'JAGO' - ANOTHER UPDATE ON THE PATH TO PUBLICATION

In this post I am recycling material from my October Mailchimp Newsletter that has been opened by 34 subscribers to date. Hopefully, this will be a fruitful way to widen the circle of those who have heard the continuing good news about the path to publication:

'There are now, as I promised, more Jago stories and images from the other side of the Pond. Here is one that came my way in late August this year. On 22 August, 2018, Gene Scheid made contact through Facebook and gifted me a couple of images of the painting that Jago had made of the family house in West Adderbury, Oxfordshire. In response to my request for more detail and stories, Gene replied: 'Sure! My mother, Roxann Cummings Scheid has a great story how he came about painting this for us and I am sure she would be happy to share.' Here is Roxann's tale (dated 29/08/2018): 
'Absolutely! I've been meaning to get on and tell you! I loved this man. When we moved there wasn't much television. It was shortly after they had added the "Breakfast Shows" and Jago was one of the featured guests on one of these shows. He told about his painting of Sulgrave Manor. He did it for the Flying Tigers to present to the President. My memory is cloudy about this next part but I believe it was for Gerald Ford.' [Yes - the year was 1976 and it was Jago's gift to mark the bicentennial of the founding of the USA. Sulgrave Manor was the ancestral home of George Washington and not far from Upper Heyford.]

'At the time I saw this broadcast it was still hanging in the White House. I was so taken by his story that I researched how to contact him. I asked him to paint our first home in England - #1 St Amends, West Adderbury. Now we were living on Whitley Drive on RAF Upper Heyford. We commissioned him for this piece, he did it - and 

A PERUVIAN ADVENTURE FEATURING BERTIE BARRETT - WITH A JAGO STONE LINK

I explained about Bertie Barrett's part in the Jago Stone story in a couple of blogposts back in November and December 2016. Here are the links to them:

robdonovan.blogspot.com/2016/11/jago-stone-news-of-oxford-discovery-and.html


robdonovan.blogspot.com/2016/12/jago-stone-more-on-oxford-discovery-and.html

And here is a section from the second of these posts:

'I promised to put more flesh on the bare bones of the story of the Oxford discovery I told in the blog on November 13 a few weeks ago and now I have permissions. The enterprising teenager whose Peruvian adventure holiday is being partly funded by the sale of Jago Stone paintings is Bertie Barrett. Louise and I have had the pleasure of meeting Bertie in person, with mum and dad and younger brother. A lovely family! We wish Bertie well in his future and hope and trust that he follows his dreams and achieves his ambitions. Watch 

'JAGO' - THE BOOK - AND PUBLICATION

Louise and I returned yesterday from our Greek vacation on the island of Patmos in the Aegean - and there will be a post on that regenerating experience in a few days. This post is designed to widen the circle of those who know what happened with respect to my yet-to-be published biography of Jago Stone in the fortnight before we left for Greece at the beginning of September - and to whet the collective appetite for more updates. Here is what the subscribers to my September Mailchimp Newsletter have read:

'AND SO TO THE POSSIBLY VERY GOOD NEWS:
At the beginning of last week - on Monday August 20 - I dispatched Submission No.28, the last in the long list of attempts to interest first literary editors and now publishers that I have been conducting since March of this year. Six months of frustration. Now it would be self-publication - not ideal but at least the story of Jago would see the light of day.

  Monday afternoon, an email appeared from the Chairman of Unicorn Press - the recipient of Submission No.28 - saying my proposal looked interesting - please send 'what I had got'. A WeTransfer sent him my completed biography - 'Jago'  - in a file. He downloaded early next morning, did a publisher's read on a train journey that day - and emailed me at teatime. The communication was headed 'Jago Lives'. I opened and read: '...read enough to see … it is a good story well told, and I like the use of images and the cyber angle … No reason for it not to do well if marketed properly.'
We arranged a meeting in the café at Waterstone's in Piccadilly, London, for the following Tuesday. Thus,  two 

DEATH, GRIEF, AND ART - PEDYR PRIOR AND MARY FLETCHER

Around three months ago, in May this year, I was canvassing on behalf of Pedyr Prior, our Labour candidate in a St Ives town council by-election. In the end, the Conservative vote was too strong. But we in the Labour Party locally gave it our best shot and Pedyr came close. Pedyr was our man - respected and seasoned and tough. Chair of the Cornwall Labour Forum. He had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy, even as he led his team of canvassers. The medical prognosis looked good.

Suddenly, the word came that Pedyr had taken a turn for the worse. He had had an adverse reaction to his fifth session of chemotherapy. Three weeks later, Pedyr passed away. On 25 June, we attended with many others his funeral at Treswithian Downs crematorium.

This blog-post is my tribute to Pedyr through the paintings and poetry of his wife, the St Ives artist Mary Fletcher. Mary has expressed her grieving through these images created on her iPad and in the words of her poems. I hold these images and word in high regard and am so pleased to play my part in helping them reach a wider audience.

                                     

                                     I  wake alone

                                     heart thumping

                                     pain through all my veins

                                     wobbly

                                     uncertain

                                     likely to pitch over

                                     can't drive

                                     can't survive

                                     can't see a way

                                     without you and don't want to

                                     Grief won't kill me though

                                     I asked it to.

                                                                                   Bagatelle.

                                    In love for so long, two sides of a calm quiet arch all held together, all happy and dancing.

                                    Balanced and sure, sweet and strong 

                                    Aware of this fragile fortune.

                                    And

                                    Now 

                                    He is dead so quickly, three weeks of suffering and hope and longing

                                    I'm left,  a loose marble shot out in a moment to rattle around so painfully

                                    Ricocheting stupidly, salted with crying

                                    Lost and lonely

                                    Afraid of everything 

                                    on my own.

                                    The palliative care team, the death squad

                                    invite you to choose a day to die.

                                    But we hung on to hope two more weeks.

                                                 Yes I hear you talking

                                                 something about plants

                                                 watering

                                                 or something else

                                                 Its like a film in the next room

                                                 Its like I'm behind glass

                                                 screaming

                                                 and you go on talking

                                                 about your happy life

                                                 about how life goes on

                                                 and I am behind glass

                                                 stuck in grief

                                                 drowning

                                                 hating it.

                                                    We made a circle

                                                    a strong fortress

                                                    and now its broken

                                                    and I am toppling.

                                                   A ruined broken circle

                                                   demolished

                                                   salt soaked

                                                   bombed

                                                   perilous

                                                   terror.

                                                       Tell Richard Gere I'm free

                                                       My husband died quite recently

                                                       I need someone to dance with me

                                                       I need someone to love me who I love

                                                       So much it makes me want to die

                                                       To whom I cannot say goodbye.

                                                       But if Richard should call by

                                                       One short waltz will do

                                                       I can pretend it's you.