Blog twenty-seven: Oh hi-owa, Iowa (City)

Meeting John Kenyon, Director of Iowa City of Literature.

Greetings from Keokuk, Iowa, and my seat on the Burlington Trailways bus to St Louis. Whilst you may be reading these blogs fairly close together due to me posting them with little time apart, it feels like a lifetime ago that I was leaving Chicago to travel 4 hours west to Iowa City.

Iowa City was one of the first UNESCO Cities of Literature and has a good 10 years’ experience under its belt on how to develop and sustain a program of activity, boost awareness and make the having of a CoL office sustainable after the UNESCO start-up funds. This obvious link between Nottingham and Iowa City as sister Cities of Lit and being part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network had been my initial draw to the place but soon found there’s much more to see and find here with their bustling university seemingly the hub of much of this great activity. With only 2 full days in Iowa City, with one of these being a Saturday, I had to pile much of what I planned to do with organisations into just the one day and, when meeting with both the City of Lit and the IYWP they put me on to other people, who I hope to contact via email and Skype soon.

I arrived late-ish on Wednesday and went directly to where I was staying in Coralville, the neighbouring town to Iowa City, but the two have expanded so much that they now feel like one conurbation. And I went to bed, because I was tired out! I would need to be on top form the next day!

My first meeting in Iowa City was with Mallory Hellman from the Iowa Youth Writing Project and her team. Mall is a friend of Brandon’s, who I met at 826DC. The IYWP deliver in-school workshops and big-out-of-school engagement sessions, like their young writers’ conference which could have over 200 students attending this year! They’re strongly tied to the university and we meeting in Mall’s office on campus. We talk about the model they use, success stories and the commonalities and differences, as we see them, in the US and UK systems – although we veer into talking about healthcare for ages and I do my love-letter/eulogy for the NHS. Later, I have a long conversation about evidencing and impact reporting – the glamorous life I lead! IYWP are going to be in a school later and invite me along so I can see what they do first-hand after my next meeting.

Me and Mallory at the IYWP.

Next up, is meeting John Kenyon – the director of Iowa City of Literature, at the public library where their office is based. I have a small window of time before meeting John so have a quick wander around town and try to take in some of the brass plaques honouring writers inlaid into the pavements, which form part of the city’s Lit Walks, and have a look at library and its children’s section.

I meet John and the Rachels (both of the other two staff members are, not surprisingly, called Rachel) and we talk about what Nottingham is doing as a CoL, Iowa’s specific interests and programming, bookstores and baseball – John is a Dodgers fan and finds it pretty funny that I support the Padres, even having my Padres hoodie on under my jacket.

I’m particularly impressed with the work Iowa CoL does with sophomore high-school students with their annual essay writing contest, the Paul Engle High School Essay Contest, where the winning prize of which is a year’s free tuition to the university (!!!), and the One Book, Two Book children’s literature festival which places work created by children, working with organisations like IYWP, alongside professional, national-profile children’s authors. They have a close association also with an organisation which is the national exam body for one of the tests US children have to complete – they work together in the marking of writing submissions by children and award prizes for both technical proficiency and writing from the heart, something which I really liked as an idea. I also loved the Little Free Libraries and John gave me a plaque for a new library which I hope to set up in Nottingham! John gave me a list of things to do in Iowa City around its literary heritage and contemporary scene and said he’d hook me up with his friend Jim, who runs a tailgate party before the college football games and that there was one on Saturday.

My next stop was Mark Twain Elementary school with IYWP where I joined some of Mal’s students for their regular after-school program. I two sessions, one for third-graders and another for fourth-graders, we wrote stories in groups about what Halloween (our prompt was “what would we do if we discovered our house was haunted”) and in the other, wrote definitions for nonsense words and I made the group come up with a definition for “mardy”, which they decided was a type of zebra, or zeeeeeebra, as they would say!

Iowa City's Little Free Libraries

On Saturday morning, I visited the front of the Iowa Children’s Museum, who are one of the partners in the One Book, Two Book program that the City of Literature runs. They had some cool STEM activities and ball runs which had attracted a very excited crowd of little Iowans. I got the bus into town and went to visit some of the town’s Little Lending Libraries, which I’d seen online before and then spoken to John about the day before. I dropped into the famous Prairie Lights bookstore next and spotted a photo of DH Lawrence up next to the cash register – us Cities of Lit have to stick together!

