and think on this.

Cover photo courtesy of Amazon

Next month, we will be reading The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga--feel free to read along with us and send us any thoughts I can bring to our discussion. 

Disgrace, War, and Biscuits, Part 2 of Prison Book Group ~ by Minnie Birch

This month we had chosen to read two books, this is never a good idea because it usually means half of us only get around to reading one of the books, then we haven’t all read the same book and it all goes out the window. But that is okay. Book group is mostly about getting together, drinking tea, eating biscuits and putting the world to rights.

Well, I say drinking tea, but we actually have really fancy coffee from a fancy coffee machine! I do not know how a fancy coffee percolator ended up in a prison library and I do not ask, but extremely fancy coffee is the order of the day. I myself just have boring tea, I once had the library coffee and didn’t sleep for a week! So, I only have that on rare occasions where I really don’t see myself staying awake through the session.

The two books we read this month were:

War of the Worlds by H.G Wells and Disgrace by J.M Coetzee.

I was pleased War of the Worlds was on the list. I have never read

it, and it is one of those books that people give you the and-you-call- yourself-a-librarian look if you admit to having not read it.

It is of its time (published back in 1898) and the language is hard to navigate (for me anyway.) I found myself rereading sections, losing the plot line, getting itchy for descriptions to end, and action to begin. In the end, with the book group looming, I chose to listen to the remainder of the book in audio format. This is something I rarely do but something I really enjoyed it. 

The “official report” style of War of the Worlds lent itself well to being read aloud and I found I was able to indulge in the descriptive passages rather than be frustrated by them. The only other book group member who read the book has English as his second language so he, too, found it hard to navigate (although he has a much better excuse than myself, as English is my first – and only – language!) In summary we both felt the same: worth the read, interesting look at humanity, mostly glad we read it, so now we can say we have. 

Disgrace is a Booker prize winning novel and it isn’t hard to see why. It is a short book that packs in a lifetime of stories. It manages to hold up a mirror to you, make you ask questions of yourself, mess with your preconceived notions of right and wrong, and leave you not too sure exactly what might become of characters you’ve gotten to know along the way. 

It was very popular with the group. We are a diverse group both in age, background, and ethnicity; and so far whatever we have read, someone always seems to be able to say “Well this is/isn’t a fair representation – I would know, I lived it in my twenties” or some similar thing. 

We then stopped taking about the book and started talking about each other – which is exactly what a good book group should do, I think. Disgrace allowed me to delve further in to the worlds of some of these people and maybe shed a bit of light on the mystery of how anyone finds themselves facing a prison sentence.

If anybody would like to read along with us, maybe send me some of your thoughts to share with the group before our next meeting-- then we are reading Sinner Man by Lawrence Block and our next meeting is on Monday 20th May.

Minnie Birch is a singer/songwriter from the UK and a regular monthly contributor to Originality by Design. You can reach Minnie by email at minniebirch@hotmail.co.uk

Josie Dear...Why I Decided to set up my own Charity ~ by Minnie Birch

     

     Over the years I have done lots of voluntary work and a lot of that has been in prison settings working on projects that reflect two of my biggest passions: Stories and Music. (I must say I have also had the great opportunity of being employed at different times by wonderful charities and organisations who have paid me to do this work!)
     During these years of working and volunteering, I've had moments where I have had ideas of things we could be doing to contribute to the rehabilitative culture of prisons. I haven’t always been able to action them very easily, or at all, because of lack of funding, or once I get the funding, there are major processes for getting that money cleared and to a point where I can action it.
     When I went to apply for funding, many of my ideas didn’t fall neatly under one bracket. Was it an arts project? A literacy project? Something for local people? My ideas didn’t fit neatly and so this shut me out of being able to apply a lot of the time. My ideas were simply about trying to bring joy to people in challenging times.
     So, I launched my own charity, Josie Dear, and we set about our first campaign. Here are the details of that campaign…
     I have had some great success over the last year bringing performers into prison settings to share their music and their life stories. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive with comments such as:
     “For an evening I was removed from my stress and worries.”
     “Someone like Joe giving their time to come in and perform for us is really nice. It reminds you there are people who will still do something for you even now.”
     “Music brought us all together. I felt unity here with everyone.”
     Most musicians are willing to come to us for free or for a very reduced fee, but I would love to be able to offer people travel expenses and buy them dinner or lunch at the very least.
     So far my campaign has raised over £400 which allows me to keep putting on events and bringing musicians into prison settings to share their passions and their stories.
     Why did I call the charity Josie Dear?

     “I know you love me, Josie, dear. Your heart was ever fond and true.” These were the adapted words to “I will take you home again Kathleen,” which I had the honour of singing at my Grandma’s funeral, chosen by my Granpa as the perfect way to say goodbye to his little Irish sweetheart of 60+ years.
     My Granma was full of love and joy. If I told you I had a little Irish Nanna who was full of joy and sometimes very naughty, then whatever stereotypes you are conjuring up in your mind, that was my Granma.
     She would dance and sing and make naughty jokes with the lightest heart and this little Irish lilt that never seemed to fade, no matter how long she lived away from the Emerald Isles.
   

 She also wasn’t someone who took any BS. She was forward speaking. You knew if she disliked you and she didn’t have much time for nonsense.
     So, if I wanted to do more to spread some joy but didn’t want to deal with some of the barriers that were in my way, to set up on my own and start making a difference…well Josie, my Granma, seemed the perfect person to do that in honour of.

Spread a little Joy. Cut out the nonsense 😊

Minnie Birch is a singer/songwriter from the UK and a regular contributor to Originality by Design. If you are interested in learning more about Minnie's charity, click JOSIE DEAR.