Why you should read children’s books

Why you should read children’s books

During the last lockdown, the staff at our local library drove around hand delivering books to people like me who were stuck at home. I was thrilled when a pile of books magically appeared on the little white table on my front porch, wrapped in plastic and ready to take me to another realm.

I’d requested some children’s books and when they arrived, they came with a brown paper bag containing art supplies for a craft project suitable for three-year-olds. I don’t have anyone of that age at my house, so I gave the materials to a neighbour with two young children, but it told me that the library staff had assumed I had a small person living at my house. Why else would I be requesting picture books?

It would be easy for me to tell you I was doing “research” so that I can find a publisher for my own book, but the truth is that I enjoy reading books for children.

In Katherine Rundell’s book “Why you should read children’s books even though you are so old and wise,” she says…

“Children’s fiction necessitates distillation: at its best it renders in their purest, most archetypal forms hope, hunger, joy, fear. Think of children’s books as literary vodka.”

I love that quote. I should paint it on my wall.

Rundell says that as we get older, our imaginations become dampened and we can’t experience the same wonder that children experience when they see the stars in the night sky or the stark blue ocean. Adults feel these things at a primal level, but we are quick to deny ourselves wonder and joy. We avoid being child-like because it leaves us open and vulnerable. Who knows what other feelings might leak out if we admit to being enthralled or amazed?

Children never worry about what other people think. They shriek with delight when a beetle crawls lightly across their palm, or they see a lizard sunning itself on a warm rock. Everything is wondrous to a three-year-old, but sometimes older people forget to be amazed and become cynical and hard. Reading children’s books gives us a second chance to re-capture the bliss of being a child.

“When you read children’s books you are given the space to read again as a child: to find your way back, back to the time when new discoveries came daily and the world was colossal, before your imagination was trimmed and neatened, as if it were an optional extra”.

Katherine Rundell

Adults want things to make sense and align with their understanding of the world, but children don’t question the logic in stories, even though they are keen to ask “why” about most things in life. In The Tiger who came to Tea, the tiger eats all the food in the house and drinks all the water in the tap. Judith Kerr said that her publishers wanted her to change that line because it was impossible to drink all the water in the tap and that this would trouble children.

How foolish. If children can cope with the idea of walking through a wardrobe to a frozen wonderland full of speaking lions and magical witches, then they can certainly cope with a tiger drinking all the water in the tap.

Writing for children doesn’t mean you need to avoid big words

Rundell’s criterion for cutting words was whether they interrupted the story and not whether they were too sophisticated for children. She went against her editor’s advice and retained façade, abundance and renunciation in one of her books because there weren’t any other words that would do the same job of meaning, tone, and rhythm. But she had limits.

“I cut adamantine, a word I love and think children might also love, because it came at the climax of the story, and I didn’t want to lose even that split-second flicker of time that comes when a reader jumps over an unknown word. I would do the same for adults.”

I must admit that I had to look up adamantine because I was unfamiliar with that word. Imagine my surprise when I found it means ‘having the quality of being adamant’, which is exactly what I thought it meant, even though I was guessing.

Like adults, children understand the meaning of words by seeing them in context. They have good imaginations.

Children’s literature is not a lesser form of writing

Another myth that Rundell explores is that children’s books are easier to write than books for adults. I think they are harder. Children wriggle and squirm if they aren’t fully engaged in a story, but they can also listen to the same book hundreds of times if they like the rhythm of the words. Sometimes they just like snuggling up close to you while you read.

Children are keen to read about feelings and emotions

In the book “Are You My Mother?” by PD Eastman, a newly hatched chick goes out into the world to search for his mother. He doesn’t know what she looks like, so he asks every creature he meets if they are his mother. This includes cats, dogs and other animals. Eventually, a kind friend takes him home, and he finds his mother waiting for him and wondering where he is. This is a book about belonging, something every child (and adult) hungers for. Children can understand deep themes.

I like to read children’s books because they make me feel better about the world. When I’m stressed, or tired or angry, they bring me comfort and take me back to a place where feelings are allowed to be expressed and where values such as love and friendship are deeply held and treasured.