I then took the brisk walk from town to the university campus, across the Iowa River, to the monstrously large Kinnick Stadium. John had hooked me up with his friend Jim, who had been the president of the CoL board, who runs a tailgate party from the back of his Suburban – serving up a menu of beer, snacks and a good time! Tailgating is a uniquely American experience and, when stood with a light beer in a koozie in your hand in a freezing cold parking lot with a man playing a Sousaphone next to you and everyone singing their “fight song”, then you understand why. Everyone at Jim’s party was so welcoming and interested in what I was doing, including one who was a school librarian – so we had a great chat – plus, his friend Kim got me a ticket for the game!

My over-riding memory for the game was that the stadium, which seats 70,000, was full and this was for a university game! The last time I watched a team in gold and black on a synthetic pitch was Basford United, and here was a crowd the size of Manchester United! It was also freezing! Iowa was experiencing a bit of a cold snap and it got down to around -2! Iowa beat Minnesota by 17 – 10 and they got to keep a trophy of a pig called Floyd. As an outsider, it was a strange experience, especially with the stoppy-starty nature of Gridiron but I did enjoy the noise of the partisan crowd, particularly when it was the opposition’s third down!

Before the game at Kinnick Stadium! Go Hawkeyes!

After the game I headed back into town to meet Rachel and her husband to see “the other side of Iowa City”. IC can seem quite genteel and a sleepy university town that can spill over a little when the football or the students are on form, but there’s a subversive side too. Rachel wanted to show me this and we went to the Heartland Bombshells’ queer Halloween-themed burlesque show at the Blue Moose tavern and grabbed a few beers in some of the other bars, although sadly Vonnegut’s old haunt of the Dublin Underground was full of students in fancy dress.

On my final day in Iowa, I found out that James T Kirk was "born" in Riverside, Iowa on March 22, 2233, so, to all my new found friends in Iowa, may you all live long and prosper, and yes, in this analogy I'm so definitely Spock. Now my Midwest adventure continues south to St Louis, MO and Alton, IL before heading across to Tennessee! This is still feeling like one incredible journey!

Blog twenty six: words on the Windeh Citeh

Children's art work at the Harold Washington Library, Chicago.

I’m now in Iowa, home of corn and the Hawkeyes, after another speed-through in Chicago. I had a fantastic few days in Illinois with my super host family, the Careys, the parents of a friend of mine and Cáit’s. Mag and Gerd were super, and I got tasty dinners every evening, including steak on the BBQ! Their house, in the suburb of Park Ridge, was very close to the commuter train station into the city.

After arriving in on my Amtrak on Tuesday morning, I went directly to the Careys’ and had a shower. Mag made me a delicious breakfast and then, wash and fed, I headed into Chicago again. Once at Ogilvie Station, the hub for the commuter trains, it was straight to the L trains to cover the short distance to the Anish Kapoor “bean” sculpture. Whilst I could have easily walked, Chicago’s L trains are mostly elevated at 2^nd storey level and are a great way to see the city’s beautiful architecture quickly and to nose on people in their 2^nd floor offices! The bean was always going to be on my “to do” list with Kapoor’s Sky Mirror being outside Nottingham Playhouse so to see a sister sculpture in the US was always something I wanted to do. Whilst the weather was pretty lousy that day, I liked the effect that the rain had running down the chrome-shape and, still in the drizzle, I wandered down through Millennium Park checking out all the other public art and sculpture.

Over the road from the park is the city campus of Roosevelt University, who I’d tried to make contact with a few times, but never very successfully. I decided to pop in and see what was happening and the nice people at the desk allowed me onto one of their under-graduate tours, which meant I got to see their beautiful panelled library and go up to the 31^st floor at the top of the building for the view out onto the lake, Soldier Field and the Navy Pier. I also chatted with their international office, who hopefully will be able to be point of contact for future scholars. Over the road from RU is the Harold Washington Public Library and their newly renovated children’s library, which I was shown round by Karina, one of their amazing librarians. This was probably the best children’s library I’ve seen. Their desk was at the right height for children to see over and use, there was an arts and crafts maker space, their shelves were low – allowing children to reach and access ALL the books, there were loads of play areas with foam building blocks, puzzles and dressing up costumes AND the low shelves had crawl through spaces for children too – in the shape of the bean! I had such a great time with them, hearing about how the space was designed and changed from how it used to look to be much more ergonomic for children’s use but also chatting politics, travels in Europe and books! The library stays open until 9 and I lost track of time, so was late back for dinner – not the best move for a house guest.

