Memories of Helen Peacocke: The importance of my talk at Headington LitFest on May 10
On May 10, I’ll talk about the importance of telling your story. Yesterday was the funeral of the former The Oxford Times food writer, chef, author and drama critic, Helen Peacocke. The Humanist celebrant, Ian Wilcox used my castaway interview with Helen when giving his tribute to her. Similarly, when Trevor Cowlett the founder/ director of Kennington Choir and Air Commodore Bob Martin died, their families were able to use their life stories written by me. I expect many of you have experienced the feeling. Why didn’t I talk to my father, sister friend about that when they were alive? If you haven’t been interviewed by me or anyone else, why not write down your stories ?
Memories of my friend which will keep her alive for me. I used to call us the LE girls –the female contributors to Oxfordshire Limited Edition magazine when it was award winning. We used to meet twice a year for a meal. Here’s a pic of us taken by Helen in her garden.
She was a dog lover and real ale lover and wrote walks to pubs with dogs. I had the privilege of rekeying some of those walks with her I invited her to talk about the Paws books at the Kennington Literary Festival which I organised before the libraries were threatened with closure.
If you go to the Story Museum you will see Winnie the Witch’s birthday cake. Helen made that. So when we wanted to thanks Korky Paul for helping us to save the libraries, I asked her to make one we could give him.
Her food photography was second to none. Take a look at her pics in Green Power the Spirulina Cookbook. She provided the recipes for free for the Nasio Trust.Helen did something exceptional 10 years ago-she believed in locally sourced food and lived only on them for year- to show it can be done. The only exception she made was salt, coffee and lemons.
She loved poetry and booked tickets for us to go to Adelstrop on the 100 anniversary of Edward Thomas’s poem. In those days writing for The Oxford Times was a privilege, as you can see from the pics display anther memorial yesterday. Pics of her with Terry Waite, John Thaw, Terry Wogan, Tommy Steele, Michael Palin etc. Here’s her castaway feature.
Helen-Peacocke408590-b2a8-4bc6-bea0-69dc45a70b91 See some of you on May 10?
Peggy Seeger and Ruth Crawford Seeger
Today, March 19.2025, the composer of the day on BBC Radio 3 was the first celebrated female American composer, Ruth Crawford Seeger, the mother of Mike and Peggy and stepmother of Pete, who sang at Obama’s inauguration. I had the privilege of sending Peggy to my mythical island of Oxtopia. Her life story was long adventurous and controversial so it took six hours and I had to reduce it to 4 pages. You can read it on this link.
Peggy’s mother died in 1953 so Peggy was denied a deep personal adult knowledge of her. Ruth wanted Peggy to become a concert pianist and she could have but it was folk music and Ewan MacColl who stole her heart.
Last week Roberta Flack died. Her recording of Ewan’s song When First I Saw Your face was an enormous hit and helped Peggy and Ewan when their life was tough financially. Ewan had composed it for Peggy and only sang it once -over the phone to lure her back to England from the USA.
When I met her, she was about to start work on her memoir which she fittingly titled FIRST TIME EVER and so invited me to the launch and I organised a second successful launch in my village of Kennington for our library.
Before that we had fun together appearing in a local film directed by Philip Hind supporting KOA and the Children’s Radio Foundation
It was first shown at a Fifties Fandango where my artist friend, Weimin He, made the delightful sketch of her.
https://vimeo.com/64536645 Fifties Fandango
Memoir in all its variety.
Laurie Lee grew up not far from Carterton where I’ll talk memoir on March 4. The audience will know the PLACE but not the TIME.
Following my interviews of Ray Foulk and Roger Bannister for the Oxford Castaway series, both men wrote their memoirs and I had the privilege of reviewing them and compering Ray’s book launch in Blackwell. Artist Weimin He captured the moment in brushstrokes. I wrote Weimin’s story from Manchuria to Oxford via Belfast in Oxford Castaways. Weimin He – Castaway
Memoir doesn’t have to be about every aspect of a life and it’s true in this case. Rays’ Stealing Dylan from Woodstock is double the size of Food of Love but is about one momentous year. Roger decided to concentrate on just two aspects of his life –his sporting and his scientific career.
Memoir can help readers empathise with people in circumstances almost beyond their imagination such as Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime. It was easy for me to understand how that felt because when Atam and I met in Smethwick in the West Midlands mixed relationships were regarded with hostility.
Memoir and novels help us walk in someone’s else’s shoes. I recommended these memoirs for Shepherd.com https://shepherd.com/best-books/memoirs-which-help-us-understand-the-world
Politics, Lives, Page Turners: The Courage of Claret Press publishing Sylvia Vetta and Pen Farthing
Politics, Lives, Page Turners: The Courage of Claret Press publishing Sylvia Vetta and Pen Farthing
I first made this blog before Pen Farthing and I talked at the Oxford Indie Book Fair .
Today’s Guardian feature warrants re-posting it.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/feb/18/kabul-afghanistan-animal-airlift-whistleblower-employment-tribunal?