Children’s books get down to the nitty gritty without being pompous, but they are often profound. They’re like poetry. Pure, concise, and true.

Like literary vodka.

And the winner is…

And the winner is…

There’s always a big flurry of activity when the winner of the Booker Prize is announced. This year, The Promise by Damon Galgut won the coveted award for the best novel written in English and published in the UK.

Winning the Booker is a big deal. The winner receives £50,000 and authors who are shortlisted win £2,500. This doesn’t sound like very much, but being shortlisted usually results in a dramatic increase in book sales, so it can transform an author’s career overnight.

But apart from the generous prize money, it made me wonder why the Booker is so important and how it all started.

It turns out that the Booker Prize has a very murky past involving exploitation, slavery and reparation.

Here’s a potted history:

In 1815 Josias Booker arrived in British Guiana, and his younger brother George joined him soon after. George found work as a shipping agent for the export of timber and Josias became the manager of a cotton plantation, where he managed nearly 200 enslaved people.

With the abolition of slavery, which took effect in 1834, the Booker brothers received compensation from the state for 52 emancipated slaves. The Slave Ownership Database at University College London records the total sum as £2,884, equivalent to £378,000 in 2020.

In 1835, George and Richard Booker (another brother) founded a trading and shipping company and established the Booker Line, which focused on shipping goods. Richard Booker died four years later in 1838, leaving Josias and George to increase the business after the purchase of sugar plantations across the colony. At one point, the Bookers controlled 75% of the sugar industry in British Guiana and owned five Booker Line ships. It was common to refer to the country as Booker’s Guiana, rather than British Guiana. After emancipation, the sugar plantations relied on indentured labourers shipped in from Calcutta. This continued for over three quarters of a century, with workers being treated as slaves and living in poor conditions.

In 1952, Jock Campbell took over the chairmanship of the company and his Fabian social politics transformed it into a benevolent force, providing major benefits for sugar workers. Jock Campbell helped to set up Booker’s Author Division, which sponsored the original Booker Prize until 2002.

The modern day Booker has no connection to the family and is currently sponsored by a charitable foundation.

Not only does the prize have a colourful past, the choice of winner is often very controversial. There is often widespread debate about whether the ‘right’ book has won as well as whether the judging panel was diverse enough.

This year’s panel was chaired by historian Maya Jasanoff and included writer and editor Horatio Harrod; actor Natascha McElhone; Professor Chigozie Obioma and former Archbishop Rowan Williams, who is also a poet. A mixed bunch indeed, but the winner was apparently a unanimous choice.

Will I read The Promise? Probably not. It looks too highbrow for me, but I might get around to reading Great Circle, which is very long, but getting great reviews. One of my favourite books this year was Klara and the Sun, which was on the long list, but sadly didn’t make it to the short list.

Do you plan to read any of the books on this year’s list? Let me know in the comments.

The elements of style

The elements of style

I spent the morning searching high and low for a postcard I bought in a New York bookshop nearly two years ago. I had chosen it especially for my friend Megan, but hadn’t given it to her, so I thought it would be perfect for her upcoming birthday. Using some clever detective work, I found it nestled between the pages of my copy of The Elements of Style, which I purchased in the same bookshop.

The Elements of Style was first published in 1918 by William Strunk Jr. a professor of English at Cornell University. It was later expanded and updated by his most famous student, EB White. Some of you might recognise EB White as the author of such classics as Charlotte’s Webb and Stuart Little.

Often simply referred to as Strunk and White, it’s a slim little book. The salesperson tried to convince me to buy a facsimile of the original, but I didn’t like the old-fashioned font, so I bought a newer, easy-to-read version. I was delighted to get my very own copy, but until recently, I hadn’t bothered to read it. It was only when I found my missing postcard that I realised that this very short book contains pretty much everything you need to know about writing well.

In chapter two, The Elementary Principles of Composition, it offers the following advice.

