For as long as I can remember, old buildings have filled me with a longing to know who lived there before. Very often, there is no way of knowing, and for me this meant trying to think up their story for myself.
I grew up on a little island in Hong Kong. It had been taken to be a leprosy treatment centre and most of the buildings were built in the 1950s. But the old ones, from hundreds of years ago, always fascinated me. As a child, I thought that the people had left long ago – whereas in fact they had to leave not long before the hospital was built.
Jetty valley
One of the oldest buildings was a little temple. It’s the tiniest building at the bottom of this picture in the middle, near the steps.
Then there were the graves. These were beautiful white tombs, shaped like the moon, always on a hillside. I wondered whose graves they were, and what their lives had been like on this island that was home to us now. The tombs made a deep impression on me so that years later, when I was studying art, they slipped into my pictures.
Moon grave
This woodcut shows a tomb with some burial pots. Most of the tombs were in the emptier part of the island where it was wild and grassy.
And in this watercolour the tomb is on the left, looking over the sea towards a neighbouring island.
Hillside tomb
Although we lived in Hong Kong, every few years we visited the UK, which to me was a huge exciting foreign land. On my first visit we travelled by ocean liner because planes were still very expensive. I remember the journey well even though I was little. It took one month, and one of the places we visited was Pompei. I recall arches, painted walls and the fact that life had stopped suddenly and tragically here because of a volcano.
When we went to the Highlands, where my mother came from, I felt at home straight away. To me, the mountains and sea felt just like the ones back home in Hong Kong. Even the rocks on the shore had the same yellow lichen and green seaweed, like hair. But I did get to see something I had never seen before: castles.
Eilean Donan
This aquatint shows Eilean Donan Castle and the Five Sisters of Kintail, with my impression of the light beaming onto the loch. A house where we often stayed had a cannon ball in the fireplace, from a battle long ago that left the castle in ruins.
Later, when I was older, my dad, who was English, would take us to visit famous historical places in England: the Tower of London, a Roman villa, the Victory warship and the wonderful Roman baths which you could still have a warm dip in if it was allowed. Inside the Victory, I smelt for the first time the sharp tang of centuries-old wood. To me it felt as if stories were humming just below the surface of the walls.
I started writing novels when I was a child, although I didn’t ever finish them. This is the first page of one I started when I was 11. It was set in England in the nineteenth century because we had just come back from the UK and while we were there, we stayed in a flat in a Victorian house.
For me, old places have always been doorways to stories.
Ickworth
Writing Prompt
When I am somewhere old, I can never shake off the possibility that it might turn out to be a time machine… and where would it take me? Think of an old building or place that you know. If it was a time machine, where would it take you? Who would you be? What would you be doing there? Would there be a hidden danger?
One
Of Us by Jeannie Waudby is a YA thriller/love story, published by
Chicken House. It was shortlisted for the Bolton Children's Fiction
Award and the Lancashire Book of the Year 2016 and has been adapted by
Mike Kenny as a play in the Oxford Playscripts series.
One Of Us is published by Chicken House
The Oxford Playscripts play is published by Oxford University Press
For more information about Jeannie and her books visit her website.
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