B AT H L I V E S
Q&A
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ormer Sunday Times and The Telegraph travel columnist and fiction writer Lindsay Hawdon spent months travelling the world with her eight- and 10-year-old children. Her first novel, Jakob’s Colours, was shortlisted for The Authors Club First Novel Award, and now she’s penning her second. Here she tells us about her experience of travelling to over 80 countries… I embarked on a six-month world-wide trip with my two young sons as ‘the rainbow hunters’… I did a talk about this at the Lola Swift shop in Bath over Christmas. Dow, Orly and I travelled to seven countries in search of seven colours, the natural pigments made by the first colourmen, raising money for War Child as we went. We began in Kashmir, one month after floods swept through the city… It was still a mess of mud and silt; we were looking for saffron yellow. From there, we went to China, staying with minority villagers in search of celadon green. In Italy, we found cremona orange – an ancient varnish that covered the Stradivari violins. In New Zealand, at the edge of the world, we swam out to icy waters in search of a seasnail that weeps violet tears. In central Australia, we found red ochre in a dried-up riverbed on the MacDonald Ranges. We climbed 4200m above sea level in Chile to a mine of blue lapis lazuli, and in South Carolina we sought out old slave plantations in search of indigo.
LINDSAY HAWDON
It was a trip inspired by a story I used to tell the boys when they were growing up… When my first novel Jakob’s Colours – a story about a young Roma boy, Jakob, who uses a legacy of colour-making, passed down through the generations, to survive – was to be published, I thought we’d make it a real life adventure.
I’m dyslexic; I always wanted to write, but didn’t think it would be a possibility… So instead of making up worlds, I set off to find them, and spent three years, after I finished school, travelling around Europe, Africa and India. During that time, I had many wonderful and hair-raising experiences, which all somehow seemed pointless unless I wrote them down.
I’m now in the process of finishing a second novel… So I will hopefully do another talk in Bath when that is finished. The working title is Sundogs; it’s set in Alaska and the red deserts of Australia. I seem to be interested in how people survive great loss, and I wanted to set this story in those lands where reality can be twisted without question or judgement. I am a writer of travel and fiction. I began with a travel column for The Sunday Telegraph… It was called An Englishwoman Abroad, which was a series of small vignettes about the people I’d met and places I’d travelled to. That ran for seven years. I’d had my children by then and was bringing them up on my own, so when they
154 I BATH LIFE I www.mediaclash.co.uk
The writer talks travelling the world with her young children, an awkward moment with Richard Gere, and penning her new book were old enough to manage, we set off to South East Asia and Australia for an 18-month trip featured in a column for The Sunday Times called Have Kids, Will Travel. I regularly write for other publications including The Los Angeles Times, Red magazine, and Condé Nast Traveller.
When I got home, I began working in TV as an undercover reporter for various films… Most notably Britain Undercover: Inside Quarantine – where I worked as a kennel maid for six months, secretly filming the truth behind our quarantine system.
I’ve just moved into part of a converted mill on the crest of Combe Down… My boys and I listen to the hoot of owls at night, and I have two wood pigeons who keep me company in the day as I write. Bath is an inspiring city to live in… I love that the rest of the world comes to it, so you feel linked to other lands. I love that it has a framework of everything; it’s bohemian, arty, hippy and posh all in one. My favourite shops and eateries here are… Lola Swift’s pop-up shop, which returns every Christmas; Raphael’s for a romantic atmosphere and delicious food; and The Wheatsheaf in Combe Hay. My most treasured possession is… The first shells my children found, because they remind me of a time when they were little and we ran away to live by the sea, to light fires on the beach and cook prawns we had fished.
Travelling reminds you how wonderful most human beings are… It restores your faith in humanity. But it can be lonely, stressful, and fear-filled at times. The unknown can overwhelm you, and, with the boys in tow, I’m constantly aware of how precious my cargo is.
Something that not many people know is… I once had to dress up as Pocahontas for the Disney premier of the film and I got my wig caught in children’s presenter Andi Peter’s buttonhole on live TV and wrecked his interview with Richard Gere as a result.
I first came to live in Bath at age eight, and lived here until I left school… I came back to live here in 2012. Bath is a beautiful place to bring up a family, and a lot of my friends have returned.
Jakob’s Colours is available at Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, and Topping & Company Booksellers of Bath. Lindsay’s new book Sundogs is currently being written. For more, and to find out about Lindsay’s travel- and creative-writing workshops, visit www.lindsayhawdon.com