Musings on the bus over full circle writing career - Ian McMillan

As I check on the app on my phone to see how far away the bus is, I reflect on the way my freelance life has come full circle. When I was in my late 20s, in the mid-1980s, this is how I made my living.

I called myself a writer and it’s true that I wrote a lot but then, as now, writing poems didn’t pay the bills, so I ran writing workshops all over South Yorkshire for organisations like the WEA as well as the local authority and, from the early 1990s, Darts in Doncaster.

The bus arrives and I get on. This is just how it used to be, all those decades ago; getting on the bus, finding a seat, thinking through what might get done in the workshop. Actually, it’s not just the same; years ago I would have paid cash and now I’ve got a bus pass.

Years ago I would have scanned the horizon for signs of the bus arriving but now I just scan the app. The app is so miraculously accurate that I can time myself leaving the house to the minute when I know which stop the approaching bus has left.

So much has changed, but so much hasn’t. People still want to write; they still want to gather in rooms and talk about it. They still want to get their work published and stand up (or sit down) in front of other people and read their work out.

They are still generous to each other and they continue to stubbornly believe in the power of language to make people laugh, make them think, make them cry.

The bus rolls through Goldthorpe and Bolton on Dearne. I like the fact that, at the age of 66, I’m still doing the things I began my career by doing. Of course I’ve done lots of other things, worked in radio, done gigs all over the place, been on TV a bit, but this place and these people who want to make their mark on the world with their writing are where my heart is.

The bus gets to Mexborough and I get off at the top of the hill and sit on a bench and eat my sandwich. And, as ever, I look across the Dearne Valley and I think: “All those stories, waiting to be told. All those unwritten poems hiding in biros. All those empty notebooks waiting to be filled.”

Maybe I’m talking to myself because a passing bloke looks at me. I give him a thumbs-up and he grins. I bet he could tell a tale or two. I’ll invite him to the workshop, and he might just come.

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