I love my publishers new book mark. It sums up what Claret Press is about. Their latest author is Pen Farthing and his book is titled Operation Ark. The last government and the Tory Press trashed Pen’s reputation as a means of diverting our attention from the chaos and apathy that marked Dominic Raab’s handling of leaving Afghanistan. Decide for yourself after reading his account telling the WHOLE story ! Or come to the Oxford Indie Book Fair on Dec 1 and hear us discuss it. https://www.oxfordindiebookfair.co.uk/whats-on-december…/
Pen had previously been published by one of the big guys, Penguin Random House. But they decided his brand is ‘toxic’. I’m delighted that Claret Press has published his account of events in August 2022, so readers can make up their own minds knowing all the story and not just the propaganda line ‘Pets before People’. In my opinion, the government used him as a scapegoat to divert the vitriol away from their incompetence. After twenty years in Afghanistan, they hadn’t a plan for an orderly and successful evacuation and the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab couldn’t be bothered. He preferred to stay on the beach in Cyprus. That Pen managed to get out his 68 Afghani staff without their help, is an achievement. You need to read the whole story to understand that this charity is not about Pets over People. 1000 Afghans a year were dying of rabies after being bitten by street dogs and his charity was trying to make that a thing of the past.
I knew that Katie had courage. My first novel Brushstrokes in Time was 10 years in the making. When I learned from the artist Qu Leilei about the courageous Stars artists, I realised that their story was ignored and forgotten –written out of history. I believe it’s an IMPORTANT story that needs to be told. As no one else would write it, and no one in China can, because of censorship, I took on the task. That entailed three years interviewing Leilei and other Stars, a year researching and visiting the places in the book. While doing that I studied for the Diploma in Creative Writing at Oxford ,so that I had confidence to do it as a novel. By creating a few fictional characters, I could tell the story without harm to living people.
I sent it to Myslexia. I knew they introduce you to an agent if they shortlist you. They indeed did that for me. The agent said that my novel was interesting, well-written and a publishable page turner but unfortunately she wouldn’t be able to sell it. I tried other agents and the ones who responded did so in a similar way. One was honest and explained the reason, ‘You are not Chinese.’ They were afraid of the toxicity of the label ‘cultural appropriation.’ I thought the Ms would stay on my computer until a friend told me about Claret Press. In her latest newsletter she explains why she takes on authors like me and Pen. https://www.claretpress.com/single-post/a-sip-of-claret-news-operation-ark-is-out-now
She writes,
‘Last Saturday I set up my stall at the Oxford Indie Book Fair alongside 60 other exhibitors. The OXIBF promotes books and voices from outside the mainstream publishing industry (by mainstream I mean the ‘Big Five’ publishers responsible for 80% of all books published in the US and UK). It was, as always, a delight. It was, as always, bigger and better than before. And its existence is thanks to Claret Press author Sylvia Vetta and a few of her friends. I met Sylvia after a literary agent told her that no publisher would take her novel which was inspired by Qu Leilei, the Chinese founder of the Stars Art Movement, now exiled — like so many of his compatriots. Her fictionalised telling of recent Chinese history lifts the lid on its tumultuous change including the Cultural Revolution, the Democracy Movement and the Stars Art Movement (1979).
Equally, it is a touching coming-of-age love story. Brushstrokes in Time was praised by professors at both Harvard and Oxford and the Guardian’s chief foreign correspondent for China, among others. It was translated into German. And yet, the reason why the big publishers wouldn’t take it because Sylvia is not Chinese. They didn’t think it was authentic enough despite the story being based on many, many interviews of Qu Leilei conducted by Sylvia herself.
Also at the Oxford Indie Book Fest was The Dawson and Lucy Series author Steve Sheppard, who writes page-turning thrillers full of twists and adventure with a kick-ass heroine and a lovable hero. They also happen to be laugh-aloud funny. So are they comedy thrillers? What to call this unique blending of styles? For lack of an easily marketable label, Steve couldn’t get published by the big leagues. My gain. Again Steve’s books have been praised widely by comedy writers and by his growing legion of fans.
And then there’s Pen Farthing. We launched his book in London this Monday. He was a Sunday Times bestseller who fell out of favour with his publisher because of the uproar over the Afghanistan Evacuation. You’d think that would mean that he’d be even more of a hot ticket. But no. He got blackballed and lost not just his publisher but also his literary agent. Again, his book, Operation Ark, about escaping from Afghanistan during the disastrous evacuation in the summer of 2021, has been highly praised.’
Has Stephen Mangan seen Oxford Castaways?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0028401
How do ideas spread, consciously and unconsciously? Has Stephen Mangan seen a copy of Oxford Castaways? His new comedy show THE ISLAND envisages Desert Island Disc castaways on the same island having to rub along together. That is exactly how I devised my castaway series. I gave my island a NAME – OXTOPIA. Oxford Castaway, the artist Weimin He, painted the cover illustration. The island is covered with the inspirational items that the castaways chose to take with them to Oxtopia. Will they share them? When we launched Oxford Castaways 2, we held a debate. Four castaways chaired by castaway Bill Heine discussed what of Oxford they would like to recreate on Oxtopia and what they would like to leave behind?
