David Selzer

1085 posts

POETRY

IN THE BEGINNING

By David SelzerMarch 27, 20252 Comments2 min read1.8K views

On the first day of summer she asked the novice

to open the scriptorium’s small casement.

And suddenly the river’s murmurings

became clear, and she could hear curlews

calling from the narrow estuary,

and thought of her family in the village

beyond the river through the woodland

two furlongs away. Then remembered

how nostalgia is a neighbour to regret.

She turned to the sheets of calfskin vellum

pristine on the desk before her, touched them,

smelt the animal scent on her finger tips.

She ruled lines across the first page of parchment,

chose a quill the novice had sharpened,

a pot of black ink they had made from soot,

and began: ‘in principio creavit

Deus caelum et terram…’ When she came

to God’s name she put the quill down and looked up

to ask the novice to fetch the brass-bound box

that held the lapis lazuli and gold leaf.

She saw the girl had not been watching her

attentively as she usually did –

intending always to learn and learn,

as she had herself when a novice – but was pale

and bent over, and realised that Eve’s Curse

was suddenly upon her. ‘Sister,’

she said gently, ‘you will be a bride of Christ.

Go and sit by the window, and pray’.

As she watched her go she thought again

of her own noviciate, and of her nieces

and nephews in the village over the wall

beyond the river – and admonished herself.

The novice, turning, called to her, ‘Please come,

sister’. ‘What is it, child?’ she asked. ‘Sister, please’.

Beneath the casement were the abbey orchards,

a kaleidoscope of apple blossom. The summer air

brought the scent unbidden – and the sounds

of the river, and the distant cries of birds.

Pages:

By David Selzer

2 Comments

POETRY

HARD LABOUR

By David SelzerMarch 27, 20253 Comments2 min read2.2K views

An ex-colleague, about whom I have heard nothing

for thirty or forty years, has died

quite recently from prostate cancer

I have learned from a chance encounter

with Miranda, a mutual acquaintance.

Paul had been an able linguist, fluent

in French and German, a charismatic

teacher – and a very heavy drinker.

The last I had heard of him he had gone

to teach English in Isfahan, Iran –

presumably a cold turkey cure

in one of the world’s most beautiful cities.

When he died he was living in Alvor,

in the Algarve, under a pseudonym –

Sebastien Melmotte – Miranda told me,

though she could or would not tell me why

but, chuckling, reminisced about Paul’s

extensive repertoire of bad impressions.

Later, a search on the internet told me

that in the 1990s Paul had taught

at a prestigious private girls’ school

in Lagos, and had a large apartment

in the city centre. At his trial

it was alleged he lured street boys there

and prostituted them – which he denied

then, and subsequently. He was sentenced

to twelve years hard labour, and served two

in Kirikiri Prison near Lagos

before being pardoned by the President

and deported to the UK. For a time

he lived in his late mother’s house in Widnes,

which was opposite a primary school.

The local press and the BBC found out.

He was shouted at in the street, went out

only after dark – then disappeared one day.

I recalled Miranda’s parting remark.

‘I think, and so do others, that he was

unjustly treated’. Did she mean he was

innocent of the charges and/or

should not have been accosted in Widnes?

From memory, in the staffroom, the only

environment in which I knew him,

he seemed stolidly heterosexual,

and was rumoured to be pursuing

the mother of one of the pupils.

But perhaps that was a front – and a high risk

one at that. Maybe the risk was what

really mattered – in Isfahan, Lagos?

Do some of us deliberately chose

a life of hard labour? I think he got

irony. If so, ending his days

in Alvor – a thirty-minute drive

from the port of Lagos that gave its name

to the Nigerian capital, and was

the centre of the European slave trade,

still preserving the purpose-built market

where African slaves had been sold – might have

made him a tad rueful.

Pages:

By David Selzer

3 Comments

POETRY

CARNIVAL

By David SelzerMarch 27, 20251 Comment2 min read1.9K views

Sudden heavy rain scatters on the skylights

of the hotel’s restaurant – and finds a small gap

in the putty last summer baked biscuit-dry.

A drop falls then another onto the floor’s tiles.

The apologetic waitress carries

my Pastis, Vittel and Madeleines

to a dry table near the door. I follow

with the ashtray and packet of Gitanes.

She asks me if later I am going to see

the carnival in the square. I say, ‘Peut être’.

I have just finished my liqueur, eaten my cakes,

and am about to light up another Gitanes,

when two early, sodden, loud revellers

enter the restaurant. The smoke and noise

of the carnival follows them briefly.

I think of ‘Une Soirée Au Carnaval’,

that surreal painting by Henri Rousseau,

part time artist, full time customs officer.

A woman and a man in fancy dress

stand in front of dark, calm, leafless trees.

He looks at us, she at him. He is Pierrot,

she Columbine in a peasant bonnet.

A street lamp has been lit. In the clear, dry sky,

a full moon and scattered stars are shining.

There is only the soft soughing of the wind.

Though they are dressed for joy, there seems to be

no merriment. They are impassive, still.

Meanwhile, in the round window of what might be

a shelter in the wintry copse where

Columbine and Pierrot patiently wait,

lit by the street lamp is an older man’s head.

He has a moustache, and wears a peaked cap.

The new customers are dressed in costume too: he

as Marie Antoinette, observing

the crumbs of Madeleine still on my plate,

and winking; she as Louis XV,

smirking at my apparent disapproval

of such contraband merriment. ‘Après nous

– le deluge!’ she guffaws.

