NATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS CURRICULUM SUPPORT
English
Critical Evaluation of Non-Fiction
Student Support Materials
[INTERMEDIATE 2;
HIGHER]
John Lawson
The Scottish Qualifications Authority regularly reviews
the arrangements for National Qualifications. Users of all
NQ support materials, whether published by LT Scotland
or others, are reminded that it is their responsibility to
check that the support materials correspond to the
requirements of the current arrangements.
Acknowledgements
Learning and Teaching Scotland gratefully acknowledge this contribution to the National
Qualifications support programme for English.
The author and publisher acknowledge with thanks permission to reprint passages from the
following copyright sources: ‘Life is the Clay’ by John Byrne, and ‘Showing Off’ by Janice
Galloway, from Spirits of the Age, ed. Paul H Scott (Edinburgh: Saltire Society, 2005);
‘Letter to Daniel’, from Letter to Daniel: Despatches from the Heart (BBC), by Fergal
Keane (London: Penguin Books Ltd, 1996); ‘From Factory to Firing Line: the Story of One
Bullet’ by David Pratt, from the Sunday Herald (Seven Days Magazine, 9 October 2005).
The quotation on page 8 is taken from the website of the University of Oregon, USA
(http://www.uoregon.edu/) and that on page 6 comes from Writers in Scotland, by Fiona
Norris (London: Hodder & Stoughton).
First published 2005
© Learning and Teaching Scotland 2005
This publication may be reproduced in whole or in part for educational purposes by
educational establishments in Scotland provided that no profit accrues at any stage.
Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders but if any have been
inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements
at the first opportunity.
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Contents
Preface
4
Introduction: Why study non-fiction?
5
Tutor notes
– Non-fiction at Higher and Intermediate 2, paper 2
13
– Notes on student materials
15
– Further reading: non-fiction texts currently used, or
suggested for use at Higher and Intermediate 2, in English departments in
Scottish schools
18
Text 1: ‘Life is the Clay’
– Text
– Student activities
20
23
Text 2: ‘Letter to Daniel’
– Text
– Student activities
28
32
Text 3: ‘Showing Off’
– Text
– Student activities
37
41
Text 4: ‘From Factory to Firing Line: The Story of One Bullet’
– Text
– Student activities
45
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Preface
Early in 2005, Learning and Teaching Scotland engaged in a small-scale research
project into the study of literary non-fiction at Higher and Intermediate 2 English. This
project was initiated partly in response to the concern expressed by the Scottish
Qualifications Authority that, historically, only a very small minority of students offer
responses to this genre in examinations, and partly to anecdotal evidence that a
significant number of English teachers would welcome support in this area.
A questionnaire was sent out to every secondary school in Scotland and returns
appeared to confirm the impression that very little study of non-fiction (as a literary
genre rather than as preparation for close reading) is taking place in schools. English
teachers appear to lack confidence in this area and have indicated that they would
welcome resources to help develop and support its teaching in the upper secondary
school. Returns seem to suggest that this lack of confidence is due to a selfperpetuating tradition of creative texts being studied in schools and universities,
combined with a lack of confidence in the suitability of texts, which elements of the
writer’s craft students are expected to study, and what the national standards for such
critical essays are.
This is a representative selection of responses.
• ‘Historical preference for fiction and lack of confidence in identifying genre
markers for non-fiction.’
• ‘Lack of support materials for teachers and lack of time for us to make them up
ourselves . . . No tradition of using such texts for exam courses in our school, so we
don’t have enough support materials.’
• ‘Staff are not as confident about teaching non-fiction as fiction for external
examinations.’
• ‘Lack of expertise/advice on what SQA are looking for.’
This resource sets out to offer support in these areas.
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INTRODUCTION
Introduction
Why study non-fiction?
The simple answer to this is really, ‘Because it’s good for you!’
Study of a variety of non-fiction – whether it be quality journalism, travel writing,
essays, history, letters, autobiographical / biographical works – will expose students to
a range of issues, informing them, challenging preconceptions, raising awareness . . .
making them think.
Through biography, autobiography and travel writing, for instance, the reader is
invited into other people’s lives and ways of life. By asking our students to study these
texts, we hope that they will increase their knowledge and understanding of the
human condition and of the world they live in. We would hope that they will become
more tolerant of cultural diversity, more considerate of others’ differences and, as a
result, become better citizens.
Of course, the same claims can be made for reading fiction. Harper Lee, F Scott
Fitzgerald, Arthur Miller, all expose the weaknesses of American society while Lewis
Grassic Gibbon chronicles the destruction of a Scottish community and the end of a
way of life by showing the destructive power of ‘civilisation’ when it manifests itself
as war and encroaching technology. And who wouldn’t be moved by that image of a
poor ‘dwarf with his hands on backwards’?
So, how is non-fiction different? Essentially, it is in its actuality. By definition, it is
not ’made up’, it doesn’t ask us to suspend our disbelief: in fact it frequently demands
that we don’t suspend our belief. Its power is in the understanding of the reader that
this has actually happened, or is actually happening, and that we can’t dismiss it as
‘only a story’. At the same time, however, in our critical evaluation of a work of nonfiction, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that it is one person’s version of the truth.
The impact of this reality is often demonstrated through the strength and genuineness
of students’ responses to non-fiction. Responses to a text such as A Boy Called It
frequently do far better in terms of evaluation than responses do to, say, The Catcher
in the Rye. In the former, students are genuinely moved
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INTRODUCTION
by David’s plight: in the latter, they frequently offer a guided tour of Holden’s psyche
without appearing to have any real engagement with his plight.
Finally, there are good pragmatic reasons for studying non-fiction. Reading, analysing
and talking about non-fiction – written from a variety of points of view, in a variety of
contexts, for a variety of purposes – can only contribute to making our students better
writers. Additionally, in terms of developing reading skills, who could deny that there
is a symbiotic relationship between studying non-fiction as a genre and developing
close reading skills?
It is well worth remembering that interpretations are there to test students’
achievement in reading: they are not there to develop their reading skills. We develop
our students’ reading skills when we invite them to engage with a text and discuss it
with others in a structured way which supports understanding, analysis and evaluation.
The final ‘test’ of how good they’ve become – of how successful we’ve been in
developing their reading skills – comes in paper 1 of the exam.
And it’s always non-fiction.
What is ‘literary non-fiction’?
‘Whatever you call it, it is a form of storytelling as old as the telling of stories.
The genre recognises both the inherent power of the real and the deep
resonance of the literary. It is a form that allows a writer both to narrate facts
and to search for truth, blending the empirical eye of the reporter with the
moral vision – the I – of the novelist.
In a culture saturated by data without context, facts without insight and
information without enlightenment, literary non-fiction holds a special and vital
place.’
(University of Oregon)
In, essence literary non-fiction – or creative non-fiction – is a genre which engages the
reader in a narrative based on the real, rather than on the imagined. In this genre, the
writer asks the reader to accept the factual veracity of what has been written, rather
than to suspend disbelief. However, to what extent the real is recorded accurately and
faithfully and to what extent it is massaged in order to create a good story or provoke a
stronger reaction, are questions which have to be addressed when engaging with nonfiction and which might well form an element of any critical analysis of the genre.
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INTRODUCTION
For example, a non-fiction text popular with Higher and Intermediate 2 students for
Personal Study is Angela’s Ashes. We accept that it is ‘autobiographical’ but, if this
passage were being used for an interpretation, one of the questions might well ask,
‘Comment on the author’s use of quotation marks at ‘autobiographical’.’
We accept the story’s basis in reality, we accept that it’s probably a reasonably
accurate account of the author’s early years – but do we believe all of it? It is most
likely that the literary aware reader will accept the work as being autobiographical but
will assume some poetic licence in the telling of it.
Similarly, among the few non-fiction texts used regularly at Higher are George
Orwell’s essays. No one would dispute that they are non-fiction, no one would
dispute that they are literary; but we might ask ourselves, to what extent they are
creative. We accept that the events happened, we accept the author’s physical and
emotional involvement in them, we are provoked to consider issues of colonialism and
we sympathise with the plights both of the colonised and of the young officer. But did
it happen exactly like that?
