☀ Summer Picnic with Jaffareadstoo ~ Martin Gore

Jaffareadstoo is delighted to welcome you all to our Summer Picnic

Summertime is here

 I'm delighted to welcome Martin Gore to our Summer picnic 

Welcome , Martin. Which favourite foods are you bringing to our summer picnic?

Smoked salmon with some horseradish sauce to go with it. Some authentic French bread and cheese too. Naughty sausage rolls and gala pie too...

What would you like to drink? We have white wine spritzers, locally brewed beer, traditional Pimms, sparkling elderflower cordial or a thermos of tea or coffee?

Rather weather dependent? As we live in Yorkshire anything is possible. If its really hot I’d go for ice cold cider, but we have some great small brewery’s here too.

Where shall we sit, by the pool, on a beach, in the garden or in the countryside?

If you have a pool then that feels good to me. Beach picnics involve getting sand in the food, and you have to lug the furniture around...

Do we have a wicker hamper, tablecloth and cutlery, or is everything in a supermarket carrier bag?

I think a cool box wired into a car socket is ideal. Substance over style I know...

Which of your literary heroes (alive or dead) are joining us on the picnic today?

I think I’ll cheat on this, as I’m a huge theatre fan. I’d like to meet Tim Firth (Calendar Girls / Flint Street Nativity) and Richard Curtis / Ben Elton (Blackadder). I’m sure we’d have a lot of laughs!

Do you have favourite place to have a summer picnic?

I’d go for the clifftop between Ravenscar and Robin Hood’s Bay. It’s absolutely stunning.

Do you have a summer music playlist? And if so will you share with us a favourite song or piece of music that makes you feel happy?

Well, I have access to my daughter’s Spotify account so there are unlimited options. I’m a big fan of contemporary country music, and I’ve discovered a few UK acts which I like, such as The Shires. But if I picked one feel good song it would have to be Born to Run by The Boss...

Which summer read are you bringing with you today?

My wife told me to read Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club, and it’s excellent. He seems to break the rules, and it’s good to see someone with an original writing style. My stories are a sequence of sub-plots woven into family sagas, and I don’t always follow conventional wisdom either. Good on you Mister Osman!

Penguin 2020

When you are writing do you still find time to read for pleasure? And is there a book you would like to read but haven’t had time for …yet!

Well as I recently directed my first play my focus is really on finding the next comedy that I can direct with Walkington Pantomime Players. Not easy to find one we can stage on a small stage, has the right mix of parts and is really funny!

Where do you find the inspiration for your novels?

Well, they say write about what you know, so my first novel drew on my experience in the class ridden, strike torn manufacturing sector in the 70s, whereas the Cromer Pier series reflects both my childhood holidays there, and my love of theatre.

Have you a favourite place to settle down to write and do you find it easier to write in winter or summer?

I have a studio in the garden which is a heated and insulated shed, so I don’t have a particular season. It enables me to concentrate, and I have a bit of a limited attention span. Sometimes I can really get into a writing zone and things really get done. Some of my favourite scenes get written when I’m in that space.

When writing to a deadline are you easily distracted and if so how do you bring back focus on your writing?

I’ve never signed a book contract, and have given up on looking for one now. So books get written at the pace of my life, although I do tend to complete the Cromer Pier books so as to launch them at the end of June when the Cromer Pier Show starts. All of my novels have ratings over four on amazon, so people seem to enjoy them which is really heartening. I don’t write for the money.

Give us four essential items that a writer needs?

Well, my handwriting is so awful that I’d never have written anything without a computer! Otherwise, I think a fund of life experiences is important, and it helps if you’ve travelled to places. You do need determination, particularly during interminable editing and proof-reading stages. But probably most of all you need to be able to imagine and create characters that people believe in, and that they come to either love or hate.

What can you tell us about your latest novel or your current work in progress?

I’m working on the third book in the Cromer Pier series, teasing out the sub-plots and working out how the stories unfold. My aim is to publish in June 2023, but I’ll only publish If I think it works with the rest of the series.

The Road to Cromer Pier

Janet’s first love arrives out of the blue after thirty years. Those were simpler times for them both. Sunny childhood beach holidays, fish and chips and big copper pennies clunking into one armed bandits.

The Wells family has run the Cromer Pier Summertime Special Show for generations. But it’s now 2009 and the recession is biting hard. Owner Janet Wells and daughter Karen are facing an uncertain future. The show must go on, and Janet gambles on a fading talent show star. But both the star and the other cast members have their demons. This is a story of love, loyalty and luvvies. The road to Cromer Pier might be the end of their careers, or it might just be a new beginning.

More about Martin 

I am a 65-year-old Accountant who semi-retired to explore my love of creative writing. When I was nine years old, I told my long-suffering mother that as I liked English composition and drama I was going to be a Playwright. She told me that I should work hard at school and get a proper job. She was right of course.

I started as an Office Junior at Jaguar in 1973 at eleven pounds sixty-four a week. I thus grew up in the strike torn, class divided seventies. My first career ended in 2015, when I semi retired as Director of Corporate services at Humberside Probation. My second career, as a Non Executive Director, is great as it has allowed me free time to travel and indulge my passion for writing, both in novels and for theatre.

The opportunity to rekindle my interest in writing came in 2009, when I wrote my first pantomime, Cinderella, for my home group, the Walkington Pantomime Players. I have now written eight. I love theatre, particularly musical theatre, and completed the Hull Truck Theatre Playwrite course in 2010.

The Cromer Pier Theatre novels are based on my childhood holidays in Cromer, and are family sagas featuring the only full season end-of-the-pier show left in the world. Written with help from the Pier Theatre itself, it captures the lives and loves of the fictional cast and crew of the show.

I’m an old-fashioned writer, I guess. I want you to laugh and to cry. I want you to believe in my characters, and feel that my stories have a beginning, a middle, and a satisfactory ending.

Martin, where can we follow you on social media?

Twitter @authorgore

Facebook page @authorgore

Instagram @authorgore

Website www.martingore.co.uk

http://mybook.to/MartinGoreAuthor is the link to my work on Amazon.

Thank you for sharing your summer picnic with us today.

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