Carver Elementary, South Chicago.

On Wednesday, I was working with two amazing organisations that were right up my street. In the morning, I went into George Washington Carver (the man who invented peanut butter) Elementary School in South Chicago with the amazing Stay Sit Read. SSR is an incredible organisation that works with schools in deprived neighbourhoods to get children reading though reading books aloud together and in a fun playful way, whilst also using this technique to create story prompts for the children to write their own tales! They also bring dogs into school and allow the children to interact with and read to the dogs. The whole curriculum is canine themed and gives the children access to books, reading, being read to and positive settings around dogs, which all may be things not happening at home. I was on a table with 5 2^nd graders and we read Biscuit Goes to School together – I was quickly adopted by the quiet but trying Floyd, who on a table of boisterous kids was struggling to read the book and concentrate on forming the words. We ended up reading the book line by line to each other and making loud woofing noises every time we turned the page. Floyd struggled to get motivated in the story activity, but then it was his turn to hang out with Maggie the dog. When he came back to the table, he was transformed and together we wrote a short-story about him bringing a dog to school and he drew a great little picture. I think Floyd and that interaction will be hard to top as a highlight of the trip.

826 Chicago's Secret Agent Supply Store, Wicker Park

Kate, SSR’s program leader, dropped me back in Chicago in the funky neighbourhood of Wicker Park, where I grabbed a coffee and browsed the used bookstores, before my meeting with 826 Chicago and their Secret Agent Supply Store. I met with Tyler, their store manager, and spent an hour picking his brains for tips on how to run the storefront element of an 826 space. He has certainly been the most retail focussed of the 826 staffers I’ve met and, with around 20% of 826CHI’s funding coming via the retail space, it is paying off – Chicago, Tyler tells me, is the 826 with the highest proportion of their funding coming directly from the store. I also got to see some of their after-school program in action and saw loads of kids benefitting from the 826 tuition. On my way back into town I popped into Podhalanka, the Polish diner. Chicago is the second largest Polish conurbation in the world behind Warsaw, so I couldn’t miss out on some pierogi and kielbasa! Tyler also put me onto another organisation, Open Books, who sell second-hand books to raise money for children’s literacy programs and it was conveniently close to Ogilvie, so I nipped in before my train back to Park Ridge and got Cáit a book!

Another sleep and another hearty Carey breakfast, then it was back to Chicago on the commuter train and my Windstar bus to Iowa City. Having a great time in Iowa City so far and will write up my time here when I’m on the bus to St Louis tomorrow!

Blog twenty-five: my little piece of D.C.

Sunset over the Jefferson Monument, D.C.

So I’m in Cumberland, MD – on my way to Chicago on the over-night AmTrak. I’ve had a whirlwind few days in DC and my first few days of flying solo now Cáit has gone back to Notts. It’s been strange not having her here as we are, as a couple, whilst fiercely individualistic and independent, very close and sometime live very much in each other’s pockets. I think when we were in New York I was a bit preoccupied with work and the enormity of the trip and should have spent more time enjoying the short time we had put aside to try and be together whilst I’m here but I’m much better at these things in theory than ever in practice, however our last full day in NYC was super special when I tried to disengage scholar-brain more.