Another favourite is Bill Bryson’s travel writing – let’s take Notes from a Small Island
as an example. Having read this text, we might believe implicitly that the journey from
Settle to Carlisle takes one hour and forty minutes, covering a distance of seventy-one
and three-quarter miles, but do we believe – or accept – that there’s nothing ‘remotely
adorable about Aberdeen’? And what about the writer’s point of view? Here we have
an American writer who has lived in England for more than twenty years and who is a
self-confessed raging anglophile – would we see the same British Isles from the point
of view of, say, an immigrant farm-worker?
It could be said, then, that good literary non-fiction sets out to engage its reader in the
real but, in order to underpin that reality and sustain engagement, the writer frequently
relies on a synthesis of the actual and the empirical with the creative. Additionally, it
is important to consider whose version of reality we are reading; through whose eyes,
opinions, preferences and prejudices this reality is being mediated.
In order to achieve this synthesis, techniques such as the use of evidence, anecdote,
stance, examples, close detailed description all contribute to the writer’s craft and
help ground the writing in the reality of its subject matter; while the use of many of
the techniques found in the writing of fiction such as effective characterisation, point
of view, convincing dialogue, setting in place and time, theme, structure . . . all
contribute to the literary effect created, sustaining engagement and heightening the
pleasure of reading.
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INTRODUCTION
The writer Alan Spence recalls watching Alastair Gray being interviewed on
television:
I saw Alastair Gray being interviewed on T.V. one time about ‘Lanark’ and the
interviewer asked him if it was autobiographical and Alastair said, ‘Yes, but
distorted.’ And that just sums it up beautifully: it’s what you do, you take your
own experience and you shape it and change it, muck around with it . . .
(Writers in Scotland)
Ultimately, the writer – or perhaps even the publisher – will classify a piece as being
fiction or non-fiction. We, the reader, might feel that one work is a classic of the
genre while having our reservations about another. Being capable of making that
judgement, and being capable of providing evidence to substantiate it, is where our
students’ skills in understanding and, importantly, analysing and evaluating nonfiction texts comes in.
The materials in this resource are offered to help you begin to focus your teaching of
this genre at post-16 levels.
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Tutor Notes
Non-fiction questions in Higher and Intermediate 2, paper 2
The most obvious difference between recent Higher and Intermediate 2 critical essay
papers is that at Higher, out of seven questions, three are specifically directed towards
answers on non-fiction, whereas at Intermediate 2, one of three questions invites a
response based on a work of fiction or of non-fiction.
In terms of literary technique, Higher prompts (In your answer you must refer closely
to…) frequently refer to techniques which we would associate, predominantly, with
non-fiction; for example, ideas, anecdote, evidence – as well as to techniques which
can also be found in fiction such as structure, setting, narrative voice.
At Intermediate 2, however, the prompts tend to refer to techniques such as theme,
structure, language, setting, which can be employed in both genres.
It is likely, then, that one area of discrimination between the two levels is the
comparative requirement to understand and recognise a range of literary techniques,
and to be able to analyse and evaluate these.
Over the past few years, the following techniques have been prompted in the prose
section of paper 2 at Higher and Intermediate 2:
Higher
Structure
Plot
Theme
Characterisation
Setting
Climax
Dialogue
Key incident(s)
Narrative stance
Narrative voice
Conflict
Imagery
Int 2
Structure
Plot
Theme
Characterisation
Setting
Climax
Dialogue
Key incident(s)
Narrative stance
Narrative technique
Conflict
Imagery
Tone
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TUTOR NOTES
Higher
Point of view
Mood
Symbolism
Ideas*
Evidence*
Selection of information*
Choice of detail*
Anecdote*
Organisation*
Examples*
Description*
Language*
Style*
Int 2
The asterisked techniques, all at Higher, are those which have appeared only in nonfiction questions and it would be reasonable to expect our students to understand and
be able to use these appropriately in critical evaluations of non-fiction texts.
At Intermediate 2, most candidates could probably choose to refer to two techniques
from say, theme, structure, language, setting but the more able candidate might also
– under . . . or any other appropriate feature – make reference to some of the features
identified as ‘Higher’ techniques.
Remember, non-fiction questions are framed in the same way as prose fiction
questions – indeed, at Intermediate 2, they are the same questions. The technique for
answering these questions is the same but students must show, at least implicitly, that
they are aware of the difference between fiction and non-fiction and, where
appropriate, try to make reference to techniques which are predominantly found in
non-fiction.
The simple advice frequently offered at Higher markers’ meetings still holds true for
assessing responses to non-fiction:
When deciding if a response deserves to pass, ask yourself these questions:
– Is it literate?
– Does the student know the text?
– Does the student select from what he/she knows in order to answer the
question?
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Notes on student materials
I’ve used four short – but, for exam purposes, complete and acceptable – texts here.
This is pragmatic in terms of copyright and offering you a complete resource. There is
no intention to suggest that the study of non-fiction should always be limited to short
texts, any more than the study of creative fiction would exclude the novel, and I would
encourage you to include longer non-fiction texts in your courses.
A list of texts currently in use in Scottish schools is included as an appendix on pages
18 and 19.
REMEMBER: for exam purposes, students must study a complete text: you can’t use
an extract or an edited version.
The four texts included in this resource are offered in order of difficulty and demand –
as I see it.
• Life Is the Clay seems to me to be a reasonably straightforward and amusing
narrative – although idiosyncratically written – which should engage Intermediate
2 students, challenge them but not frighten them off.
• Letter to Daniel and Showing Off, I feel, have more emotional texture with
Showing Off making greater demands in terms of empathy and technique.
• From Factory to Firing Line: The Story of One Bullet is a substantial piece of
quality journalism which will make significant demands on able students’ abilities
to follow a complex line of thought, take account of detail and evidence and
appreciate the literary quality which is sustained throughout.
The activities offered to support the study of the texts are intended to provide a basic
framework for learning and teaching. I have assumed that students will be working in
pairs or in groups and that feedback leading to whole-class discussion to develop and
consolidate ideas, will allow teachers to ‘do their own thing’ within – and beyond –
the areas I’ve focused on. Consequently, I’ve avoided dissecting each text line by line:
rather, I’ve attempted in each case to focus on basic understanding of the ‘message’
while taking account of how this is conveyed through the writer’s experience, attitude,
tone, use of language – and creativity.
In order to encourage discussion, debate, thinking, I’ve frequently provided lists of
possible ‘answers’ to questions, asking students to consider which, they think, is the
most appropriate in the context. Obviously there are no absolutely
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‘right’ answers here – although there may be some which are difficult to justify. I
think this sort of question is far preferable to those which seem to invite students to
guess the tone, attitude, purpose that’s in the teacher’s head.
Finally, the ‘suggested levels’ are just that and the activities are not intended to be
prescriptive. You know your own students: use these resources – texts and tasks – as
you will.
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‘Life is the Clay’
Suggested level: Intermediate 2/Higher
This autobiographical sketch by John Byrne covers a 20-year period in his life from
the age of 18 to his emergence as a writer with his first play, Writer’s Cramp, in 1977.
At first glance it can appear to be an easy read: the humour and latent surrealism of his
story is very engaging and should provide an enjoyable first read for Intermediate 2
students. However, under closer scrutiny, it’s really quite demanding and, as a result,
I’ve built in a lot of support and a fair number of basic understanding tasks. I do feel,
however, that there’s some mileage in this text for Higher students as well.
Overall, having studied the piece, students should come to an understanding of what
shaped Byrne’s life over these years, leading to his successful career as a writer and
artist. I’d like them to get a sense of the character himself and to get the ‘message’
contained in the final line, ‘Life is the clay – Art is the vessel’.
In terms of writer’s craft, I’d like them to be aware of how very specific detail grounds
Byrne’s story in reality, while some ‘invention’ and informal use of language
contribute to an overall light-hearted tone encouraging us to perceive the author as
being likeably modern, unconventional, slightly eccentric, unstuffy. (For a 65 year old
from Paisley?)
The last task, ‘Finally’, might be one that you would use only with Higher students, or
one that you could use at a more basic level – for example, the number of sentences
which, technically aren’t; or the double question marks at ‘ What to do now??’
