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Rachel Caldecott: In general, I like anything to do with writing and reading, dance, cinema, myths and legends, travel, people and cultures, art, and ecology. According to my kids, I spend unhealthy amounts of time on Facebook. They are right. I studied Expressive Arts at Brighton in the UK in the early 1980s but dropped out at the end of my second year to work at a Japanese travel agency. I'd been obsessed with Japan as a young teenager, and taught myself the language. I went to Japan on my 'year out' between school and university in 1978 and again for a fling (a.k.a. failed romance) in 1981. I was even offered a job in Tokyo on a Japanese game show but turned it down in favour of a job as a trainee 16mm film editor at a firm in London. Big mistake. I have also worked as a book illustrator, and I have written several magazine articles about the refugee crisis. In 2015 I became involved in the crisis as a volunteer; collecting, sorting, and delivering aid to refugee centres in Europe, and shipping medical aid to Syria. I've worked for a wide range of companies, but the common themes seem to be humanitarian and ecological - apart from the film job. I played the guitar as a child, my teacher was the wonderful Nick Moore from a band called Hackensack. He was very cool and spent quite a bit of time warning me against the evils of drugs. My mother took me to a gig of theirs at the Roundhouse and neither of us could hear properly afterward for several hours. It was my first proper GIG. (Although I suspect the fact my mum was with me somehow invalidates it). My kids have inherited the guitar; I've yet to see them properly play it. I can sing quite well, and did once perform at the Oxford Playhouse in a musical called Dr. Selavy's Magic Theatre (by Stanley Silverman and Richard Foreman). If you Google it or look on YouTube, you won't find our production (the first UK production) but another group of interlopers who've tried to claim that credit. It was during that time I discovered a horrid thing called stage fright and decided it wasn't worth pursuing a career on the stage. I suspect several people agreed with me. My son has been badgering me to write my memoirs. He's intrigued by my tales of brushes with the Japanese Yakuza in Kyoto, nightclub-hostessing on Rome's via Veneto, and racing across the European continent with a drunken Croatian philosopher. So far I've only written a memoir about our lives in France . . . the rest is coming. Please check out : Twitter: @Caldecottbooks Instagram: @rachelcaldecott blog: https://rachelcaldecott60.wordpress.com/ Where I post articles, and book reviews for books I've enjoyed. |