In my last blog I left off on my bus from NYC to DC and now I’m on my next transport leg. When I arrived in DC I headed straight to the apartment of Cáit’s family friend Mary, who lives just over the Potomac in Arlington, VA. After quickly settling in I caught the Metro a few stops to Arlington Cemetery to pay my respects to the men of the 82^nd Airborne’s 508 Parachute Infantry Regiment who, in 1943-44 were stationed at Wollaton Hall in Nottingham, before their dropping into occupied France as part of the D-Day landings. It was very special and incredibly moving to be at such a venerated place in the national psyche as Arlington and to make a connection that had impacted so many people across the world, but also in microcosm so many ordinary Americans transplanted to West Nottingham and the people they met there. The 508^th got on like a house on fire with the locals, according to the sources I’ve read, and were especially popular with the women working at Players. The 508^th memorial, a plaque and some fir trees, is in the shadow of the Tombs of the Unknowns, which are under 24-hour ceremonial guard – carried out by the 3^rd Infantry Regiment, the Old Guard. I watched their step-perfect changing of the guard with all its pomp and solemnity as the sun started to set.

D.C. FDR memorial in the Tidal Basin.

On Saturday, after a free coffee at Commonwealth Joe in Mary’s neighbourhood who were celebrating their birthday, I spent much of the day criss-crossing up the Mall from the Capitol, to the courts, to the White House, to the Washington monument, Lincoln memorial and war memorials. I had a stop off in the Smithsonian Museum of History – getting a glimpse of Lincoln’s top hat, a tree stump scarred by musket balls and cannon at the Bloody Angle, the original flag which inspired the Star-Spangled Banner after the War of 1812, one of the original copies of the Brown decision, Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves and Indiana Jones’ hat and whip. It was an amazing array of America and its cultural artefacts and culture. I was disappointed by the First Ladies’ gallery which reduced much of their contributions to frocks and crockery. I’d hope Eleanor’s response would have been a stern letter to the curators on UN headed note paper. I also completed my FDR memorials tour with the Archives Stone (the monument he requested on a scrap of grass outside the archives building which is a block of white stone no larger than a desk and is markedly similar to the grave stone in the Springwood garden) plus the larger traverse-through memorial in the tidal basin, which fittingly includes tributes to Eleanor, his policies in the New Deal and, popularly based on where folks were queuing up for photos, Fala the dog! In the evening Mary and I had dinner at her apartment and then watched the end of the Patriots-Falcons game.

Today (Monday), was another hot day (the weather has been scorching whilst I’ve been here, but I’m looking forward to jumpers weather and 12 degrees in Chicago!) but humid and I had my big bag today ahead of my train. Even so, I went to the Library of Congress (closed Sundays) and saw the small sections open to the public, including the famous reading room from the viewing gallery. I didn’t have time to hang around for the tour, which I believe would have taken me into the library and its halls of books, as I had to get off to my next appointment, but I did see a Guttenberg bible, which was pretty cool.

Brandon likes his hat, 826 DC.

 After the LoC, I headed to 826 DC and their store-front Tivoli’s Astounding Magic Supply Co. I was met by their store manager Caroline and we had a great chat about how the store runs, the items that sell really well and how kooky you can be with things. She had some really great advice on having a strong clear concept for the store and being as upfront as you can be with people about “what the store is” whilst keeping the wonderful elements that make it so, well, magical! Areesha, their Development Director, then took me for coffee and we talked business plans, funding structures and evidencing and impact recording – all things I need to think about much more than my wibbly-wobbly “wouldn’t it be nice if…” kinda way! Then I spoke with Brandon, who has just moved to DC to work at 826 from Iowa City so got some literary links and food recommendations from him, which was really cool, plus he got super excited by the Robin Hood hat. From there it was to Union Station and my travelling bed seat for the night.

The AmTrak is kind of amazing – there’s a “viewing car” with wiggly seats and chargers so I sat, with my new friend Jesse, and watched the sun go down over Maryland and West Virginia. The coffee’s pretty good on-board and big pack of crisps will see me through for snacking. Next stop: Chicago tomorrow morning!

My new route...

Post-Script: having spoken to people in the US, especially Tina who we stayed with in Brooklyn, Houston is looking like I shouldn’t visit as the area is still reeling from the hurricane which ripped through the city. Also, for route planning this has made a few decisions for me and I’ve resolved to get from Memphis to Albuquerque using the route: Memphis – Dallas – Oklahoma City – Albuquerque, which whist long will get me into some bits of the States I’d love to see and experience plus, put me into contact with some new and exciting literacy organisations. Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma won’t know what hit it!    