In terms of the detail, the first thirteen lines of paragraph 2 are significant. It gets a bit
complex/muddled and I’ve tried to walk students through it in Activity 4, which looks
at the detail crammed into the multiple parentheses contained in these lines.
In terms of providing a context, it would obviously be useful if students could see
some of Byrne’s work: his self-portrait and his Billy Connolly portrait would be a
good start.
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TUTOR NOTES
Your students will probably need a working definition of ‘naïf style’: I decided not to
get into this in the activities. I’d suggest something along the following lines:
‘Naïf’ style is a style of painting which appears to have been done by someone
who is untrained: it might seem primitive or to be the sort of pictures young
children would paint.’
Artists would probably regard this as a very ‘naïf’ definition but, for our purposes, it
should do fine.
(Health warning! Some daft boy is going to start an answer in the exam with, ‘An
autobiographical piece, written in the naïf style, is….’ Stop him now!)
Additionally, some explanation of the expression ‘stinking fish’ is required.
Apparently, this expression comes from quite a famous legal ruling which basically
says that you can advertise fresh fish as ‘fresh fish’ but if it’s not fresh, you can only
advertise it as ‘fish’. However, you are not legally bound to advertise it as ‘stinking
fish’. That is, you are not required, by law, to belittle your own wares – and, of course,
the precedent in law extends to any applicable situation.
(There’s a much more ‘earthy’ Elizabethan provenance for the phrase but you’re on
safer ground with this one!)
In the context of Byrne’s story then, the exhibitions in the London galleries are maybe
not as trendy, avant garde, freshly minted as they might imply – but they’re not bound
to admit to this.
He also uses the phrase to belittle his own earliest work.
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‘Letter to Daniel’
Suggested levels: Higher/Intermediate 2
The ‘letter’ should be accessible to students at both levels. At its most basic it is a
father’s expression of joy and hope at the birth of his first child. At deeper levels, it
considers how fatherhood has changed the writer’s perceptions of the ‘rat-race’, the
horror he has witnessed as a war correspondent and the relationship – or lack of it –
with his own father.
There are three sections to the letter, each with its own mood and tone. The opening
section (paragraphs 1–5) is full of hope and joy at the birth of this precious son.
The next section reflects on the desolation visited upon children in war-torn countries
– as witnessed by Keane reporting for the BBC from various war zones. In this
section he expresses his feelings of fear for, and protectiveness towards, his son.
In the final section he tells a ‘story’ which is clearly about his own origins – but from
an omniscient narrative stance. This section should allow you to consider the issue of
the real and the imagined in non-fiction, perhaps agreeing that, in non-fiction it is the
facts that are conveyed which matter, regardless of how the descriptive or narrative
detail might have been manipulated to creative effect.
In the final paragraph, the letter reverts to its opening mood of love and joy, as well
evoking a powerful mood of hope and reconciliation.
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TUTOR NOTES
‘Showing off’
Suggested level: Higher
This autobiographical piece by Janice Galloway is a real tour de force in terms of
documenting her development as a writer and her triumph over barriers of class,
sexism and self-esteem – many of these barriers being shored up by her mother and
older sister.
She begins by telling us about a quiet but determined wee girl who loved to read and
quietly got on with her life. In her teenage years she finds a form of liberation through
music and this leads to the anti-climax of a sterile university career and on to teaching.
Eventually, after years as a teacher, she comes to the liberating realisation that she is
allowed a voice – and so becomes a writer.
If you have heard Janice Galloway speak, then you will hear her voice come at you
from the page. She speaks directly to the reader in a voice which combines idiom, wit,
irony, pathos and great humanity; hammering home the message that everyone has a
right to a voice and no one, or no orthodoxy, should have the right to suppress it.
‘the right to listen, to think; even godhelpus to join in.’
I think the activities here will speak for themselves. Essentially, I’ve tried to focus on
the issues of gender and social class, the author’s ‘message’ and how this is conveyed
in terms of her attitude to her experiences.
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‘From Factory to Firing Line: The Story of One Bullet’
Suggested level: Higher
This piece of quality journalism tells the ‘story’ of a bullet’s journey from a
nondescript factory in Russia, via the hands of illegal arms dealers, into human flesh.
It is also, inevitably, the story of the bullet’s partner in death, the AK-47 assault rifle.
The article documents the ubiquity of the AK-47 and the enormity of the international
illegal arms trade. It seems to me that it asks us to reflect on the extent to which we’ve
become accustomed – perhaps even inured – to stories of human rights violations and
of violent death in far-off countries and it highlights the apparent stasis of Western
governments, and of the UN, in terms of attempting to wipe out the illegal arms trade
– a multi-billion dollar industry.
The article makes reference to (and was possibly prompted by?) a forthcoming
Hollywood blockbuster, Lord of War, which stars Nicolas Cage as an ‘amoral but
charismatic’ arms dealer. David Pratt sets out in his article to deglamorise the concept
by documenting the grim reality.
This grim reality is recounted in factual terms. Apart from some euphemism, the
occasional ironic comment and the unavoidable use of pejorative or emotive language
in the final two sections, Pratt tells the story straight.
Evidence of the amount of research which has gone into the writing of this article
permeates the whole piece and Activity 9 reflects this, asking students to identify all
the ways in which Pratt grounds his story in fact. This should, in terms of genre
markers, highlight the distinction for them between this non-fiction ‘story’ and
creative fiction. In fact, as they should realise in Activity 3, the ‘story’ is a device to
provide a structure and a line of thought for the article.
In Activity 9, students are asked to identify how Pratt uses personal experience,
statistics, detail, interviews and quotations from other sources, to underpin the veracity
of his argument.
(Students might point out that ‘ TDF’ in the third section doesn’t work out as
telephones, dollars and daughters: it does in French with the F representing ‘filles’.)
Good luck!
John Lawson
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Further reading: non-fiction checklists
These non-fiction texts are currently used – or suggested for use – at Higher
and Intermediate 2, in English departments in Scottish Schools (based on
responses to Learning and Teaching Scotland, spring 2005):
Angelou, Maya
Armstrong, Lance
Bauby, J D
Bryson, Bill
Cook, Alastair
Dahl, Roald
Eames, Andrew
Ferris, Stewart
Gray, Muriel
Hawks, Tony
Keane, Fergal
Keeble, Alexandra
Lee, Laurie
MacArthur, Ellen
McCourt, Frank
Moore, Michael
Orwell, George
Paulsen, Gary
Pelzer, David
Reid, Piers Paul
Ridley, Matt
Simpson, Joe
Seierstad, Asne
Stephenson, Pamela
Szpilman, Wladyslaw
Yen Mah, Adeline
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
It’s Not About the Bike
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Notes from a Small Island
Down Under
Notes from a Big Country
America’s Days of Terror
Letters from America
Going Solo
The 8.55 to Baghdad
Don’t Mention the War! A Shameful
European Rail Adventure
Sandstone Vistas
Various
Spiritual Damage
Che Guevara: the Motorcycle Diaries
Cider with Rosie
Race Against Time
Angela’s Ashes
’Tis
Downsize This!
DUDE: Where’s my Country?
Essays, various
Pilgrimage on a Steel Ride
A Boy Called It
Alive
Genome
Touching the Void
The Bookseller of Kabul
Billy
Bravemouth
(both of these with ‘health warnings’)
The Pianist
Falling Leaves
A slightly older checklist of possible Scottish titles for consideration wa s
published as Section 5 (‘Non-fictional prose’) of Using Scottish Texts:
Support Notes and Bibliographies, ed. David Menzies (Scottish CCC, 1999).
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Here is a further list of non-fiction suggestions:
Nobody’s Child
From Our Correspondent
Experience
Testament of Youth
On Beckham
C: Because Even Cowards Get Cancer
Beyond the Limits
Living Dangerously
Moab is my Washpot
Looking in the Distance: The Human Search
for Meaning
The Meaning of Recognition: New Essays
2001–2005
Snake Charmers in Texas
Even as We Speak
Unreliable Memoirs
All These People: A Memoir
An Evil Cradling
Between Extremes: A Journey Beyond
Imagination
Just Law
Dreaming and Scheming: Reflections on
Writing and Politics
When Did You Last See Your Father?