  1. Put statements in a positive form. For example, instead of saying “she did not think that the apples were very tasty” say “she thought the apples were sour”.
  2. Use definite, concrete language. Instead of saying “a period of unfavourable weather set in” say “it rained every day for a week”.
  3. Place the emphatic words in a sentence at the end. Writer and editor Allison K Williams also says that you should start sentences with a strong verb and end with a strong noun. “Bring me your dead” is a good example.
  4. And my favourite piece of advice: omit needless words. What can I say?

These suggestions will strengthen your writing, but they all take practice.

Plenty

Plenty

I grew up in the Salvation Army and once a year we had a period of a month or so, just before Easter, where we practiced self-denial. The idea was that you went without something you liked, for example, chocolate milkshakes, and gave the money you saved to the church so that they could support their international missions. It was a bit like Dry July, except you couldn’t abstain from alcohol because that was already on the banned list. The self-denial program was a thinly veiled, Protestant version of Lent, and everyone took it very seriously.

People are sometimes unaware that the Salvation Army is church as well as a charity. They have a hierarchy of ministers (called officers) and all the trappings of a religious institution, plus lots of flags and other quasi-military paraphernalia. There are three services every Sunday and a well-defined set of theological constructs underpin their work.

William Booth and his wife Catherine founded the Salvation Army in 1865. Booth was originally a Methodist minister who preached in the slums of London. In this environment, the Booths saw first-hand the effects the consumption of alcohol had on families and the community, hence the rule that all members of the church abstain from drinking alcohol and from dancing, which is thought to lead to lewd behaviour.

Methodism emphasises charity work and support for the sick and the poor, ideals which are known collectively as the Social Gospel, a social movement within Protestantism that applies Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as economic inequality, poverty, crime, racial inequality, environmental degradation, child labour and the dangers of war. These are all social issues that I care about, not necessarily from a Christian perspective, but because I think they are important, but I still think some negative messages have seeped into my psyche, especially in relation to self-care.

As with most Protestant religions, the need to deny oneself pleasure is reinforced strongly in sermons and hymns. You are told that denying yourself pleasure on earth will result in ‘riches in heaven’. This could be something as simple as not eating that second baked potato or foregoing a coffee when you are at the shops. If you go without something, you’ll be rewarded. Rather than accumulating wealth on earth, you pay into your heavenly bank account by doing good deeds and being charitable, but also by denying yourself pleasure.

I was talking to a friend about this recently. We both have issues with buying ourselves treats. Chocolates, flowers, exotic fruit and other desirable products, like beautifully scented hand cream. We happily spend our money on things that are deemed necessities, but there’s some unwritten rule about buying things that aren’t strictly necessary, but add to our quality of life.

A few years ago, I realised I had an issue with spending money on myself. Perhaps this came from my childhood, from too much time sitting on those cold, hard pews listening to sermons. I’m not sure. When my kids were little, I hardly ever spent any money on myself, but my ideas about what items are luxuries have changed over time.

In years gone by, I would only buy avocadoes occasionally because I thought they were too extravagant. Now I buy one every week along with milk, cheese, eggs, and other essentials. I’m still up in the air about blueberries. Are they a luxury? Are they a superfood? I accidentally bought two punnets last week when I was doing the grocery shopping online and was relieved to find that they were on special and only cost two dollars a punnet. Bargain!

Lately I’ve been practicing being more generous with myself and others. It’s nice to buy things for other people, especially things I know they won’t buy themselves. Being in lockdown has made this so much easier; there are so many opportunities for online shopping. I try to restrain myself from getting carried away, but then I think, why not spoil yourself? Why not spoil others? Life is short.

I haven’t forgotten to have a social conscience, but it’s tempered with more self-love. And lest you think I’m being critical of the Salvos, let me say that I think they do great work and I’m deeply indebted to them for my deep and abiding love of brass band music.

Slip Stitch

Slip Stitch

A few years ago, I went to Melbourne to visit my daughter and even though I’d been warned that Melbourne is colder than Sydney; I didn’t take enough warm clothes with me. My daughter had a gas fire, so it was lovely and cosy in her unit, but every time we ventured outside the biting wind tore through my flimsy coat and made my teeth chatter, so we took ourselves off to a thrift shop to see if I could find a warm cardigan.

