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| NEW WRITING: Chasing Shadows by J Carmen Smith |
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Chasing Shadows is Micaela's story, from her birth in Santiago de Compostela in the late 1870s, to her death in Liverpool in 1950. The story unfolds as tragic events alter the course of Micaela's life, taking her from a comfortable life in nineteenth century Spain to a poor, working class environment in early twentieth century Liverpool.
In Liverpool, she meets the Spanish seaman whom she marries in 1907. Chasing Shadows tells of their life together, the difficulties they face in a foreign land, their hopes and disappointments. It tells of Micaela's failure to fully adapt to her new environment and how this affects her eldest daughter's life as Pilar is torn between two cultures, two languages and two religions after making a hasty marriage. |
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Author J Carmen Smith explains: "Micaela was my grandmother and Chasing Shadows is also my story. It tells of my travels through northern Spain in search of my lost heritage as I explore the culture and the landscape that Micaela left behind. Seemingly chance meetings influence my search, helping me, after many false leads and dead ends, to unearth the secrets of past generations".
The Prologue and first chapter of the book, reproduced here, can be read and enjoyed as a stand alone story.
During her married life, the locket was not always in my mother's possession. When I was a child it made regular trips to the pawnshop, the small sums it raised a necessary addition to the household budget in the early post-war years. Somehow, she always managed to redeem it. The locket had been a tenth birthday present from her mother and she passed it on to me, her youngest child, the year before she died - "So there won't be any arguments after I've gone".
Many years later, I hold the locket in the palm of my hand, weaving its gold chain through my fingers. It feels light, insubstantial, yet it is a direct link with the past. It holds photographs, no bigger than my thumbnail, of my grandparents - as I curl my fingers around the cold metal it becomes warm in my hand, flesh of their flesh.
My maternal grandparents were from Galicia in northern Spain, although they met and married in Liverpool. My grandfather died before I was born, my grandmother when I was only ten years old; all I knew of their early lives came from stories my mother told me when I was a child. These storytelling sessions took place only when my mother and I were alone. My father actively discouraged any discussion - or even acknowlegement - of his children's Spanish heritage, and my siblings were quite happy to fall in with his wishes.
I have long been curious about my Spanish roots, but only in years has the urge to recover, or discover, the culture that was suppressed become too strong to ignore. I knew there would be many difficulties. Unlike other immigrant groups who settled in Liverpool, the Spanish left no obvious mark on their adopted city.
The year 2000 seemed an appropriate time to begin my journey into the past. It was almost one hundred years since my grandmother had left the country of her birth and I felt compelled to travel to the place where her story began. But first, I needed to sift through those childhood memories, searching for any clues, however vague, that would help me take that first step.
My grandmother's name was Micaela Vilarelle and I was told she came from a village near Santiago de Compostela, where her grandfather was a hatter. As my mother re-told the sequence of events in Micaela's life that would eventually drive her away from home and family, it never occurred to me to ask for precise details - names, dates and places. And perhaps she would not have had the answers. My mother had been told the stories when she was a child and, like me, may have listened to her mother without asking who, when and where.
When we are children, the most exciting stories simply begin, "Once upon a time..."
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