If
Peace Kills
Holidays in Hell
Eat the Rich
Heroes
Tell me no Lies: Investigative Journalism and
Its Triumphs
A Scots Parliament
(in Scots from Itchy Coo Publishers)
Spirits of the Age: Scottish Self-Portraits
Junk Mail
Feeding Frenzy
Shooting History: A Personal Journey
The Old Patagonian Express
The Great Railway Bazaar
Riding the Iron Rooster
Behind the Wall
In Siberia
Adie, Kate
Amis, Martin
Brittain, Vera
Burchill, Julie
Diamond, John
Fiennes, Ranulph
Fry, Stephen
Holloway, Richard
James, Clive
Keane, Fergal
Keenan, Brian
Keenan, Brian and
McCarthy, John
Kennedy, Helena
Kureishi, Hanif
Morrison, Blake
O’Rourke, P J
Pilger, John
Robertson, James
Scott, Paul H (Ed)
Self, Will
Snow, Jon
Theroux, Paul
Thubron, Colin
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TEXT 1
Text 1
Life is the Clay
John Byrne
John Byrne is a playwright and artist who was born in Paisley in 1940. His best
known play is The Slab Boys, set in Stoddart’s carpet factory in Elderslie and based
on his own experiences working there before, and after, going to the Glasgow School
of Art. His best known work for television is probably Tutti Frutti – the story of a
Glasgow rock band torn between fame and self-destruction – which starred Robbie
Coltraine as the lead singer and Richard Wilson as their manager.
Byrne is well known internationally as an artist and his work can be found in major
galleries both in Britain and abroad. Perhaps the John Byrne painting which most
people recognise instantly is the portrait of Billy Connolly which can be seen at the
People’s Palace Museum in Glasgow.
In the following short autobiographical sketch, Byrne reflects on his development as
an artist and playwright over a period of about twenty years from the ages of 18 to 37.
It was 1958 and I was in London, living in Harlesden and working undercover as a
Counter Clerk (Temporary Grade) at the Labour Exchange in Medina Road,
Holloway. It was the dullest job in Christendom but it did allow me the opportunity to
trawl the galleries of Cork Street and its environs in search of that ladder of legend
upon which I could set a toe. Prior to my unlucky break in securing that position with
the Civil Service I had borrowed enough money from my pal Peter O’Neil to purchase
a tin box of ‘watercolours’ from the toy shop underneath his mother’s flat in
Harlesden High Street and with the help of a tin of boot polish, a small rectangle of
plywood prised from the skirting board of their bathroom, and some Brasso, managed
to paint a circus scene of such glowing intensity that I had no qualms about hawking it
around the fashionable galleries of Mayfair on my Saturdays off from work in the
certain knowledge that not only would I get a foothold on that first rung but I would
be scaling the ladder at such a rate that there was a definite danger that I might
disappear into the clouds and be celebrated only after my death. I was 18.
Ten years later the penny dropped. I was working as a Carpet Designer with my old
sparring partner A F Stoddard & Co in Elderslie, having gone through Glasgow
School of Art, been to Italy on a scholarship, got married and had two small children,
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been accepted for the Painting School at the Royal College of Art (I was to share
accommodation with a chap called Henk Onrust at their Halls of Residence) but hadn’t
gone – I discovered years later that the then Director of Glasgow School of Art, H
Jefferson Barnes, had paid me the huge, albeit back-handed, compliment of informing
the Bursar at the RCA, when asked to provide me with a letter of recommendation for
a College grant that would see my family and me through the Painting School, that ‘…
there is nothing more that you can teach him’, thus putting the kybosh on that
particular source of revenue (for which I say a prayer of thanksgiving each night) –
and was not enjoying it one bit. What to do? I had by this time realised that those
London galleries I’d visited my little circus upon were but shops, each with a
particular clientele to be catered for with a particular kind of painting. I’d been back
and forth to the metropolis in the intervening years and the glowing reviews I read in
the art columns of the Sunday Times and the Observer never squared for me with the
stuff on the walls. The smell of stinking fish? I thought I’d give it another go and set
about making another little picture. Under the desk in the Design Studio in the Carpet
Works. Of course, nowadays, it probably would be stinking fish but then it was a little
painting of a man in a panama hat holding a bunch of flowers in the ‘naif’ style. I’d
come across a feature in one of the colour supplements about ‘the Innocent Eye’ –
self-taught painters and primitives – and recognised that what one needed was a
‘hook’. If you could say that you were an ex-prisoner or a one-legged Trappist monk
this was a hook the gallery could hang the show on. We had all of us while at Art
School subscribed to the ridiculous notion that if one hadn’t made it by the time one
was 25 that was it – oblivion and Hell mend one. I was already 27 by this time. My
days were numbered and then some. Six months on and I was dead meat. Never mind
how it was accomplished. Never mind to what lengths one had to go. Better a One
Hit Wonder than a Nobody, right? I picked the Portal Gallery in Mayfair. Wrote
them a covering letter with The Man in the Panama Hat (in the ‘naif’ style), said it was
painted by my 72 year-old father, an ex-busker, signed it with his name ‘Patrick’. Got
a letter by return. Rather a dry letter but they were ‘interested’ to know how to get in
touch with my father and whether he had produced any other paintings. I wrote back
saying that he was at his beach hut in Dunoon and that I was acting on his behalf and
yes, he did have more paintings. Quite a lot of them. Enough for a show, certainly.
My father was summoned to Mayfair. I went in his stead. Confessed to the ruse. The
gallery said they’d already twigged but I could tell from the wheelchair that had met
me off the bus and the uncorked bottle of Sanotogen Tonic Wine on the reception desk
that they were fibbing. In the interests of fame and commerce we arrived at an
understanding – if I didn’t say too much to the press then they wouldn’t either.
‘Patrick’s’ debut show was a sell-out – bought by the rich and famous, reviewed in the
pages of Apollo (in exchange for two tickets for ‘Oh, Calcutta’, the hit show of the
moment), celebrated in Vogue with a photograph by David Bailey, and eventually
undone in the Letters page of the Observer where the Registrar of Glasgow School of
Art, on the instruction of my nemesis, the aforementioned H Jefferson Barnes,
revealed the true identity of the guilty ‘innocent’. Again, the trademark backhanded
compliment – ‘… the most sophisticated student to pass through the Mackintosh
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TEXT 1
building since Joan Eardley … winner of the coveted Bellahouston Award ...’ but the
damage was done, my cover blown. I had fallen among thieves. Sold my birthright
for a mess of potage. What to do now??
In 1977 I sent off a theatre script to the doyenne of play agents, Peggy Ramsay. It was
called Writer’s Cramp and featured one Francis Seneca McDade, a self-styled author
with a big hit for himself whose lack of success in the literary world, despite his
obvious genius, resulted in penury, forcing him to turn his hand to painting (at which
he was that ‘rara avis’, a genuine primitive) under the ‘nom de pinceau’ Sconey
Semple, a one-eyed illiterate whose seminal work ‘George the Baptist’ – painted on
the inside of a kettle using specially-designed brushes – was bought for the nation and
is now on display at the McDade Memorial Archive, Shoogly Walk, Barrhead.
I was once told by Robin Philipson the then Head of Painting at Edinburgh College of
Art where I’d transferred for my Third Year from Glasgow, that once I’d rid my work
of its vulgarity I might have the opportunity of becoming a ‘proper painter’. I hadn’t
the gumption then to tell him that ‘vulgarity’ and ‘life’ were to me synonymous. I
have acquired that gumption now, though. I would never have become a playwright
nor, in my own estimation at least, a better painter (i.e. a painter from the ‘life’), had I
not been something of a vulgarian. My work is suffused with the vulgar. I have no
time for ‘ivory-tower-ism’. The worthy – the dead hand. What is Art if not the
embodiment, distillation, and celebration of Life itself? We are born with gifts and
weaknesses – the great triumph as I see it is to turn our weaknesses, our foibles, our
failings, through our work as artists into something other.
Life is the clay – Art is the vessel.