The shop was in a giant warehouse; the clothes arranged by colour and then size. I saw a young woman pushing a supermarket trolley heaped with crocheted garments. She was wearing one of those string vests and wearing sandals, despite the chilly weather.

I wondered how she was going to get all her purchases home and what she was going to do with all those woolly garments once she got there. I must have made a comment about this because she started chatting to me about how much she loved retro clothes and how she couldn’t stop buying them. She said that she would love to learn to crochet, and I said that she needed to find a granny to teach her. “That’s why I’m asking you”, she said. I was very surprised because I was only in my late fifties at the time and didn’t consider myself to be anywhere near old, despite my greying hair.

I explained I didn’t live locally, so I couldn’t give her lessons. I didn’t tell her that my skills were rudimentary and that I could only do the most basic stitches. I was still reeling from being mistaken for an old lady and she clearly thought that all ‘old people’ could knit, sew, and crochet.

In years gone by, this would have been true. My grandmother used to say that her key skills were talking and handiwork. She was a brilliant talker, but an even better knitter in her day. She was one of those women who could watch television, knit, and eat Cadbury’s Milk Chocolate all at the same time. She would glance down at her knitting occasionally if she was casting on or off or working on an armhole, but mostly she could easily handle doing three things at the same time. She only ever watched the ABC and refused to switch over to the commercial channels. It was as if they didn’t exist.

She had a stroke when she was in her seventies and for a long while she couldn’t talk and was paralysed down one side. At first she didn’t recognise anyone except my stepfather, whom she had always disliked, mainly because she thought he wasn’t as good as my father, who had died several years earlier. My stepfather went to see her in the hospital every day after work and helped her to learn to talk again. She changed her mind about him after that.

When she had her stroke, she forgot how to knit and never regained those skills. Someone taught her how to crochet and she spent the next few years making those striped blankets that old people use as knee rugs. She made them from leftover balls of wool in colours that didn’t always match, but it gave her something to do with her hands.

I didn’t inherit any handicraft skills from my grandmother. I start off projects with good intentions but sometimes lose interest when things aren’t turning out the way I want them to. I’m a terribly slow knitter and have only ever finished one garment, a vest I knitted secretly for my husband during my lunch breaks. I made a smocked dress for my goddaughter when she was a toddler, but it took me about a year to finish that as well.

I’ve been trying to persuade my eldest daughter to teach herself to crochet. I think it would be good for her to do something that doesn’t involve looking at a screen, but I know that learning a new skill is hard when you are on your own. You really need someone around who can help you when you drop a stitch or get muddled. I pointed her towards some YouTube videos, which have simple explanations, and sent her a ball of practice wool and a crochet hook in case she gets the urge, but I know it’s hard to get motivated on your own. Like quilting, knitting and crochet are pastimes that are often enjoyed with other people, especially when you are a beginner.

There’s been a world-wide resurgence of old-fashioned handicrafts over the last few years. Making something with your hands is fun and the repetitive nature of knitting, sewing or needlework is meditative and soothing. It doesn’t stop you thinking, but it gives you something to focus on, which often helps. Plus, producing something tangible is rewarding. So much or our work these days is intangible. It lives on a screen, and we have little to show for our efforts at the end of the day. I think that’s one reason writers are so excited when they publish a book. It’s something you can hold in your hands and say, I made this.

I’ve yet to get my crochet hook out, although I’m tempted to make something simple. A doll’s blanket or perhaps a knee rug for when I eventually turn into an old lady.

I’m still wearing the nice brown cardigan with the big buttons that I bought for three dollars at the thrift shop in Melbourne.

A cosy read

A cosy read

One of the great things about being retired is that you can go down a rabbit hole without feeling guilty. This morning I was trying to remember the name of a Scottish novel we read in my book group years ago, so I started tootling around the web looking for “books set on Scottish Islands” and came up with a list of top favourite Scottish crime novels featuring a book called Death of a Liar by M.C. Beaton.

