#VoteLabour THREAD I’m often asked why I write. There are lots of reasons, & I could go into an analysis of the personal, emotional, psychological reasons, which might be interesting to me (for a bit) but probably not to anyone else. Far more important is how I *can* be a writer.
I was born six weeks premature, by emergency c-section. NHS surgeons and midwives and cleaners saved my life. Without them, I wouldn’t be here. Then I went to nursery and to school, rather than to work.
I was taught to read and write, and inspired to read and write by wonderful teachers, who were paid to be wonderful teachers by taxation. Then I went to high school, rather than to work. I didn’t have to help my family make ends meet.
Then I went to Sixth Form rather than to work, then university, again largely paid for by by taxation.Eventually, I went out to work, and have been doing so for nearly fifteen years, paying tax to help other people do what I did.
But I’ve had evenings and weekends and days off that have given me time to read and write, and time to go to gigs and workshops and readings. I’ve had some disposable income, too, rather than being paid just enough to stop me from starving...
& I’ve been able to spend some of that disposable income on poetry, rather than private medical insurance, or saving up just in case I need to see a doctor. These things were handed to me on a plate. That I was born in a country offering these things was an accident of birth.
But the things themselves weren’t an accident. They were fought for tooth and nail. People fought for them. I’ll be voting Labour on 12 December to preserve these hard-won rights for myself, and for others, and to extend them to those who don’t currently have them.
Less struggle for existence, more time for us to be what we want to be. I *am* a writer because I want to be. What’s remarkable is that I *can* be.