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‘Life is the Clay’ – Student activities
Activity 1
(a)
Having read John Byrne’s account of his career development over 20 years,
which of the following words do you think describe the character who comes
across in the writing. You may choose more than one but you must be prepared
to justify your opinion by reference to the text.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
(b)
Interesting
Conventional
Unconventional
Dull
Big-headed
Manic
Adventurous
Bohemian
Chancer
Talented
Independent
Other?
Do you like and/or admire the character?
Whether you do or don’t, be prepared to justify your opinion by referring to the
text.
Activity 2
(a)
Writers of non-fiction often include some very specific detail in order to
emphasise the fact that they’re writing about real events rather than just making
up a wee story.
Identify three examples of this in Byrne’s writing. What makes it real for you?
(b)
Sometimes writers of non-fiction embellish the truth with wee imaginative addons. One well-known Scottish writer has said that the minute you start using
personal experience in your writing, you start ‘inventing’.
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• Are there any bits of John Byrne’s story which you think might have been
‘invented’?
Why do you think this?
• What effect is created by these ‘inventions’?
Activity 3
Re-read the first paragraph.
(a)
Byrne says that, when he was 18, he was ‘working undercover’ in a Labour
Exchange.
What do you think the phrase ‘working undercover’ tells us about how he saw
himself at the time?
(b)
In the course of this paragraph, Byrne uses an extended metaphor.
Can you identify this metaphor and explain why – combined with his notion of
being ‘undercover’ – it is effective in describing the author at 18?
(c)
John Byrne was in his sixties when he wrote this piece. Bearing this in mind,
which of the following – and you can choose more than one – do you think he is
implying in the final short sentence of this paragraph, ‘I was 18’?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
24
That he wishes he still had the drive to get ahead that he had then.
That he can’t believe how naive he was back then.
That he thinks he was just plain daft.
That he is nostalgic for his youth.
That he envies young people their youth.
That he sees youth as a time of innocence and freedom.
That it’s amazing he’s made it into his sixties.
Other?
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Activity 4
The second paragraph is very long and, for the first half at least, quite complex. This
is because Byrne packs in a great deal of detail about his life in the ten years between
the ages of 18 and 27. (During which he didn’t become a legend!)
He begins by saying, ‘Ten years later the penny dropped.’ (When someone says this
they usually mean that they’ve finally realised something.)
Several lines later we find out that what Byrne had realised was that he wanted to get
on with his life as an artist and to do this he needed a ‘hook’, some sort of gimmick,
which would get people interested in his paintings.
Let’s look at the summary of the ten years, focusing on how John Byrne felt about his
life at the time and how he feels about events looking back on them.
(a)
He tells us that he had gone through Glasgow School of Art and then got a job
as a Carpet Designer with A F Stoddart & Co in Elderslie, describing this carpet
firm as his ‘old sparring partner’.
What do you think the phrase ‘old sparring partner’ tell us about his attitude to
his job?
(b)
A feature of Byrne’s writing style is his use of parenthesis.
Parenthesis is when a writer adds additional information – which isn’t strictly
necessary – into a sentence to help make things clearer. If you remove a
parenthesis, the sentence should still make sense without it.
(In passing, which part of the above paragraph is the parenthesis? If you take
the parenthesis out, does the sentence still make sense?)
Sometimes parenthesis is signalled by using commas, sometimes by using
dashes and sometimes by using brackets.
The second sentence of paragraph 2 is 13 lines long and contains one huge
parenthesis. Without this parenthesis, the sentence would still make sense and
would read like this:
I was working as a Carpet Designer with my old sparring partner A F
Stoddart & Co in Elderslie and was not enjoying it one bit.
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TEXT 1
When you take the parenthesis into account:
‘, having gone to Glasgow School of Art . . . thanksgiving each night) –’
you realise that Byrne has used this to pack in a lot of extra detail about his life
over the period of the ten years he’s referring to.
In fact, when you look more closely at this giant parenthesis, you realise that
there are several smaller parentheses inside it.
• How many smaller parentheses can you find?
• List all the extra things that we find out from the parentheses.
• How does this extra information add to our understanding of the character?
There are several more examples of parenthesis in the text.
• Identify at least one of these and comment on what it contributes to Byrne’s
story.
Activity 5
(a)
Not getting a grant to go to the Royal College of Art, actually brought about a
turning point in Byrne’s life and that is why he is ‘thankful’. He asked the
question – ‘What to do?’ and came to the conclusion that he needed that ‘hook’.
• What ‘hook’ did he come up with?
• Why did he think this was a good ‘hook’?
• What does this tell you about his views of the art ‘establishment’ at the time?
(b)
His ‘hook’ worked for a while until, for the second time in his life, his nemesis
– H Jefferson Barnes – intervened and brought about another turning point –
‘What to do now?’
• Do you know – or can you find out – what a nemesis is?
• What did Byrne ‘do now’?
• Can you see any parallels here?
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Activity 6
In the final two paragraphs, Byrne reflects on what he calls ‘the vulgar’ being at the
heart of his art – both his painting and his writing.
(a)
Read the second last paragraph, the one which begins ‘I was once told by Robin
Philipson . . .’
• Explain, with close reference to the text, why John Byrne sees being
‘something of a vulgarian’ as being so important.
• Can you see any links between this point of view and what he’s told us about
himself earlier?
(b)
The final paragraph is a single metaphor which sums up John Byrne’s message:
‘Life is the clay – Art is the vessel.’
• Can you explain this metaphor?
• How does it connect with the previous paragraph?
• How effective do you find it in terms of the piece as a whole?
Finally
Byrne talks about painting in the ‘naif’ style. It could probably be said that he also
writes in a ‘naif’ style.
How many examples of this can you find in his writing?
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TEXT 2
Text 2:
Letter to Daniel
Fergal Keane
The following letter by Fergal Keane to his newborn son was broadcast on the BBC
Radio 4 programme, ‘From our own Correspondent’. As a BBC foreign
correspondent, Keane has reported, first hand, from various international crisis areas
including Northern Ireland, Southern Africa and Asia. His reporting has been
honoured with an Amnesty International Press award and an OBE for services to
journalism. His book on Rwanda, Season of Blood, won the George Orwell Prize for
political writing.
Hong Kong, February 1996
Daniel Patrick Keane was born on 4 February, 1996.
My dear son, it is six o’clock in the morning on the island of Hong Kong. You are
asleep cradled in my left arm and I am learning the art of one-handed typing. Your
mother, more tired yet more happy than I’ve ever known her, is sound asleep in the
room next door and there is a soft quiet in our apartment.
Since you’ve arrived, days have melted into night and back again and we are learning
a new grammar, a long sentence whose punctuation marks are feeding and winding
and nappy changing and these occasional moments of quiet.
When you’re older we’ll tell you that you were born in Britain’s last Asian colony in
the lunar year of the pig and that when we brought you home, the staff of our
apartment block gathered to wish you well. ‘It’s a boy, so lucky, so lucky. We Chinese
love boys,’ they told us. One man said you were the first baby to be born in the block
in the year of the pig. This, he told us, was good Feng Shui, in other words a positive
sign for the building and everyone who lived there.
Naturally your mother and I were only too happy to believe that. We had wanted you
and waited for you, imagined you and dreamed about you and now that you are here
no dream can do justice to you. Outside the window, below us on the harbour, the
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ferries are ploughing back and forth to Kowloon. Millions are already up and moving
about and the sun is slanting through the tower blocks and out on to the flat silver
waters of the South China Sea. I can see the trail of a jet over Lamma Island and,
somewhere out there, the last stars flickering towards the other side of the world.
We have called you Daniel Patrick but I’ve been told by my Chinese friends that you
should have a Chinese name as well and this glorious dawn sky makes me think we’ll
call you Son of the Eastern Star. So that later, when you and I are far from Asia,
perhaps standing on a beach some evening, I can point at the sky and tell you of the
Orient and the times and the people we knew there in the last years of the twentieth
century.
Your coming has turned me upside down and inside out. So much that seemed
essential to me has, in the past few days, taken on a different colour. Like many
foreign correspondents I know, I have lived a life that, on occasion, has veered close
to the edge: war zones, natural disasters, darkness in all its shapes and forms.