Blog twenty-four: Unique New York

826NYC's Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store

Where do you start with somewhere as unique as New York? As I sit writing this, the Big Apple’s skyline is fading into the distance as my Megabus speeds South-Westerly through New Jersey toward Baltimore and DC. It has been a whirlwind week in a city that never sleeps and whilst this is my second visit to NYC, it is still somewhere I leave wanting to return and to not take 11 years to come back again.

Where we stay was excellent, just a short walk from the Atlantic Avenue subway, which became our arterial route in-and-out of the city. Brooklyn was everything I expected it to be – bold, brassy and wildly cosmopolitan, with us eating Caribbean-Creole, Columbian, American BBQ and diner food (plus the amazing smelling food van at the end of our road) just a stone’s throw from our little apartment, which we’d rented from the brilliant Tina and Rob. The Park Slope neighbourhood just down from where we stayed was exceptionally cool with different restaurants, bars, shops and quirky non-profits all jostling for space – our closest equivalent being the bottom end of Radford Road, but this still doesn’t really come close.

New York is a goldmine for tourists and I did have to indulge quite a bit this week, with the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Central Park, the amazing views of the skyline and bridges, the Met Museum and various Flaneur-like wanders through the different areas, districts and historic neighbourhoods. I also, this week, had a little companion as my girlfriend Cáit had come too and there were things that we wanted to see and do together (despite me having my head in work for a good 90% of the time). We went to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island on Monday, having spent Sunday watching the Forest Derby game with the NYC NFFC Supporters Club and their organiser, Karl. It was great, on my first day, to meet people from Eastwood, Kimberley and Bingham! I also met Michelle, a middle-school principal from Long Island in a dinner after the game – entirely by chance, who put me onto some really cool projects and people. We spent the rest of the day wandering Manhattan and having coffee in Central Park – because, why wouldn’t you!? As a side note, we’ve had unbelievably good weather for this time of year! The Statue of Liberty was a humbling reminder of America’s diaspora nation origins, with even the native people of this country having walked over the then frozen Bering Strait many thousands of years ago. The Emma Lazarus poem The New Colossus rings true still today for many Americans. Ellis Island too was another powerful place and whilst I didn’t manage to trace my ancestor Thomas King through it arrivals system, Cáit found her relative Patrick Hogan. The museum here has some great exhibits, including the history of migration to America, why free movement is important and the clear parallels that have happened before and are happening again when toxic nationalism manifests in foreign and immigration policy. We also visited the reflection pools which are now where the towers of the World Trade Centre once stood to pay our respects to those who lost their lives in the terrible attacks 16 years ago.

Me and the First Lady of the World, Eleanor Roosevelt.

Tuesday was the day I went up to Hyde Park and to the FDR Library, Museum and National Historical site. I wrote a blog about this earlier in the week, which I may revisit as it felt a bit rushed, so if you want to read about this day and my FDR pilgrimage, click here!

On Wednesday we walked through Brooklyn to their stunning Art Deco public library, and I whiled away an hour talking to their children’s librarians about the cool programmes they ran for pre-school age children and up. They have an awesome sounding STEM program called Learning Lab, which seemed to be a bit like Fun Palaces and the work done by the brilliant Ignite! Futures but more imbedded regularly in libraries. We then walked down into Park Slope to see the 826 NYC storefront – The Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store. These 826 storefronts have been one of the things that have excited me the most about the trip and many of the collected supporters of what could come next from it have seen an 826-like model as one that may work for Nottingham. Here we were given a behind the scenes look at the store and the programs they provide by volunteer Tatiana who gave me the very good advice to sell things that glow in the dark – these are often their best sellers. Tati was a great source of good advice about the running of the storefront, how they run their book-binding program to self-publish the children’s work and showed us some of her comic book art work. I got to try a cape on in the fan-powered capery and got my superhero mask/goggles and an awesome new tote bag.

Sun sets behind the Empire State Building and One World Trade Centre. 

On Thursday, Cáit and I headed to Central Park again and The Met to get our art gallery on – although I was slightly disappointed that there was none of the gallery’s Pre-Raphaelite collection (I’m always a sucker for a Rossetti) on display, even when the gift shop had two whole racks of William Morris print accessories. I did however see Jackson Pollock, Georgia O’Keefe, Alice Neel, John Singer Sargent, Rembrandt, Thomas Hart Benton’s America Today Mural and Cáit fell in love with some Pissarro’s. We then walked over the West side and the Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial by the Hudson before getting the best Chinese dumplings at Vanessa’s and then heading to the Rockefeller Centre for sunset on Top of the Rock!

