Part of another creative writing exercise.
The fist activity I remember using my extremities for was swimming. The smell of chlorine, the cold, damp floor of the semi-indoor pool. (Essentially an outdoor pool inside a poorly insulated greenhouse). The green algae growing on the tiles. I could swim well enough, but I don’t remember being particularly fast or competitive, nor do I remember if I was particularly passionate about it. I do remember that it felt natural though. I loved being in the water. I remember some summer camps as a child that involved swimming too. Swimming longer and longer distances, even as a child. I obtained badges for reaching 1500m, 3000m and even 5000m, all whilst still in primary school. Swimming stuck with me intermittently throughout my youth.
I dabbled at other sports, team and individual, and whilst I had the hand-eye coordination to have been competent at any of them, I never developed an interest long lasting enough to improve or gain much fitness. Golf was the exception, but again, without some parental encouragement, I wouldn’t have got very far with that either. I got more out of golf than any of the sports I played at school, however.
Alongside the physical activity came the music. I began, as a lot of us did, with the recorder, moving on to the electronic organ, and lessons I remember in a funny little backroom of a shop crammed with a dozen or so organs, the keys often crawling with tiny red spider mites. I’m not sure how long I stuck at that but at the age of 6 I asked for violin lessons. The reasons for which are not yet fully understood, neither by me nor my parents. Mary Cohen was my first teacher, and the only one who inspired me in any way. Even though I only lasted 6 years playing the violin and can’t say that I surprised anyone with my talent or progression, Mary’s teaching somehow left a mark on my memory. To get to some of her lessons I remember driving past fields where we would sometimes see deer in the twilight. The first weeks I wasn’t allowed near a bow, only using my fingers to pluck the strings. Mary also ran summer camps which were as much about art as they were music. I learned about my Chinese birth sign amongst other things at one of those camps. I was born in the year of the monkey. When I began secondary school however, I moved on to a different teacher, and the creative interest nurtured by my former teacher was crushed by an uninspiring (to me at least) curriculum. I remember asking him if he could just help me to play better and for the enjoyment of it. Basically, the answer was no. We must follow the plan. I think I only lasted a few weeks more before I gave it up.
Then 12 years old, I discovered rock music and the guitar. I still own a guitar, but it hangs forlorn and forgotten in the corner of the living room.
Whilst all this was going on, my hands and feet had been tested by climbing and kayaking as I was coming up through the ranks of the cubs and scouts. My enjoyment of which is most likely because of their immediate and obvious connection with nature. I never managed to really get enthusiastic about indoor climbing centres, but I have some very powerful memories connected to being on a river or a rock face.
Stuart Westwood 