In a world of insecurity and ambition and ego, it’s easy to be drawn in, to take chances
with our lives, to believe that what we do and what people say about us is reason
enough to gamble with death. Now, looking at your sleeping face, inches away from
me, listening to your occasional sigh and gurgle, I wonder how I could have ever
thought glory and prizes and praise were sweeter than life.
And it’s also true that I am pained, perhaps haunted is a better word, by the memory,
suddenly so vivid now, of each suffering child I have come across on my journeys. To
tell you the truth, it’s nearly too much to bear at this moment to even think of children
being hurt and abused and killed. And yet, looking at you, the images come flooding
back. Ten-year-old Andi Mikail dying from napalm burns on a hillside in Eritrea, how
his voice cried out, growing ever more faint when the wind blew dust on to his
wounds. The two brothers, Domingo and Juste, in Menongue, southern Angola. Juste,
two years old and blind, dying from malnutrition, being carried on seven-year-old
Domingo’s back. And Domingo’s words to me, ‘He was nice before, but now he has
the hunger.’
Last October, in Afghanistan, when you were growing inside your mother, I met
Sharja, aged twelve. Motherless, fatherless, guiding me through the grey ruins of her
home, everything was gone, she told me. And I knew that, for all her tender years, she
had learned more about loss than I would likely understand in a lifetime.
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TEXT 2
There is one last memory, of Rwanda, and the churchyard of the parish of Nyarubuye
where, in a ransacked classroom, I found a mother and her three young children
huddled together where they’d been beaten to death. The children had died holding on
to their mother, that instinct we all learn from birth and in one way or another cling to
until we die.
Daniel, these memories explain some of the fierce protectiveness I feel for you, the
tenderness and the occasional moments of blind terror when I imagine anything
happening to you. But there is something more, a story from long ago that I will tell
you face to face, father and son, when you are older. It’s a very personal story but it’s
part of the picture. It has to do with the long lines of blood and family, about our lives
and how we can get lost in them and, if we’re lucky, find our way out again into the
sunlight.
It begins thirty-five years ago in a big city on a January morning with snow on the
ground and a woman walking to the hospital to have her first baby. She is in her early
twenties and the city is still strange to her, bigger and noisier than the easy streets and
gentle hills of her distant home. She’s walking because there is no money and
everything of value has been pawned to pay for the alcohol to which her husband has
become addicted.
On the way, a taxi driver notices her sitting, exhausted and cold, in the doorway of a
shop and he takes her to hospital for free. Later that day, she gives birth to a baby boy
and, just as you are to me, he is the best thing she has ever seen. Her husband comes
that night and weeps with joy when he sees his son. He is truly happy. Hungover,
broke, but in his own way happy, for they were both young and in love with each
other and their son.
But, Daniel, time had some bad surprises in store for them. The cancer of alcoholism
ate away at the man and he lost his family. This was not something he meant to do or
wanted to do, it just was. When you are older, my son, you will learn about how
complicated life becomes, how we can lose our way and how people get hurt inside
and out. By the time his son had grown up, the man lived away from his family, on his
own in a one-roomed flat, living and dying for the bottle.
He died on the fifth of January, one day before the anniversary of his son’s birth, all
those years before in that snowbound city. But his son was too far away to hear his last
words, his final breath, and all the things they might have wished to say to one another
were left unspoken.
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Yet now, Daniel, I must tell you that when you let out your first powerful cry in the
delivery room of the Adventist Hospital and I became a father, I thought of your
grandfather and, foolish though it may seem, hoped that in some way he could hear,
across the infinity between the living and the dead, your proud statement of arrival.
For if he could hear, he would recognise the distinct voice of family, the sound of
hope and new beginnings that you and all your innocence and freshness have brought
to the world.
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TEXT 2
‘Letter to Daniel’ – Student activities
Audience and purpose
When writers plan their work, there are three basic questions they have to consider:
Who am I in this piece, myself or some other character?
Who am I writing for?
What effect do I want my writing to have on the reader?
Persona
Audience
Purpose
The answers to these questions help authors determine which form of writing or which
genre they should adopt.
‘Letter to Daniel’ is a non-fiction text and in non-fiction we would normally expect
authors to write as themselves – rather than to adopt a different persona.
However, audience and purpose in non-fiction will vary and are extremely important.
So, whether we are reading an extract from a longer piece in order to answer
interpretation questions, or whether we are studying a complete work of non-fiction
we should be thinking, as we read:
Who is this aimed at?
Why has the author written this?
Activities 1 and 2 which follow, are designed to get you thinking about purpose and
audience and, in doing so, come to an understanding of what Fergal Keane set out to
achieve in his writing. You’ll work in pairs or groups to begin with, before wholeclass discussion on the issues.
Activity 1
The piece is addressed to ‘My dear son’ and the narrative technique is that of a letter,
speaking, at all times, directly to Daniel – yet it was broadcast to the nation on a BBC
radio programme. Discuss the following statements about the audience for the letter,
decide which one you agree with most and be prepared to report your conclusions.
•
•
•
•
32
The letter isn’t really aimed at his son.
The letter form is a device to get the attention of the general public.
The letter is aimed both at his son and the general public.
Other?
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Activity 2
Consider the following possibilities and decide which one you think is Fergal Keane’s
main purpose for writing this letter. Referring closely to the text, you should try to
offer at least three reasons for your choice.
Fergal Keane wrote this letter in order to:
• express his feelings of pride and joy at having a new-born son;
• express wonder and delight at how his life has changed as a result of becoming a
father;
• reflect on the world his newborn son has entered;
• use the letter as a sort of ‘time-capsule’ for his son to open and read when he
reaches maturity;
• express his regret about never having known his own father;
• other?
Activity 3
The mood in the first five paragraphs is one of love and joy.
• Read over these paragraphs and identify all the ways in which Keane conveys his
love for his new son and his joy at becoming a father.
(When doing this you should consider techniques such as word choice, use of
imagery, use of setting . . .)
• Choose one feature which you particularly like: be prepared to talk about this
feature and explain why you feel it is effective.
Activity 4
Your coming has turned me inside out. (Opening of paragraph 6)
Daniel, these memories explain some of the fierce protectiveness I feel for you, the
tenderness and the occasional moments of blind terror when I imagine anything
happening to you. (Opening paragraph 11)
Between these sentences, Keane reflects on his life and experiences as a war
correspondent.
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TEXT 2
(a)
Look at the ideas, the imagery and the word choice contained in paragraphs 6
and 7.
Be prepared to explain how, in your view, Keane tries to convey the way his
outlook on living has changed.
(b)
Look at the use of setting and at Keane’s choice of detail in paragraphs 8, 9 and
10.
• What do these examples have in common?
• Why, for Keane, are these memories ‘suddenly so vivid now’?
(c)
Which one of the following, do you feel, best describes the mood of these
paragraphs? You may choose more than one.
•
•
•
•
Horror
Anguish
Depression
Helplessness
•
•
•
•
Despair
Fear
Desolation
Other?
List all the examples of word choice which you feel help convey the mood
which you have identified.
Activity 5
(Paragraph 11 continues) But there is something more, a story from long ago that I
will tell you face to face, father and son, when you are older.
This sentence acts as a turning point, with Keane telling Daniel that another reason
why he feels so protective towards his son is that he never really knew his own father
who had died, an alcoholic, separated from his wife and family.
(a)
Look at paragraphs 12–15.
• How does the narrative stance change in these paragraphs?
• What effect do you think the author is trying to create here?
(b)
In paragraphs 12 and 13, for the only time in the letter, Keane is writing about
something of which he has no first-hand experience.
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• Do you believe the facts conveyed in these paragraphs?
• Do you think the detailed description is accurate? If so how could Keane
know?
• If the facts are accurate but the detail faulty, does this make these paragraphs
less reliable as a non-fiction account?
(c)
Look at the final paragraph. It’s no great revelation for it to be confirmed –
when Keane seems to just slip in the phrase, ‘I thought of your grandfather’ –
that his story has been all along about himself and his parents.
Consider which of the following effects Keane might have been trying to create
by telling the ‘story’ in the way he does and by playing down his revelation.
