Yesterday, I attended the Kyoto Prize lecture by Carol Gilligan. The psychologist has shown how women in particular silence themselves and say what they think they should say rather than express their true experience and opinion. Here is her lecture.
She stressed the importance of listening. To do that well she says you have to avoid judgement and employ curiosity. That triggered memories for me. For 10 years, I interviewed interesting people from five continents, most religions and backgrounds from aged 29-88 and cast them away on my mythical island of Oxtopia. Castaway was a magic word, even Chris Patten the last governor of Hong Kong and former chancellor of Oxford University let me cast him away and he was frank and open.
Oxford Castaways
Many of the castaways told me stories they had never told before. Kenyan born Nancy Mundenyo Hunt (Founder of the Nasio Trust) confessed that her father had not registered her birth because she was a girl. It was a few years later when her oldest sister named her Nancy and registered her, so she is not certain if the date her sister wrote is correct. Caroline Qu told me that the founder of the Stars Art Movement, Qu Leilei would NEVER talk about his first marriage. When he agreed to say a little something to me, it was like the floodgates opened: he talked for three hours. Similarly, Sir Roger Bannister, Dr Maria Jaschok, former Director of International Women’s Studies (Oxford), and the scientist Christopher Watson told me stories never in print before.
Why I wondered had that happened?
I started writing as the freelance specialist on Art and Antiques for the magazines of The Oxford Times, in 1998. I’d been a teacher and then started a business and ,although I’d been an avid reader since aged seven and had written for pleasure, I had no formal training as a journalist. I simply used my instincts, instincts that I now believe were right.
I did some research before the interview but not so detailed that I and not the interviewee determined the story. I always started with the same question When and where were you born? Given the answer, I’d follow that with open questions about how the castaway got from there and then to the here and now. Some needed more prompting than others but once they got going, I just listened, recorded them and took notes and only interrupted if something wasn’t clear.
Fun but useful stories also immerged. When interviewing Colin Dexter, the author of the Morse series, I interrupted him for a clarification and the result was great advice for when, like him, I started to write novels. Colin had been a Classics teacher but started to lose hearing and needed to change career. He explained that was how he came to Oxford and the Oxford Exams Delegacy. He then launched into talking about his writing , so I interrupted him.
‘Colin I just want to check that I’ve underside this correctly. Are you saying that you wrote the Morse books while working fulltime at the delegacy?’
‘Yes’ he replied.
‘Bbbut how’ I asked, ‘how did you do it?’
His reply is a great lesson for would be authors.
‘It was like this. I went home and had supper (Having a wife is useful! Dorothy cooked it) I listened to The Archers, and then went to the pub for a pint or two (with fellow crossword compiler Don Manley). But I’d worked out that there are 365 days in a year and if I wrote a page a day, I’d written a book.’
So please, women or men readers, don’t silence yourself, express the real you – it will enrich your life and that of your listener. Once silenced stories are released, you are FREE you can be truly you.
Colin Dexter above and a few more other castways …