I was delighted to read that Death of a Liar is the 30th book in a series featuring the Scottish police officer Hamish Macbeth. I used to love the TV show which starred a very youthful Robert Carlyle. You can watch some grainy episodes here if you’d like a trip down memory lane. The TV show (featuring a cute little white Scotty dog) aired between 1995-97 in the highly coveted Sunday night drama time-slot, back in the days when we didn’t have control over what was on our tellies and had to watch whatever was on.

I was a big fan of the TV series, primarily because I have a soft spot for Scottish accents, but I’ve not read the books, although that might change. It surprised me to find that M.C. Beaton was the pen-name of a writer called Marion Chesney Gibbons. She wrote under four different pen-names and was also the author of the Agatha Raisin series. These books are known as ‘cosy mysteries’ because they feature low levels of blood and gore and have neat and tidy endings. Perfect comfort reads. Midsomer Murders and Agatha Christie books are other examples of the genre, as is The Thursday Murder Club by television presenter Richard Osman.

Marion Chesney started her career in the publishing industry in the 1960s and wrote her first novel after reading some poorly written romance novels and thinking she could do better. I love it when people write for that reason! She soon switched to crime novels and published 160 books during her career.

According to this article in the Guardian, her attitude to the television series was ambivalent, and at a crime-writing festival in Reading in 2010 Chesney Gibbons told a shocked but amused audience in no uncertain terms that Carlyle had been miscast because he was a Lowland Scot whereas Macbeth was a Highlander.

Chesney Gibbons continued to write well into her 80s and published her last Agatha Raisin book only a few months before her death, aged 83, in December 2019. She sold 21 million books during her lifetime and attributed her impressive output to the “curse of the Scottish work ethic”.

I still haven’t been able to recall the name of the books I was originally looking for, so that might be a task for another day. Or maybe someone in my book group will remember?

Sorrow and bliss

Sorrow and bliss

Last week I finally read Meg Mason’s book, Sorrow and Bliss. My middle sister recommended it to me ages ago, but I only just got around to reading it because I had to wait ages for it become available at the library. The library has 12 copies of this book, which tells you how popular it is.

I read it in two days and cried at the end.

I’m not sure how to describe it because it’s both funny and sad. It’s about getting things wrong and keeping going. Martha, (the main character) is both awful and endearing. Sometimes you want to shake her and say, don’t do that, but then you realise that often she can’t help herself.

Even though I loved it, I’m not sure it will appeal to everyone, so I thought I’d share an interview with the author so you can decide if it is something you want to read.

Finding the perfect interview with Meg Mason turned out to be more time-consuming than I imagined. Because the book has been so popular (they’re making it into a movie), she’s been a guest on just about every book podcast imaginable. I ended up listening to about five versions of the same interview and it was interesting to hear how differently she came across in each one. When the hosts were very chatty and casual, she was a lot funnier and more honest. In the more formal interviews, she sounded a lot more nervous and stayed “on script” the whole time.

I finally chose this interview with the author Kate Mildenhall because she sounds really comfortable. I suspect they know one another well because they are roughly the same age and probably hang out at the same literary festivals. In the interview, she reveals she dislikes her first book (a memoir) and when she sees it in a bookshop; she wants to scribble in the book and change some words.

This really resonated with me. When I worked as a film editor, I often had scenes where things just weren’t working, but I couldn’t fix them because I didn’t have the shots I needed, or I didn’t have enough time to make the scene work. I’m sure it’s the same for anyone trying to do something creative. Sometimes you know you should have started again, or spent more time, but for whatever reason, you didn’t or couldn’t. There was a deadline, or the kids needed to be fed, or you had to be somewhere. We often have a desire to make things look and sound perfect, but there isn’t always time to do that.

But it’s hard to give up the idea that we should do things well.

Every time I get down on the floor to do my exercises, I look at the little gaps where the paint stops and the skirting board starts. I did a pretty ordinary job when I painted that room, but I was recovering from a back injury when I did it, so it’s foolish to think that I could do anything other than a “good enough” job. Occasionally, I contemplate getting out the tin of half-strength chintz grey and finishing it properly, but then my knee hurts and I decide to leave it for another day. I’ve got other things to do. Maybe not very well, but to the best of my ability.