You may choose more than one effect and you must be prepared to explain and
justify your choice(s).
• He wants to suggest that he didn’t really care about his father.
• He wants to suggest that it was all in the past and that he’s forgiven his
father.
• He wants to suggest that he has left his origins and upbringing far behind.
• He wants to suggest that he wishes his father had been around for him, the
way he is determined to be around for Daniel.
Activity 6
Look at the final paragraph. The tone here returns to one of love and joy but added to
it is a sense of hope for the future.
• What is this hope that Fergal Keane has found in the birth of his son?
• Keane uses powerful, positive language to express his hope. Work carefully
through the final paragraph and list as many examples of this language as
you can.
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TEXT 2
Finally
Look back at your answer to Activity 2.
• Do you still stand by the choice of purpose you made there? If so, what additional
evidence can you now offer to justify this choice?
• Have you changed your mind about the purpose of Keane’s writing? If so, explain
why and give your reasons for the change.
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Text 3:
Showing Off
Janice Galloway
Janice Galloway was born in Saltcoats, North Ayrshire, in 1956. After attending
Glasgow University, she went back to Ayrshire, where she taught for ten years. On
leaving teaching, she made her living from writing and reviewing music. Her first
novel, The Trick is to Keep Breathing, was published in 1990, and today Janice
Galloway is widely regarded as one of the foremost contemporary Scottish writers.
In this autobiographical essay, Janice Galloway reflects on the various influences
which inhibited – or encouraged – her development as a writer. This piece is an
extended version of an article for the Edinburgh International Book Festival
publications, republished in A Scottish Childhood, 1998.
When I was very wee I didn’t read at all. I listened. My mother sang Elvis and Peggy
Lee songs, the odd Rolling Stones hit as they appeared. These gave me a notion of
how relationships between the sexes were conducted (there were no men in our
house), the meaning of LURV (i.e. sexual attraction and not LOVE which was
something in English war-time films that involved crying); a sprinkling of
Americanisms (to help conceal/sophisticate the accent I had been born into and which
my mother assured me was ignorant and common) and a basic grounding in
ATTITUDE (known locally as LIP). This last, was the most useful one. In fact, the
only useful one. The words to BLUE SUEDE SHOES are carved on my heart.
I was reading by the time I went to primary school. I know because I got a row for it.
Reading before educationally permissible was pronounced SERIOUSLY
DETRIMENTAL TO HER IN CLASS. This was true because I had to do it again
their way, with JANET and JOHN and THE DOG with the RED BALL. Books were
read round in class i.e. too slow, and you got the belt if you got carried away and
keeked at the next page before you were allowed by the teacher. WHO DO YOU
THINK YOU ARE? she’d roar, SOMEBODY SPECIAL? Dulling enthusiasm, or at
least not showing, became an intrinsic part of my education. This did not trouble me.
I was a biddable child. Most are.
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At home, I read OOR WULLIE and THE BROONS, the BEANO and BUNTY.
BUNTY was best because it had girls in it. There was Wee Slavey (the maid with the
heart of gold) and the Four Marys (who went to boarding school) amongst others.
They had spunk. Only the former seemed a role model, however. I also read Enid
Blyton Fairy Tales and Folk Tales of Many Lands, a whole set in the local library.
When the Folk Tales were finished, I began fingering the Mythology Religion books
on the adult shelves whereupon the librarian (Defender of books from the inquiry of
Grubby People and Children) smacked my hands and told me I wasn’t allowed those
ones: I would neither like nor understand them and was only Showing Off. This was
another lesson in the wisdom of hiding natural enthusiasm because it sometimes
annoyed people in authority. I ran errands to the same library for my nineteen-yearold sister who read six books a week and hit me (literally) if I brought back books by
women authors. WOMEN CANNY WRITE, she’d say: CAN YOU NOT BLOODY
LEARN? She was afraid, I think, of Romance. Other hitting offences included asking
to watch A Midsummer Night’s Dream, keeping a diary and, mysteriously, ‘reading
too much’. Words, it seemed, carried pain, traps, bombs and codes. They were also,
alas, addictive. Nursing bruises, welts and the odd black eye, I blamed myself.
Earlier than I learned to do the same thing with sex, I learned to look as though I
wasn’t doing it at all and became devious as hell.
Thrillers, adventures and war stories caused no ructions. They were the things my
sister liked. My mother read too, mostly biographies of film stars, to learn how they’d
escaped, I suppose. She also read the odd novel from a stack on top of the cupboard
shelf which I could not reach, books that had pictures of women with their frock
falling off on the covers and the name ANGELIQUE featured on the spines. I knew
enough to understand, however, that she was not the author. My father had apparently
been a reader but he’d been dead for ages and not around much before that either. His
books – from a club – were stacked at the bottom of a cupboard. The only one that
had jokes was a big black tome with gold letters on the side: THE COMPLETE
PLAYS of BERNARD SHAW. Without understanding much, I read it anyway. At
ten or eleven, I accidentally wrote a novel in blue biro and pencil. My mother found it
but didn’t tell my sister. She lit the fire with it.
Secondary school proved my sister uncannily perceptive. Women couldny write.
There were none, not one, not even safely dead ones like Jane Austen, as class texts.
On the plus side, they encouraged reading, largely on the grounds you could pass
exams with it. You could only pass exams, though, with books from the school store,
which meant the aforementioned no women and not much that was Scottish save
Burns who had the added benefit of being useful for school suppers which girls might
attend if they served the food. This troubled me a bit, but not oppressively. I was
good at exams. I passed everything, though what to do then seemed a mystery to all,
especially Head of Girls who told me I’d never get far with an accent like mine, and
why I wanted to go to University was anybody’s guess. Actually it was the Head of
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Music’s idea. With treacherous speed, I fell away from books and fell in love with
MUSIC because nobody had told me (not yet anyway) that women canny compose.
The Head of Music became my Bodyguard and my sister and the Head of Girls
couldn’t say boo because he was a teacher. He taught me Mozart was pronounced
MOTZART and not as spelled on the biscuit tin at home. He taught me lots of things.
Through third to sixth year, I hoovered up Purcell and Byrd, Britten, Warlock and
Gesualdo (my sister’s example meant I wanted nothing to do with something called
Romantic music, even if it was by men) and sang folk songs. These were not pop
songs. They had better words and led me by a sneaky route to Opera. Opera! It was
unbelievable! In my final year, the Head of Music gave me a copy of The Prime of
Miss Jean Brodie, my first book by a living Scottish author. Read, he said. Learn.
And he talked my mother, mortified in her school dinner lady overall, into letting me
fill in the Uni forms. The day I left, I turned up at school in trousers and got sent
home. This did not trouble me. I was taking the music and getting out. I visited
Hillhead, peering out the filthy windows of a 59 bus without apology or concealment.
At last, I would revel in Great Works of Music and Profound Literary Texts without
shame or concealment. I couldn’t wait.
In three years of MA I read less than two Scottish authors and two women, all dead.
My music list seemed not to know women or Scotland existed at all. There were no
folk songs. In my third year, I cried a lot and everyone was very nice. They let me
have a year out. I was, I realised with intense embarrassment, suffering from a broken
heart. I went back and finished the fastest degree they had only because someone
called the Student Advisor said, GIRLS OFTEN GIVE UP, IT’S NOTHING TO BE
ASHAMED OF. Books were bastards. I could no longer listen to music. There was
only one thing for it. Teaching.
On teaching practice, I turned up at school in trousers and was sent home. This
troubled me a bit but it wasn’t new. I could handle it. Eager as a squirrel, I taught
happily for ten years. I got into trouble for not taking my register seriously enough
and teaching stuff outside the syllabus to the ‘wrong’ age group sometimes, but the
children were very forebearing. I was a good teacher, the Head informed me one day,
but not promotion material. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe I needed my wings clipped.
I thought he had a point. I wanted to stick with this job. I enjoyed the children, their
enthusiasm and inventive cheek. I did not like the book shortages but teaching was
fine. I still cried off and on and took to writing the odd poem, but wary I was heading
down the primrose path of SHOWING OFF all over again, concealed them as much as
I could. Occasionally I caught myself gazing down the stairwell, at the bland, blank
walls. One day, a propos of nothing, I caught myself glaring at a child. WHO DO
YOU THINK YOU ARE? a voice roared, terrifying from the back of the classroom.
