More than Writers

I grew up in Whitstable, Kent, about a three-minute bike ride from the sea. For some indigenous folk, Whitstable is a proud member of the Norf Kenn Cose where the unspoken rule of leevin’ ou’ ‘ard consonance is a way of life, innit? My mother, an elocution and speech therapist, often despaired as I absorbed the Whitstable ‘Oi’ mixing as I did with all and sundry, from the posh end of Chestfield - pronounced with a definite t, f and d - to Whitstable town centre, where such luxuries were deemed unnecessary. That, and an American father with his soft Kentuckian accent, left me, vocally, closer to Greenland (!) than Washington DC or London.  We absorb our environments, and if we’re not exactly chameleons or shape-shifters, their deposits in us are long-lasting and emerge in our writing, in the content and characters we invent for poetry or novels.  Low tide in Whitstable is a thing of beauty. The mudflats clear the sea back about half a mile from shore every six hours, exposin...