Windows of opportunity

Windows of opportunity

Photo by Nathan Fertig on Unsplash

There’s a school of thought that says your opportunities narrow as you get older. This might be true in terms of career advancement, but I’m not so sure about that. In Lucy Kellaway’s new book Re-educated: How I changed my job, my home, my husband & my hair,* she tells the story of reaching 57 and deciding that she should make the most of what time she has left.

Her life-changing decisions weren’t the result of a cancer scare (as is often the case), or the death of a loved one, but were prompted by finding a house that she really, really loved. As a columnist for the Financial Times, she had the chance to purchase her dream house, and this was the beginning of an amazing new life. Finding the cash to buy the house involved leaving her husband, with whom she had a cordial but not especially close relationship. He had already moved into the basement of their Georgian house and they had and grown-up children.

I was fascinated by the idea of falling in love with a house and was amazed to find that you can actually see her iconic house on a design website, complete with the long orange bench top she describes in the book.

After buying The Frame House she leaves her job at the Financial Times to train as a secondary school teacher. This is a hard slog and there are many times that she wonders what on earth she has done! There’s a lot in the book about how the education system works and how hard teachers work.

The book made me feel a bit like an under-achiever although on the upside; I have a penchant for books in which people (mainly women) reinvent themselves, so I enjoyed it immensely.

It made me think about all the things in my life that I’ve put on the back-burner until I have time to do them. Time is something I have plenty of at the moment and luckily I don’t dream of becoming an astronaut, but I still have aspirations to be fitter and healthier, make really awesome sponge cakes, write a book, and maybe start a small business. All these things are possible and not very costly, so it’s not money holding me back but a lack of focus and low self-confidence, both of which I could overcome with a bit more determination and some more self-love.

One of my friends has just started learning Spanish and I know better than to ask her why. I know she is doing it because she wants to. She told me she lived in Spain many years ago and spent most of her time drinking in bars and dancing until the wee small hours. These are excellent things to do in your twenties, but now she’s in her sixties and she wants to travel around the countryside, talk to people and eat the beautiful food. Priorities change. I hope she’ll get back there one day, but even if she doesn’t, she’s enjoying coming first in her Spanish class.

So without wanting to sound like a motivational speaker, if you have some dreams in your bottom drawer, get them out and dust them off because there’s never a better time to do something interesting.

*This book is only available as an ebook. The hard copy will be published on September 21, 2021.

Sunshine on my shoulders

Sunshine on my shoulders

My friend and her husband mind their two grandchildren one day a week and enjoy it immensely, even though they find it exhausting. The baby has a sleep around lunchtime, and they have been told to put him in a room that’s heated to precisely 22°C. He’s zipped up in his sleeping bag (blankets are forbidden), and needs to be woken at a particular time, definitely not later than 3pm. There’s a long list of instructions and they follow them to the letter.

When my children were babies, I argued endlessly with my mother-in-law about how my children should sleep. She always wanted to put them on their tummies, but I thought I knew better. The SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) advice at the time was that babies should sleep on their backs, and I insisted that this was how I wanted it to be. I’m sure she probably still put them on their tummies when I wasn’t around, but fortunately they survived!

My mother once told me she enjoyed having her last baby the most. When she had her first baby, she worried constantly about doing the wrong thing, but by the time she had my baby brother (her fifth child), she had learnt to trust her own instincts and ignore the advice of experts. The nurses at the Baby Health Centre were terrifying and there were many rules to follow.

In the 1950s, the number one rule for a healthy baby was fresh air. “An abundance of pure, cool, outside air flowing fresh and free day and night” was how they described it in the baby manual. In the 1930s they took this edict to ridiculous lengths with the invention of baby cages. In London, they literally hung babies outside buildings to ensure that they had enough fresh air. In his book, The Care and Feeding of Children, Dr Luther Emmett maintained that babies needed to be aired to ‘renew and purify the blood’.