I was moved last week by Nemony Lethbridge on Desert Island Discs. Under Lauren Laverne, the castaways have become less predictable and, in my opinion, this was one of the best ever episodes . I apologise if I sound egotistical but that variety is what I tried to create in my castaways series for The Oxford Times. I was privileged to interview 120 inspirational people with links to Oxford, every month from Jan 2007 to Dec 2016. I modeled it on Desert Island Discs (without the music). My castaways could take art, books and objects to the island to Oxtopia. The features were turned into three books filled with fabulous photographs and life stories. The launch of the first book was in the Ashmolean Cast Gallery where the legendary Roger Bannister gave the closing speech. 
The artist Weimin He illustrated the cover of Oxford Castaways (1) Joanna Harrison (The Snowman animator ) designed the cover of Oxford Castaways 2.
Weimin has attended and sketched at many castaway events. He sketched the wonderful Peggy Seeger when she came to another gala night I organised. Weimin and Peggy are both Oxtopians.
The wonderful American soul singer, Roberta Flack died on Monday. Roberta’s famous, among other things, for her rendition of ‘First Time Ever’ by Ewan McColl.
I had the privilege of sending Peggy Seeger, to my mythical island of Oxtopia. Her life has been long and full of adventure so the interview was over 4 hours. Peggy told me that Ewan had written the song for her. She had fallen in love with him but when she realised that he was married, she returned to the States. Ewan sang it over the phone to the twenty one year old Peggy, to lure her back and he succeeded. There are 60 cover versions including by Elvis Presley but it was Roberta’s recording that soared. After Peggy and Ewan married their financial situation was precarious & the success of Roberta’s rendition of Ewan’s song gave them stability. I’ve had some memorable meetings with Peggy. I love the sketch that Weimin He made at one of the event’s I organised for KOA when this video was shown.
https://vimeo.com/64536645 Fifties Fandango
Here is her fascinating life story Peggy Seeger
The series could have gone on forever but Newsquest stopped employing freelancers so my twenty years of writing for The Oxford Times ended. While it lasted it, the castaway events were warm, fun and friendly like this one in Antiques on High. I’m next to Colin Dexter and behind me are the poet Jenny Lewis, a founder of the Isle of Wight Festival, Ray Foulk ,the film producer Victor Glynn , former radio journalist Bill Heine and illustrator Korky Paul . 
If you are interested in the series, documentary film maker Zoe Broughton filmed this illustrated lecture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NvrzUnGE50
Here are a couple of collages of some Oxford Castaways.
It was a huge privilege to get to know these wonderful people and many became friends including the Bannisters. Roger was present at the launch of Oxford Castaways 3 in the Maths Insitute. His daughter, the delightful Charlotte Bannister Parker presided. It was one of his last public events. and I love this photo of them together taken at the launch event. 
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When he died I wrote this tribute for the Indian online newspaper The MadrasCourier .
Simon Schama and I
Simon Schama and I
I may not have Simon Schama’s brains and erudition but, watching episode 2 of ‘Whose Britain is it any way’ made me realise that we share the same attitude to the evolution of this country- a realistic optimism not blind to the dark side of life.
He tells the story of the cultural enrichment of our culture by the Windrush generation though music. Simon highlights the role of the Jacaranda Club and how exposure to the music of these brave newcomers, made the Beatles. One moment jarred – a reminder of a dreadful murder in Coventry where Satnam Singh Gill was murdered for having a white girl friend. My motivation for letting Claret Press publish my memoir was a desire to tell the untold story of women like me who married men who were not white at a time when relationships like ours were regarded with hostility. Here’s how Atam and I met at a time of visceral hatred of immigrants stirred up by venal politicians.
Simon uses music and I use food to tell my story of cultural enrichment. Simon’s fellow historian Professor Rana Mitter seemed to find it a good read.
Told with brio and verve, this is an astonishing life story that takes in working-class life in post-war Britain, and the transformation of society in the decades that followed. Encounters with India and China shape a life where enthusiasm for food, art and politics come together in a combination of profoundly serious issues and the laughter of liberation: Rana Matter, Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China, University of Oxford
People often fear difference but nothing illustrates better the richness that has come to the UK from immigration than the recipes in my book. My mother’s English cream tea and my grandmother’s Cornish pasties have not gone away but my family and friends have added recipes from the countries of their origins and they include Italy, France, Iceland, China, India, Jamaica, Mauritius, Kenya and the Americas.
With food comes love and with love comes hope.
Once a month, I go to Confluence Café where people of all backgrounds come together to share music and that experience influences them and their creativity. Today we had a taste of West Papua Independence music. Simon Schama and I believe that British culture is expansive and embracing so we have nothing to fear from immigration.
To buy copies of Oxford Castaways 2
Go to
http://www.oxfordfolio.co.uk
and click on the cover image.