The Arvon Foundation

The Ted Hughes Arvon Centre, Lumb Bank, Heptonstall

I picked a good week for my short story course at Lumb Bank, because it poured with rain most of the time. This effectively meant that staying inside to write was a much more enticing prospect than tramping around the surrounding countryside in gales and rain. The sun did come out for one glorious afternoon, followed by an early evening shower which produced the wonderful rainbow in my photographs.

                                 View from the garden, early evening


Lumb Bank was originally a mill-owner's home, and once belonged to Ted Hughes. It is set in woodlands near Heptonstall village, on a hillside looking out across the valley.

For five nights I joined 14 other writers there, living and working together in a great big house-share, taking it in turns to cook dinner in teams of four. I stayed in a tiny attic room at the back of the house, overlooking the formal Bee-Bole Garden.



                                   View from the garden, early evening


Our tutors were Toby Litt and the lovely Stella Duffy. They took the morning workshops on alternate days, and saw all of us separately in the afternoons for our one-to-one tutorials. Their workshops were totally different in style and they complemented each other well. Stella encouraged a physical approach, and got us leaping around in the huge space in the barn, whereas Toby’s workshops took place round the huge dining room table.

On Tuesday evening they read us some of their own work, which was really inspiring, and on Wednesday night we were visited by the guest speaker, the wonderful A L Kennedy. She treated us to the first reading of a brand new story, and chatted to us afterwards about all sorts of writerly stuff. 

                          Our wonderful tutors, Stella Duffy and Toby Litt
                    View from the garden on the only perfect, sunny afternoon
                                              The living room


But anyway, that's just the things that happened. The real questions are how did I feel, and what did I learn...?


To be truthful, it was a bit scary. I knew when I booked it that it was going to take me outside my comfort zone. But the things that I thought would be a slight problem or inconvenience - e.g.shared bathrooms, cooking for 18 people - were largely irrelevant. What I hadn't expected was that it would be so hard to actually write whilst I was there, or that I would feel so useless halfway through the week. The type of useless I felt on the course was an emotional, gut-wrenching kind of useless that threw me totally. And it seemed obvious to me that everyone else was just breezing through it all without a moment of self-doubt.

I got over the not being able to write part. It didn't really matter to me, because although I lead a busy life, I always make time to write at home. So for me, the week wasn't in any way about retreating somewhere for a solid burst of writing - though I think the time to write was quite important to some of the others.

But by Wednesday I felt useless - despite Toby liking the first story I gave him to critique, and despite Stella not liking it so much but giving me excellent pointers/advice, all of which were spot on and improved it no end... I felt that every other student was a wonderful, capable writer, and that I was crap. I sent anguished texts home before I went to sleep, and for a moment - though only a moment - considered leaving.

Then on Thursday morning, at the start of Stella's tutorial, she announced that it was likely we were all feeling crap right then, and that it was perfectly ok to feel that way. She went on to say that it's only when she thinks she's useless that her writing gets better. Logical really. After all, if you think you're great all the time then you'll never seek to improve. And guess what? Things got better from that moment onwards. A weight was lifted and it was all ok.

And later that day I did discover that at least two other people had been feeling the same as I had, and we all wished we'd known earlier.

So, would I do another Arvon course? Yes, I would. But not for a long time - it took too much out of me emotionally. And that was something I hadn't expected at all...

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