A baby suspended in a cage several floors up to ensure adequate sun and fresh air

Even though baby cages went out of vogue, the idea that babies needed both sun and fresh air persisted, and in the 1940s and 50s, mothers were told to put their babies outside in the sun so that they could soak up some of the sunshine. Not only was sunshine an antidote to nappy rash, it also helped prevent rickets. Scientists were aware of the relationship between sunshine and Vitamin D deficiency, but I suspect that most ordinary people just thought that the warm rays of the sun had some special life-giving properties.

And maybe they do.

In Kazuo Ishiguro’s book, Klara and the Sun , the sun is characterised as benevolent and he also has mysterious healing powers. Klara, an empathetic and wise robot, asks the sun to intervene and provide his “special nourishment” to Josie, her human, when she is unwell. It wasn’t until this week, when I was sitting out in the sunshine, that I realised that the AFs (artificial friends) in the book are solar powered. For them, and perhaps for me, the sun is indeed magical.

This is a sad, wise, and funny book. It made me think a lot about friendship and about the mysterious healing powers of the sun.

You can read a great review here.

Portrait of an artist

Portrait of an artist

My husband and I were lucky enough to spend a few days in Sydney last week. People often recommend being a tourist in your own city and I have to admit, it’s a lot of fun. Even though I used to work in an office near to where we stayed, it was a long time ago, so it was quite an adventure to be in the big smoke.

We stayed in the Fullerton Hotel next to the old GPO, right in the middle of the CBD and close to everything. It’s a beautiful old building, tastefully restored. The Salvos were having their Red Shield Appeal launch in the Grand Ballroom and it was great to hear a brass band echoing through the building. We could see the old clock tower from our room and the bells rang every quarter hour and on the hour, but I suspect they are silent between midnight and dawn because they didn’t disturb our sleep.

The clock tower in the GPO in Martin Place.
The clock tower at the GPO in Martin Place

We were in Sydney to see Hamilton (the musical) which was fantastic, but we also went to the Archibald’s while we were there. The Archies (as they are known colloquially) is the biggest art competition in Australia and a cool $100,000 in prize money goes to the winner of the best portrait.

This year the Archies celebrated their 100 year anniversary, so there was a separate exhibition featuring winners from the last 100 years. It was fascinating to see how styles (and tastes) have changed over the last century. The Archies are always controversial because everyone has strong opinions on what they think should have won. To counter this, the Trustees of the Art Gallery established the Packing Room Prize in 1992, in which the staff who receive the portraits and install them in the gallery vote for their choice of winner. The prize money is a mere $1,500, but I think it appeals to our sense of egalitarianism that ordinary people get a say in the matter. There is also a People’s Choice award, so you can vote for your favourite portrait after you’ve been to the exhibition.

As a person with no artistic talent whatsoever, I’m in awe of people who can paint and draw, but there’s a big difference between admiring a work for its technical brilliance and admiring a work because it makes you feel some kind of emotion. I thought this portrait of Professor Mabel Lee by the artist Hong Fu was brilliantly executed, but there were other paintings that stole my heart.

A portrait of Professor Mabel Lee by the artist Hong Fu.
Professor Mabel Lee by the artist Hong Fu

There’s something about this portrait of Tané Andrews by Nick Stathopoulos that’s very moving, but I’m not sure what it is. According to the description, Mr Andrews is an artist who works in a gallery near to where Nick Stathopoulos lives. I especially loved the white shirt. You can almost feel its soft silkiness.

Portrait of the artist Tané Andrews wearing a white shirt painted by Nick Stathopoulos.
The white shirt – portrait of Tané Andrews by Nick Stathopoulos

It wasn’t until I got home that I realised that Nick Stathopoulos also painted the portrait below, which I think is magnificent. It won the People’s Choice Award in 2016, so even though I can’t articulate my feelings about these works, I guess I know what I like.

A painting of Deng Adut by Nick Stathopoulus
Sudanese refugee and lawyer Deng Adult painted by Nick Stathopoulos

Here’s a link to all the finalists in the 2021 Archibald’s. Which one would you vote for?