Driving Through the Hills of Birmingham

When it was first suggested to me that there might be a connection between my work as an artist and my work as a writer, I was taken aback. I’d kept the two activities entirely separate, throwing myself entirely into either one or the other at any given time. Until I realised that I ponder as I paint, and that’s where the stories brew, each painting encapsulating the emotion of a life I am in right then, always remembered, however insignificant, and developing a tiny little stone for the mosaic of a later novel.

I was never supposed to be an artist. It crept up on me entirely accident. My comprehensive state school insisted that I had to study a practical subject for our GCSE qualification and I decided that if I had to spend time outside of the world inside my head in spite of my thoroughly impractical self, I may as well just take on something that was fun. 

And so I set about painting, but paint what? Paint from thumbnail pictures from the books in the school library? Paint the corridors of my soulless school building? My grey street of small social housing? Paint a box of cereal from the store cupboard? I grew up in Birmingham, the UK’s second city, but the city that had long lost the vibrancy of its industrial revolution roots.

Later I would paint Birmingham City Centre’s half destroyed Bull Ring shopping centre from the tenth floor office block in a temping job during my uni holidays. https://alexpaintings.co.uk/portfolio/bham-pic/  I’d never reached the tenth floor of anywhere before.

Mum tried to help. She took me for a drive in our tiny fiesta, the car she had eventually manage to afford the year before, in the hope of picking us up from school on the one night a week she would not have to work late into the evening. She drove me through the hills of Birmingham, and she took me past the reservoirs to the ever more neglected Dudley, the ‘black country’ so named because the chimneys blackened all the buildings in the area.

We neither of us knew what we were looking for. It was a grey day, as if my old industrial hometown was being reflected in the sky, and remote tower blocks stood on bleak hills overlooking us. All I had ever seen of real art was festival scenes of bustling gardens in a faded Renoir poster on the kitchen wall. But I persisted in believing that there was a picture here in the seeming emptiness of the land, the county that had inspired Tolkien’s hobbits, the small people who made their lives in their tiny homes and never even hoped that there was inspiration outside.

At one point the rain broke. It didn’t stop raining, but the clouds let in just one branch of light, and I clicked with my snappy-snaps camera, and thought nothing of the afternoon’s work, but of the moodiness, of the sadness of the town. When I sketched from the developed film, I discovered the simplicity of the breaking cloud and painted “Sun after Rain,” https://alexpaintings.co.uk/portfolio/sun-after-rain-birmingham/. A painting that reflected hope, and an aspiration of sunshine.

Many years later, when I sat down to write my debut novel, “Helen and the Grandbees” one of my characters, Lily, travels to that place in Dudley from impoverished south east London in attempt to unearth her heritage. 

She describes her journey, “Dull little town. Its roads swirl through the hills of dark remote tower blocks, all spread out as if the builders hadn’t a clue what to do with so much space.”

In her story of bleak roads I’m describing that lonely wet day, trying to see my beloved home town through the eyes of a stranger who lives in the livelier, but poorer London, Lily looking at the land wondering what could possibly be in it. On her visit, she will enter the house of a stranger, one of the homes of the “hobbits”, noting the profusion of dated family photos, doilies, the orange-swirled carpet and oppressive central heating. Lily only slightly finds what she’s looking for. Mostly she unearths more questions.

I didn’t realise on that grey day in the hills that I would never forget the emotions I had that day, the music I heard, and I certainly never realised the scene could contain so much of my own identity, as I wrote about Lily searching for her identity.

Alex Morrall is author of Helen and the Grandbees, a south East London novel about the strength of family love overcoming the most intimidating of barriers. It is due out with Legend Press in 2020.

She was born in Birmingham but lives in south east London. She writes about the complexities of society with warmth, empathy and a touch of humour. She also writes poetry and paints.

Alex is often ideally found on her bike, enjoying food or by the sea.

twitter: https://twitter.com/AlexPaintings

insta: https://www.instagram.com/alexmorrall_author_art/

Website: https://alexpaintings.co.uk

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20584515.Alex_Morrall

HELEN AND THE GRANDBEES

‘Breathtaking and moving’ Awais Khan
‘Authentic and tender’ Carmel Harrington

Forgetting your past is one thing, but living with your present is entirely different.

Twenty years ago, Helen is forced to give up her newborn baby, Lily. Now living alone in her small flat, there is a knock at the door and her bee, her Lily, is standing in front of her.

Reuniting means the world to them both, but Lily has questions. Lots of them. Questions that Helen is unwilling to answer. In turn Helen watches helplessly as her headstrong daughter launches from relationship to relationship, from kind Andrew, the father of her daughter, to violent Kingsley who fathers her son.

When it’s clear her grandbees are in danger, tangled up in her daughter’s damaging relationship, Helen must find the courage to step in, confronting the fears that haunt her the most.

Told in Helen’s quirky voice Helen and the Grandbees addresses matters of identity, race and mental illness.

‘Breathtaking and moving, Helen and the Grandbees is a novel that bravely explores themes of familial discord, race and love in modern Britain. It is a book that immediately gripped me, compelling me to keep turning the pages well into the night. Morrall writes with confidence, poise, and a sense of humour to match. At times heartbreaking and heartwarming, this is a novel readers won’t soon forget. A riveting debut.’ Awais Khan, author of In the Company of Strangers

‘Alex can write; she has a way, a bit like playwright Mike Leigh, of zooming into the tiniest, seemingly mundane physical details of a situation, and in so doing, conveying the complexity, circularity and pattern of relationship and emotion. There is a humanity and a realism about her writing that Is far from commonplace despite the fact that when you read about the people and situations in her storytelling, they are instantly recognisable. Helen and the Grandbees is unbearably sad but because Alex manages the seemingly impossible feat of introducing hope right from the start it is possible to read and read on, with curiosity and enjoyment.’ Dr Kairen Cullen, Writer and Psychologist

‘Authentic and tender. This utterly moving novel has created an unforgettable heroine in Helen. I held my breath as her troubled life unfolded and wanted only the best for her and her grandbees. This gorgeous book is not just an exploration of identity, race and mental health, but also one about family love, sacrifice and bravery. I loved it.’ Carmel Harrington, International Bestselling Author

‘What an honor and privilege it has been to read Helen and the Grandbees. I enjoyed it immensely. Every single character was memorable and felt completely genuine. Alex Morrall is a hugely talented author, with a gift for drawing characters of vastly different ages and from various backgrounds and social classes… This is the type of novel that will stick with me for a long time.’ Mary Rowen, author of Leaving the Beach

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