Book Week at Garden School
Presentation of signed novels to Ed Smith, Head of History, gifted to the school library
On March 5th and 6th, I enjoyed the privilege of being guest author as part of Book Week at Garden International School. This invitation was of particular significance to me because once upon a time (a good line for authors!) I was myself a teacher of history at Garden School Secondary when it was still housed in an old colonial house in a garden on Jalan Kia Peng in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. That was over forty years ago but was a memorable time for me as a young teacher and a newcomer to Malaysia - a very formative period in my life.
Primary and Secondary circa 1980
[picture courtesy of GIS website]
My connections with Garden School do not end there. My son-in-law is a member of staff at the new (to me) huge Garden International School campus in Mont Kiara and my two grandsons are currently in Primary School. You can often find me on the sidelines on Sports’ Day, swimming events, or in the theatre at their fabulous productions. So my relationship with GIS runs deep - it is one of my own alma maters in a sense.
Garden International School, Mont Kiara today
So here I was, many years later, back at GIS in a very different capacity - now as a published author in school to talk about my novels, history and the art of creative writing. I conducted a workshop for some of the mums on Tuesday March 5th and then on the following day I led sessions with the entire Year 8, a total of around 120 children. It was an amazing experience - and quite a challenge. The students were absolutely wonderful - so engaged and responsive, so respectful and generous. It was also great to be back with teachers again - I met many members of staff who were all very supportive. I was most grateful for all their help.
The challenge for me was to find a focus to engage with the students. My books are not particularly aimed at a YA audience although I think I would encourage teenagers to read them - there is no unsuitable material in them. I was delighted to discover that Year 8 are currently studying a history topic on the ‘East India Company and the British Empire in India’, so they were perfectly prepared for the background to my books. When I was a teacher, British students were more familiar with a Roman legionary, a medieval castle or the Tudor court than the more recent history of Britain’s global reach in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, so this news came as very welcome to me. For those amongst us in the old days, who find themselves largely ignorant of Britain’s colonial past, I urge you to listen to the wonderful Empire podcast with William Dalrymple and Anita Anand - quite an eye opener to fill the gaps in our history of this vital part of our past.
But I digress….back to the workshops. First up a short pictorial journey to give a bit of background to my novels and the lives of Francis Light, Martinha Rozells and their children.
I began with a quote from the famous novelist George R. R. Martin (A Game of Thrones) which definitely sums up my feelings about books and reading. After all - we were here for Book Week!
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies.
The person who never reads lives only one.
There were lots of portraits and maps and paintings on the slides to give the students a sense of the 18th century world with the proviso to remember that however ‘old fashioned’ the past looks to them, to the people alive at that time, it was their ‘present’. Everything about their world was modern and fashionable; they thought they were at the height of scientific and technological progress. It’s hard for us to appreciate that - but perhaps by entering their world through a novel, we may have a chance to live their lives for a while….
I wanted them particularly to think about:
Why do we know so much more about British men than women or the people of the Straits at this time.?
What can a historical novel do than a history book cannot?
How the modern map of Asia has changed since the late 18th century
The importance of the sea in trade - is it still as important today?
The girls had plenty to say about this slide!
Then we reached the best part of the session. The students had prepared a series of questions for me - I had not been given the questions beforehand. Instead of a single moderator, I had a classroom full of moderators who definitely kept me on my mettle. I had some of the most probing and interesting questions I have ever had. Children are so very deep thinking! As well as talking about the history side of the novels, there were great questions on the writing process, finding a publisher, the balance between fact and fiction - I suspect there are a few budding authors in Year 8 Garden School!
Year 8 keeping me on my toes!
As we recently celebrated Chinese New Year and welcomed the Year of the Dragon, it seemed appropriate to mention why my first two novels are called Dragon and Pearl. This gave us a little taste of Chinese philosophy and the importance of the motifs of the dragon and pearl not only in Chinese art, but also throughout South East Asia.
The sessions came to a conclusion with Story time - who doesn’t love listening to a story? I had prepared two readings, one each from Dragon and Emporium both featuring children. It gave us the opportunity to think about the creative process of story writing - after all we were celebrating books!
The first extract from Dragon was about the young Francis Light when he was about the same age as them. It features an amusing incident about a real piece of 18th century graffiti found at Woodbridge School and directly connected to Francis, who is quite the young rogue. It gave me the opportunity to point out that when introducing characters to your readers, the best way is through a narrative incident that reveals some truths about their personality. It is much more interesting than simply telling your reader a lot of facts about someone.
Can you make out the names scratched onto the window?
The second reading concerned William Light, the seven year old son of Francis Light who was sent from Penang to Suffolk in the charge of a sea captain who was a friend of his father’s. Once back in Suffolk, he was to be delivered into the hands of an old school pal of Francis Light who was to become his guardian and put him into a good school. Much of the extract is told from the little boy’s point of view, using his thoughts and memories as a way to reveal his emotional distress at being sent from his family home on the island to a land far away, a six month sea voyage largely amongst strangers. It gave us the chance to consider how a novel can take us inside the mind of another person, using memory as a tool to access emotional truths. A book can do this but a movie cannot - the technique in film and television of showing memory is by flashback - which is not quite as personal.
Not a dry eye in the house!
It was a very intense session - the children were absolutely fantastic throughout. Kudos to the teachers. I rediscovered why I loved teaching - although at my age, I could not do this every day. I had forgotten what hard work it is, even with the most engaged of students. My thanks to Ed Smith, Kate Germany, Kevin Allatt, Roger Fortune, Amy Marsh, Nirmala Devi and all the class teachers who participated throughout the two days. I had a wonderful time. My special thanks, of course, to the students themselves. And best of luck in your historical story competition - I can’t wait to judge the entries!