Pages:

By David Selzer

1 Comment

OTHER PEOPLE'S FLOWERS

OTHER PEOPLE’S FLOWERS: LESLEY CLIVE, PLAYWRIGHT – BRANWELL JOHNSON

By David SelzerMarch 13, 20251 Comment4 min read2.5K views

My mother Lesley Johnson is an award-winning Wirral playwright with several works under her belt penned under the name Lesley Clive; plays that were professionally produced and brought to life on the stage and local and national radio in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Sadly, she has no recall of her creative life – I’m afraid Alzheimer’s Disease casts this distressing spell. But her works were always present on the page and on old recordings waiting to resurface. But if not for David Selzer’s kind prompting, it’s unlikely I would’ve unearthed and digitally copied the original analogue cassette recordings and I’m incredibly grateful for this opportunity to introduce Lesley ‘s plays to a new audience.

My mother was born and bred on the Wirral and despite being a young mum with two fractious kids living in a crowded three-bedroom semi, she somehow found time and space to write. She didn’t have her own study in which to concentrate but worked on a desk in the parental bedroom and she lacked the networks people often forge at college that can help open doors – she didn’t pursue higher education until much later in life when she attended Ruskin College in Oxford for a time to study a particular historical Scots’ event (another fascinating tale to surface one day).

But Lesley did have a deep love of and huge appetite for plays, poetry and literature and a marvellous circle of encouraging friends. These included David and Sylvia Selzer, friends of my parents going way back to when David taught alongside my father way in the early 1970s. All were highly engaged with the creative, cultural life of the Wirral and Merseyside. And Lesley had tenacity in spades. She built her own network among the regional theatre groups and actors, writers and radio producers in Merseyside.

I was fairly oblivious to mum’s creative efforts in childhood and my early teenage years. I often heard the typewriter rattling and clattering and sometimes we’d be ushered out of the front room when the landline rang so she could have long, private conversations about current projects. But I didn’t pay much attention beyond being aware she was ‘writing.’

It’s only when going through her papers and belongings on her move into a nursing home that I realised the extent of her work. It’s a heartbreak that she is still alive but unable to elucidate on her writings – but the cache of official BBC reading scripts, recordings of radio productions and local newspaper cuttings paint a picture of a creative life well-lived ‘in the provinces.’

Lesley’s plays embraced historical dramas and contemporary life, all leavened with dashes of grit and humour. Her radio commissions also took on important Northwest events, such as the tragic sinking of the submarine HMS Thetis in Liverpool Bay, George Stephenson’s tenacious battle to build the first intercity railway from Liverpool to Manchester and the Liverpool policeman’s strike of 1919.

I only saw one play performed on stage myself, this was Any Way You Want Me about the recollections of an ageing rock’n’roll groupie; it was poignant, funny and rather rude, I recall.

The Daisy Chain also stands out in the memory because I recall the family excitement of its broadcast on Radio 4 back in 1979. It’s an evocative account of the thoughts of Catherine Howard, Henry VIII’s very young fifth wife, on the eve of her execution. It’s a moving story of thwarted passion, the fears and follies of youth and the sacrifices made on the altar of power.

The play was one of her prize-winners and was aired both on Radio Merseyside and Radio 4’s 30 Minute Theatre. Other plays like Back Step told stories of women trying to shake off the restricted roles placed on them by the society, class and poverty of a few decades back and all the stories are shot through with imaginatively biting and amusing lines that prevent them being mere tales of misery.

I have now published the broadcast audio recordings that are salvageable on YouTube as a testament to Lesley’s passions and her unique voice, not quite stilled but no longer that of a storyteller. Among the various casts are actors who were well-known at the time, such as June Barry, or who became recognisable names like Julie Waters. The hard work of all the actors and production teams on all the projects of this not that distant era deserve applause.

Below is the full list of Lesley’s works with clickable links to available plays on YouTube.

Radio Plays

Tie Up – BBC Radio 3 (1976)

The Daisy Chain – Radio Merseyside (1977) – winner of BBC Radio Northwest Playwright’s Competition 1977, Thirty Minute Theatre, BBC Radio 4 (1979 featuring June Barry)

Back Step – Thirty Minute Theatre, BBC Radio 4 June (1980)

Shadow Tick – Thirty Minute Theatre, BBC Radio (1980 featuring Julie Walters)

Wheelbrace – Radio Merseyside (1979)

Radio Drama Documentaries

Sea Of Trouble (story of H.M.S. Thetis) – Radio City (1979)

King Steam (4-part series, George Stephenson) – Radio City (1980)

Who Killed Julie (The Julia Wallace Case) – Radio City (1981)

Coppers Out! (Police Strike, 1919) – Radio City (1982)

Stage Plays

Eye – Liverpool Everyman Theatre (1972)

Can’t You See My Face Is Sad – Gateway Theatre Studio, Chester 1972). Prizewinner

Next of Kin – Gateway Theatre Studio, Chester (1973). Prizewinner

Dov – Gateway Theatre Studio, Chester (1973), Prizewinner

Tie Up – London Fringe Production, Playhouse Upstairs (1976)

Any Way You Want Me – King’s Head, London, Birmingham, Liverpool Everyman Theatre, Manchester, Buxton Festival (1981 featuring Linda Beckett) and Edinburgh Festival (1982)

Jam Side Down – Liverpool Playhouse (1983)

A Basket Of Stars – children’s play, Wirral Youth Theatre (1978)

Pages:

By David Selzer

1 Comment

POETRY