Memories of our festival in Brighton and Crawley in 2025

WELCOME TO FORTHWRITE FESTIVAL – 2025 OPENING ADDRESS BY KIT DE WAAL

Good afternoon on a chilly but bright Sunday.  If you got here this morning by the skin of your teeth after two buses, a late train and a sweaty walk from the station, then Welcome.

If, before you got the two buses, you had to pop in on your elderly parents or your neighbour or both to make sure they would be okay without you, to put a Tupperware of food in their fridge, put their tablets close to hand, put their mobile on charge with your number in it for emergencies.  And if you sent them a text half an hour ago to say, ‘Hope you’re okay.  Back by 7. Ring me if you need anything.’  And if they haven’t rung yet and  you’re hoping they don’t ring.  Welcome.

And.  Or.  If you made sure there was cheese and ham and vegan options for your teenage kids and their mates that are staying over and you reminded them that you are out all day and they said exactly nothing in response because they were asleep and you made sure that you’d washed their gym kit for school tomorrow and you put a tenner under the kettle just because.  And if you said ‘Love you!  Have a nicer day,’ as you left the house after you put the dishwasher on and dropped a pound of chuck steak in the slow cooker and you wiped the sides down and you opened a tin of cat food because everyone forgets to feed the cat except you. Welcome to all of you.

If you always wake up alone and you’d rather not.  If you miss the teenagers who don’t ring often enough.  And you miss the partner you divorced because.  Or kicked out because.  Or it’s a secret love and you can’t tell anyone, not even yourself.  And the bed’s too big and the sofa’s too wide and you eat your dinner on your lap in front of Emmerdale Farm and you’d rather not.  And you’d rather be eating tapas with him, with her, with them.  And sometimes you don’t sleep for thinking about it all.  Welcome.  Sleepy or not.  Welcome.

And if you found yourself suddenly 50 with a six year old or a one year old and the oldest mother in the playground or you came to motherhood by some other route and it was messy or it was expensive or you never thought it would happen and then it did and it’s all a bit of a shock and you’re wondering if you did the right thing but you can hardly take it back for a refund and if you’re grandmothering but it’s a bit too full time and somewhere under your jumper there’s baby sick and gripe water and it’s bringing up memories of red stretch marks that they said would fade and they haven’t and you’re not sure you can last the day for tiredness.  You can.  You will.  You’re welcome.

And we are not all mothers on this Mother’s Day and some of us are happy about that and some of us are not. And those that are happy have to put up with scorn and questions and misplaced concern but you will go home to a tidy house and a full fridge and quiet and quiet and quiet.  And you do your mothering elsewhere for friends and family and people you love, and causes you love, into your hobbies and books and writing and marches and petitions and cleaning up the environment and getting involved and there is no lack of children for this kind of mothering and thank you from all of us that benefit from it.  And those of us that are not happy about not having children will ache a little today and feel the loss and be hurt by the relentless advertising and commercialisation that leaves you out and makes you feel less than but all of you are welcome and this ache and loss and anger is fertile ground for the writer.  You can plunder that rich seam again and again and make it into gold.

And in front of me and next to you and on the row behind and maybe sitting in the foyer there’s someone thinking ‘I don’t belong here, everyone else knows what they’re doing, I don’t so I should just go home.’  They don’t feel right and they haven’t for a long, long time and they think there’s a normal way to feel and everyone else feels it but them.  And that person had a little cry this morning.  They had a big cry last night.  And just getting here, just combing their hair and getting dressed was a major, major achievement.   And for no reason sometimes panic takes hold of you and you need to be on your own or in a wide-open space and you’re holding it together for now but you’re not sure if you can last the day.  And your heart’s beating fast and you might panic and run out.  You’re very, very welcome.  You’re in the right place.  And you do belong.  And you are safe here.  And if you have to get up and leave, everyone will understand and we will be here when you get back.

And if you’re sick to your back teeth of being measured and weighed and compared and ignored and pacified and if you’re tired of the assumptions and the exclusions and the ageism, sexism, casual and overt racism, micro and macro aggressions and being taken for granted and being taken for a fool and not with it and what could you possibly know about falling in love and being wild and having passions beat so deep and so hard that they take your breath away.  If you’re tired of being not seen, then you too are in the right place and you are welcome here today and nothing is being measured today.  Except the strength of the coffee.

If you’ve ever looked at someone else’s success and said ‘when is my time?’, if you’ve ever watched someone with half the determination and twice the privilege get ahead and get on while you wonder how much time you have left.  The answer is the time is now and there’s still enough time.  There will always be enough time.