On Friday, we caught the Roosevelt Tramway cable car to Roosevelt Island – a former prison and infectious disease hospital island in the middle of the river between Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan which has now been redeveloped and name in FDR’s honour. At the tip is Four Freedoms Park with the city’s memorial to a President who was truly one of their own. From here we headed to the New York Public Library where I met with Louise, their children’s librarian, to talk about the programs they run at the central branch (weekends mostly with some holiday sessions) and out in neighbourhood branches (more homework help sessions and hangouts) – they have an upcoming scavenger hunt in the central library which sounds awesome, especially in such an amazing building. From here I met with Jason, who Michelle had put me onto, from Story Pirates – a literacy non-profit based in a theatre bookstore. They encourage children to write stories for them which will become comic sketch-style short plays and I got to see some rehearsals going on in their black-box theatre underneath the store. I really liked Story Pirates’ style and the energy in what they were doing. There was just time for a quick drink and some BBQ food and my final full day in NYC was over before my bus to DC on Saturday morning.

FDR Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island, NYC.

We also, as anyone who know us will not be surprised to hear, visited a fair few bookshops including The Strand Bookstore and Housing Works Bookstore on Manhattan, and Unnameable Books in Brooklyn. Housing Works was my undoubted favourite – whilst Unnameable had the hip, Francophile stuff I often read stocked, it felt a bit aloof whereas Strand, whilst huge, felt a bit faceless – a book-mart rather than an engaging space. Housing Works had a spiral-staircase, a coffee shop and a very dear friend, Bianca, working there (so I may be biased) and it operates as a non-profit to support deprived communities in NYC, including the bold target of making NYC AIDS free by 2020. I was very pleased to buy a vintage copy of three Ionesco plays to add to my burgeoning collection and Patrick DeWitt’s The Sisters Brothers, a recommendation from B.

So far, so amazing – what a great first week of my Nottingham Roosevelt Scholarship!

Blog twenty-three: trip to the big house

Outside the Library with the big fella.

Yesterday was probably one of the most humbling days of my life, when I visited the former home and Presidential Library of FranklinDelano Roosevelt, where he was born, grew up, raised his own family with the equally inspiring Eleanor and was laid to rest in his mother’s garden after his death in 1945. Whilst there are three major sites concerned with FDR: Little White House in Georgia, Campobello in Maine and here – this is probably the most important and the one which the President himself most dearly called home, though his actual ownership of the place was only 4 years. Like Fala, FDR’s faithful Scottish Terrier who he only received as a gift in 1940, whilst his deeded connection with it was short, it was undoubtedly profound – so too with the site here at Springwood, which had been his mother Sara’s until her death in 1941.

Springwood (the family home), the archive and library (planned by FDR when he was still a sitting President before his 3rd term pressgang – it even includes the study FDR built for himself and where he recorded two of his famous fireside chats), Val-Kill (Eleanor’s retreat and later home, after Springwood transferred to the National Parks Service) and Top Cottage (FDR’s retreat and planned retirement cottage) are all part of this huge memorial to a colossus of the Twentieth Century.

On my visit I spent much of the morning in the archive, after being greeted by Kirsten, the Supervisory Archivist, and Bill, the Deputy Director, and presenting them with their Robin Hood hat, “ay up” duck and the contact card for Cllr Edwards, the current Lord Mayor of Nottingham, to re-establish that historic link. I looked through all of the papers associated with NRMTS from the collections of Eleanor, Anna Halsted and John A. Roosevelt plus the Roosevelt Institute and found the original letter sent from Lord Mayor Francis Carney to Eleanor Roosevelt about the scholarship, plus many other letters back and forth across the Atlantic between the family, the scholarship committee and scholars! Thanks so much to Patrick and to Christian for helping me out!

The Roosevelt Ride bus at Top Cottage.

