Samples of Jane’s Work
Jane Metcalfe has written, compiled, edited and created a range of different styles of writing for arts projects in the local community as well having had success with poetry competitions. Learn more about Jane’s writing work here.
Before After – Short Story
Before After was written during a period of deep contemplation about relationships, parents, marriage and the volatile nature of Time. Can time be reversed? Can the story be changed?
Close Encounter – Monologue
I wrote this monologue as part of a series of five linking monologues that formed a cohesive piece called Second Thoughts. Each monologue centred on very different characters; people who don’t know one another but who pass in the street, their lives never touching. Terry is an eccentric loner on a mission to save souls…but what is he hiding from?
A Weekend Away – Play
A play based on memories of Eastbourne from the 1950s to the mid 1960s – the town, events, tourism, entertainment and the people.
I love editing people’s memories and making stories out of them, or, to use a current term, putting a spin on them. Memories are never really accurate, as we often discover when we talk to somebody with whom we share aspects of the past. “It happened like this.” “No it didn’t! I was there….” Yes we both may have been, but minds are naturally interpretive – one might say inventive. Nothing ever seems to quite tally – but that’s what makes for stimulating stories. In A Weekend Away, the device of a group of people being snowed in at a hotel in Eastbourne in the 1980s worked well in presenting reminiscences from Eastbourne a couple of decades earlier. All the hotel guests are directly or indirectly linked by events of that time. There was even an unsolved murder mystery!
Poems
I have written poetry for much of my life, in journals on trains, in bed, in the middle of a field. That’s pretty standard I should imagine! There almost seems to be a season for each type of poem. Generally they are triggered by the natural world, personal feelings, by love and loss, but mostly they spring out of the anomalies between the inner and outer life. Without the the tension of contrasts, what would there be to write about?
Creative Reminiscence
From 2003 until the present time, I have been involved as facilitator, writer and performer in sessions with older people called Creative Reminiscence – a series of creative group sessions which lead to informal performances of original stories, monologues and poems based on the personal reminiscences of the older generation. Each session explores certain topics using music, singing, poetry, movement, storytelling and writing, which stimulates not just long-ago memories but more recent ones too. Later these memories are developed to create a “pen portrait” or short monologue of each participant, which are then performed to an invited audience.
Here are a few examples of how I developed and creatively interpreted some of the stories to best reflect the personality of the individual.
John was born in St Leonards on Sea and spent 4 years as a Prisoner of War. I later took down his POW memories, but this monologue centres on his life as a native of St Leonards on Sea.
Sylvia lived in Hastings in a flat at the end of the promenade. One day her beloved cat went missing… This is a misadventure seen through the cats eyes.
Irene had been very proud of her garden and yet she hated the Blue Moon roses her husband grew, they gave her the “willies”.
Peter had been a Bevin boy in the war. It was the first time that I’d heard about the many men whose names were drawn out of Ernest Bevin’s secretary’s hat to go and work down the mines instead of being conscripted. Far from feeling lucky, they felt shamed and were shunned in the war for not fighting.
Fritzi’s Secret. In this little “pen portrait” I brought Lisa to life through her pet dog. She was an elderly, henna-haired lady, originally from Hungary. She talked of her little poodle, Fritzi, who it seems was the darling of her life.
Articles & Blog Posts
Read some of Jane’s most recent articles and blog posts.