If you love all the new and exciting conversations about the menopause and simultaneously wish people shut the fuck up about the menopause and if your hot flush is barely there and you’re sick of hearing about everyone else’s, or if you had the menopause, like I did, at 39 and feel a bit shit that everyone else has it much much later in life and where was my support when I needed it and then you feel a teeny bit petty for being so ungenerous but you can’t help it because there was nothing for my premature menopause, not a book or a vitamin or a support group and no celebrity podcasts celebrating my ‘bloodless journey and wrinkles of wisdom’.  And anyway, you’re tired of accommodating the world and their wants and pushing yours to the bottom of the list as per.  And HRT saved my sanity by the way.  Welcome to my TED talk.

If you’re not sure you’ve got what it takes to be a writer because you’ve had so many knock backs and rejections and every time you enter a competition it takes ten pounds of cash and twenty two of hope, and you’re thinking this is the last thing I’m going to and if it doesn’t give me the shot in the arm I need then I’m stopping.   If you think you’re an imposter, a fraud and that everyone else has the answers and the contacts while you squeeze fifteen minutes here and fifteen minutes there and what’s it all for anyway and I’m too old for this and there are others that are better and younger and thinner and unencumbered and they go on writing retreats to Italy and Greece and have long, literary conversations under an arbour strung with fairy lights and there’s lots of wine and walks along the midnight shore and in the morning without a hangover, without pillow creases and brain fog, you get told how to make it as a writer and what minute and very achievable changes you could make to your work to get published and then on wooden benches in a lemon grove,  everyone reads their work aloud and everyone else claps.   And if you can see yourself there in Greece or Italy or Sardinia wearing white linen, every day, white linen and tan leather sandals and your hair is thick and shiny and who cares about sunscreen and as you write in your antique yet en-suite stone room overlooking a sapphire sea, every single word coming easy and if you could just find the time and money and headspace and get a bank loan for the white linen that you’d pack in your brand new suitcase and get a plane ticket everything would work out and you’d get published and pay off the mortgage and you’d get invited to speak on a panel at the Forthwrite Festival and you’d be wise and kind and never lose your temper with anyone ever again.  If that’s you, Welcome to Crawley.

The truth is we have all come here today through some kind of obstacle course of responsibilities, time and money constraints, hopes and fears and desires and worries.  We have come for the camaraderie and support and because this is the first festival that recognises the value of who we are.

Gone are the days when getting to fifty and beyond meant a blue rinse and Crimplene slacks, when the words spinster and old maid were legitimate ways to describe women of power and endurance and self-assurance, when we were objects of derision and made to feel ashamed of our choices.  We are more than our partnerships, more than only half of a whole.  Whether we are in a relationship or not, we owe nobody an explanation for who we are and how we got here.

And gone too are the days when simply being really, really good at making a home and raising children and looking after our parents was seen as not achieving and second best, when you were looked down upon by the men – and the women – with high octane careers, power dressing and staying late at the office.

The notion that you COULD have it all turned into you SHOULD have it all – the perfect house, the perfect husband, the perfect children, the perfect career and the Volvo and the Labrador and the size 8 waist.  Anything less was a lack of confidence or education or ambition.   Anything less and you were letting the side down.  Let’s not devalue the women who make the world turn by making their homes into places of sanctuary and safety and warmth.   To the women that have spent their lives bring comfort to others, you are welcome here.

If you have come dragging other people’s expectations with you, I invite you to unshackle yourself for the rest of the day.   Let’s talk writing and publishing and editing and getting the best out of your work and time and finding ways to connect with one another and maybe you will and maybe you have already made connections and friends, you can swap stories and phone numbers and tips for removing red wine from white linen.

We women have something to say and what we have to say is worth hearing.  We are writers and artists, becoming masters of the craft by working at it.  And if there’s something we know all about, it’s hard work.  That doing and redoing, looking again at something you thought was finished, making a silk purse out of our lives, out of the pig’s ear some us were given to start with.  As Doris Lessing said ‘Whatever you are meant to do, do it now.  The conditions are always impossible.’

I would like to end with this.  If you have recently felt, quietly but defiantly, the rising of the sap, a sense that you are becoming powerful and wise, that you are moving into a new phase of your life, one where you make the decisions and say exactly what you mean.  And if you feel like you are no longer keeping the peace, no longer shaping your very being into something acceptable and explainable but rather being your true, authentic, kick ass, unapologetic, strong and beautiful self, then welcome.   Thank you for being here.