A whistle-stop tour of the fantastic museum followed but I was on a tight schedule after my time in the archive. It was a great museum and I really want to go back and really immerse myself in it but didn’t want to miss my bus to Top Cottage (FDR’s retreat). After a lift on the Roosevelt Ride bus, we were given a tour of TC by Ranger Bob and in our group of 11 visitors there was one woman who had studied English at University of Nottingham and lived in Beeston whilst a student! After returning from TC it was the tour of Springwood with Ranger Paul, the ancestral home, to see his childhood room, the room he was born in, his and Eleanor’s room and the room of his mother. Both sites were illuminating in their adaptation and design to support secretly FDR and his mobility. I also stopped a while to contemplate near his grave where he and Eleanor are buried.

The last person to mention and thank is Sal, who works on the front desk at the Visitors Centre and was an indefatigable help to me on the day – sorting my tours and passes, making sure I didn’t miss the bus back to the railway station, talking about British theatre in the 1970s and generally winding me up! It’s people like this that animate a place that could become stale – certainly not a trait that you could associate with FDR and his memorial should be vibrant and engaging like the man himself!

It was a huge day and one which further convinced me that we are living in a world that was originally conceived by FDR and created in his image – much of what we called Post-War Consensus in the UK was built around central planks of FDR’s New Deal and delivering on his 4 Freedoms, the antithesis of which being Beveridge’s Giant Evils. The New Deal gave America hope in what was a dark time of spiralling unemployment, poverty and despair. Neo-Liberalism of the Thatcher-Reagan axis has eroded much of this and curbed domestic intervention – something I’d like to see return.

FDR was not the social reformer that he could have been when we look at him through a 21st Century lens – he couldn’t propose an anti-lynching bill through the Senate as it would have destroyed much of his support in the South upon which he relied, he could have pressured the Senate to drop quotas on European migration during the late 1930s into the Second World War, which may have save thousands from the gas chambers, and most damningly he interned 120,000 American citizens of Japanese descent through an Executive Order signed after Pearl Harbour in the hysteria that followed the attack.  

Truly though he cannot be written off or underestimated, nor can Eleanor either who was a great moral guide for him. To be the recipient of a scholarship that bears his name whilst travelling a nation which he, more than anyone, tried to steer the ship in some of its darkest hours is a profound honour. 

Blog twenty-two: Christmas eve

Me and my new mate, Robin the robin from the Hoodwinked trail.

So, it's the night before "Christmas" and tomorrow we fly to the States. I'm feeling a mixture of excited, terrified and that it isn't really happening. But, the bag is packed, the first stops are planned and this blog is being written. How did it come to this?

It's been I while since I last wrote as there was the Playground festival to run at Nottingham Playhouse and the Hoodwinked sculpture trail to launch, but I've also been plotting things for my trip, including heading to the FDR Library on Tuesday next week to see the original letters Lord Mayor Francis Carney sent to Eleanor to set up the scholarship. I'll also be visiting 826 NYC and the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store as well! I'm booked in with a motley crew of family and friends in Washington, Chicago, Alton-St Louis and Chattanooga and have a bag packed full of Robin Hood hats, Nottingham books and rubber "ay up" ducks. I'm ready as I'll ever be - I even got new shoes.

I wanted to just take this moment to offer a few thank yous for those who have helped. Thank you to Russ, Rachel and Sheridan at the Roosevelt for supporting me and answering my stupid questions and to all the past scholars who have been so giving in their time and advice. Thanks to Cllr David Mellen for his support around the Dolly Parton Imagination Library and meeting them in Pigeon Forge. Thanks to Sandy, Matt and Leanne at Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature for their hooking me up with John in Iowa. Thanks to Prof. Andrew Harrison for his wise words on DH Lawrence and the anecdote about his cow, Susan (Lawrence's, not Andrew's). Thank you to my Crowdfund backers - I'm really excited about sending you your post cards and buying your 826 gifts. Thank you to Nottingham Playhouse and Hoodwinked for serendipitously working exactly to my dates for the trip! Thanks to future hosts and friends in the UK who have hooked me up with possible places to bunk up. And, thanks to Cáit for coming with me for the first week and without whom I wouldn't have been able to do any of this!

Now, it's 23:18 and I need to head to bed - we're on the train to the airport at 5:20 tomorrow morning! Next missive from NYC!