Gogs and building it bad….
Harry Bingham encourages us to be loose here and there with the correctness of things- an invented word or puzzling confluence of ideas. In my current piece, a son is talking with his mother about his father, a railwayman, shortly after he died. I wrote this, in the way that you do. Then realised it might sound quite stupid and inappropriate to others – but it was right in terms of feeling. I would normally take it out in an edit but wondered if it works for anyone else.
‘I missed Dad in my own way, especially the smell of him. I had taken away his clothes but kept a blue railway waistcoat for myself for its many delicious pockets, and to hold it close was to inhale a memory of him.’
Clearly the pockets weren’t delicious to taste. But a proper railway waistcoat has a great many pockets, and pockets within pockets, so it was, for this writer, a delicious thing to savour and enjoy.
I like the delicious pockets and the whole thing. I’d delete ‘for myself’ as that’s made implicit by the rest of the sentence.
‘I missed Dad in my own way, especially the smell of him. I had taken away his clothes but kept a blue railway waistcoat for its many delicious pockets, and to hold it close was to inhale a memory of him.’
It’s perfect. I bought myself a photographer’s waistcoat because of the delicious pockets. Not that I knew they were delicious until you told me. I am stealing your word and keeping it.
Thank you, Kate, Libby and Heather. I spent a lifetime writing ‘proper’ reports so encouragement to follow Harry’s advice and trust your renegade instincts now and again is very useful and supportive. Maybe sometimes, especially if you write it, put it away, and come back to it – and it still feels ‘right’ then it’s worth leaving in.
Oh, by the way, that’s mentally stealing, and intended with humour, not literally stealing your lovely language!
Of course not. I charge by the yard, not the inch.