Barbara Trapido

Well, where I am now is right at the top in a tiny back room of my very tall, thin house in Central North Oxford.  It’s a little attic room that overlooks the canal.  My husband really was very keen to buy this house, because he wanted to grab this little upstairs back room where he, he could work. And I took over this room when he died.  And I really like it because I feel he’s still in it and it, it does have that feeling of being detached from the ground. You know one’s very high up and you feel quite close to the sky. 

When I had my family all around me I would find I could only write…If I was at home, if I was here, I could only write at about four o’clock in the morning. You know the moment real life began then some kind of spell was broken. Now I find I can, with effort, I can make other times of the day seem like four o’clock in the morning, if I’m entirely on my own. I can’t if somebody else is in the house or if someone else is awake in the house. I, I need to feel that, that I’m the only, the only person in the place.

The pictures are my son’s or my friend Cassandra’s. And I like having them and I like having Stan’s books. On the whole I’m, I’m quite slovenly with things you know? Having my space nice is something that bothers me more when I’m not writing. When I am writing, frankly I don’t sort of mind the filthy coffee cups and the dog hair. So, in a way camping is a better idea when you’re trying to get on with your book. 

I’m very keen on little sort of convent type two foot six beds, and, and I moved this bed up here when I took over the room. 

I think I like the cosiness of being able to curl up with a pad, you know? And it’s more fluid; you can scratch and scribble and, and … I like the feel or the look of my writing on the page. And there’s a certain kind of quite thick, oily, biro I like to use. 

It’s like dreaming, I think. You know it, it’s not in any way like more factual writing or like real life. It’s about … in a sense just feeling that, that it’s sort of like being in a trance state and I feel as though my story’s there and it’s kind of under the water you know and…or if I stare into the dark for long enough I’ll understand how it all connects. But it’s not the kind of writing, it’s not … it’s not very planned and I don’t really have any idea where I’m going. It’s just a very kind of intuitive, muddily mud pie kind of business.