SOMEBODY SPECIAL? And the voice was mine. This troubled me a lot.
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Bizarrely, it led me to reading. I re-read the curious woman who had written the
equally curious BRODIE, then everything else I could run to ground. I read Carver
and Kafka. I read Duras and Carter. I read Machado de Assis and Mansfield and
Carswell and Borges and Woolf and chewed up national anthologies of stories – any
country’s – whole. I fell over Gray’s big book about Glasgow that is also a big book
about everywhere, and something clicked, not just from Alasdair’s work but from
everybody’s. It was the click of the heretofore unnoticed nose I’d just found on my
own face. It was astounding, a revelation. For the first time since I learned how to
pronounce MOZART, I realised Something Big. I had the right to know things. Me.
I had the right to listen, to think; even godhelpus to join in. A tentative glimmer of
freedom started squirming around beneath the sea of routine shame and I remembered
being another way. I remembered being wee. I remembered the Saltcoats Library and
the living room fireplace. I remembered Elvis. And I knew three things. I knew:
(a)
(b)
(c)
that all Art is an act of resistance;
that the fear of SHOWING OFF would kill me if I let it; and
the words WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? stunk like a month-old kipper.
My mother was dead.
I had not seen my sister for years.
Reader, I started writing.
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‘Showing Off’ – Student activities
Activity 1
Consider the following possibilities and decide which one you think is Janice
Galloway’s main purpose for writing this article. Referring closely to the text, you
should try to offer at least three reasons for your choice.
Janice Galloway wrote this article in order to:
•
•
•
•
•
encourage women to become writers;
encourage women and men to become writers;
to explain how she became a writer;
to explain why she became a writer;
to highlight the extent to which talented women in the arts – music, literature, art,
drama – were, in her day, ignored or dismissed by the educational establishment;
• to demonstrate the value of reading in terms of personal development.
Activity 2
In the late 1950s Elvis Presley sang:
You can knock me down, step on my face
Slander my name all over the place
Do anything that you wanna do
But uh uh honey lay off of them shoes
And don’t you step on my blue suede shoes,
You can do anything but lay off of them blue suede shoes.
(a)
Janice Galloway claims that this song contributed to her ‘basic grounding in
ATTITUDE’: The words to BLUE SUEDE SHOES are carved on my heart.
What do you think she means by this?
• Was it the attitude conveyed by the lyrics that she found attractive?
• Was it something about Elvis – who was seen by many of ‘the
establishment’ as a dangerous, immoral, rebellious influence on 50s and 60s
youth – that she found attractive?
• Was it a combination of both?
• Other?
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(b)
What do we learn from the opening paragraph about Janice Galloway’s
background and character?
Activity 3
Consider the title of the article, ‘Showing Off’.
(a)
Which of the following attitudes is usually implied when we accuse someone of
‘showing off’?
•
•
•
•
•
•
Admiration
Dislike
Impatience
Envy
Intolerance
Other?
(b)
Given your understanding of Janice Galloway’s main purpose for writing this
article, what do you think – in this context – is her attitude to showing off?
(c)
Early in the article, Janice Galloway uses two anecdotes to illustrate instances
of her ‘showing off’: the one about her getting into trouble for being able to
read before she started school, and the one about the library.
• Looking at these closely, show how she injects humour into them and
identify the more serious underlying point that she is trying to make. When
doing this you should consider techniques such as language, characterisation,
dialogue, sentence structure . . .
• Choose one feature which you particularly like: be prepared to talk about
this feature and explain why you feel it is effective.
Activity 4
(a)
It might be argued that the title of the article, ‘Showing Off’, is ironic.
In the light of your discussion on Activity 3, do you agree or disagree with this
statement? Give reasons for your viewpoint.
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(b)
Janice Galloway goes on to sprinkle her article with ironic statements and
comments.
Identify as many examples of irony as you can and be prepared to explain the
effect created by their use.
Activity 5
Throughout the article, there are clear indications that the author has always been a bit
of a rebel.
Identify at least two of these and consider if these instances were just ‘showing off’ or
if they tell us something more about Janice Galloway.
Activity 6
Among other things, Janice Galloway uses her article as a platform to reflect on issues
of gender and of social class.
(a)
• What points does she make about society’s views on women writers?
• What evidence does she offer to substantiate these views?
(b)
• What points does she make about society’s views on women of her social
class?
• What evidence does she offer to substantiate these views?
(c)
Janice Galloway appears to have lived in a household with two other women,
her mother and her sister but she is clearly very different from them.
• In what ways do her views on women and social class differ from those of
her mother and sister? What details does she choose to illustrate these
differences?
• In what ways were the three of them alike?
Activity 7
From secondary school onwards, there appear to have been four significant turning
points in Janice Galloway’s life:
• her falling ‘in love with music’;
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• her disillusionment with university, ‘I was . . .suffering from a broken heart’;
• her realisation that she might be turning into the kind of teacher she disliked, ‘This
troubled me a lot . . . Bizarrely it led . . .’;
• her realisation that she had a right to know things, ‘even godhelpus to join in.’
(a)
How did each of these turning points shape her future?
(b)
Which of these turning points do you think was most significant for her? Be
prepared to explain your answer.
Activity 8
In her conclusion, the author talks about having ‘the right to know’. She goes on to
say ‘I knew three things. I knew: . . .’
(a)
Consider how each of the three things she ‘knew’ helped resolve the issues
which she had struggled with up until this point.
(b)
Which of the following, do you think, best describes the tone of the final
sentence?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Resolved
Cheerful
Elated
Relieved
Triumphant
Sad
Other?
Finally
Janice Galloway uses some very distinctive stylistic features, for example:
•
•
•
•
block capitals in place of quotation marks;
short sentences;
brackets
dialect
Choose at least one of these – or any other stylistic feature which you find interesting.
Say why you find it interesting and comment on the effect you think she is trying to
create by its use.
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Text 4:
From Factory to Firing Line: The Story of One Bullet
David Pratt
In this article David Pratt, Foreign Editor of the Sunday Herald, asks how AK-47
bullets get into the hands of mercenaries and child soldiers. He concludes that their
journey tells us much about the modern world.
THIS is the story of a journey; one that begins in a drab industrial complex, shifts to
the splendour of luxury hotels and villas, then ricochets across oceans and continents
before its final stage is played out in some beleaguered country. Though long and
tortuous, it’s a trip that invariably finishes swiftly – at roughly 700 metres per second
– and its ultimate destination is death.
This is the story of a 7.62´39mm copper-plated, steel-jacketed, high velocity cartridge
for the famous AK-47 assault rifle, the most commonly used bullet around the world.
The new film Lord of War – which stars Nicolas Cage as amoral but charismatic arms
dealer Yuri Orlov – opens with a rapid-fire montage which tells the story of a bullet,
from its birth in a manufacturing plant, to its fatal impact on a child soldier. But
what’s the real story behind the Hollywood device?
As a war reporter, I have often come across AK-47 cartridges. I’ve seen them stacked
in foil-sealed wooden crates in the caves and jungle hideouts of rebel armies. I’ve
watched fighters shoving them into their familiar 30-round curved box magazines,
which in turn are slipped into khaki green canvas pouches strapped to the bodies of the
gunmen for whom they are simply the stock in a deadly trade. Time and again I’ve
been around when they were fired, the discarded empty casings tinkling to the ground
then rolling underfoot in the dirt and sand of battlefields, murder scenes and
massacres, from Bosnia to Iraq, Congo to Angola.
I’ve even fired them myself. The first time was in the 1980s, while travelling
clandestinely as a reporter in the mountains of Afghanistan with mujahidin guerrillas
fighting the Russian invaders of their country.
‘Shoot, shoot, mister Daoud!’ insisted the commander of my rebel hosts for the
umpteenth time, as we rested in a remote craggy valley. With his holy warriors
looking on, the commander slotted a full clip of the boat-tailed bullets into a Soviet-
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made AK-47 and thrust the weapon towards me. The time had long since passed for
acceptable excuses about journalistic ethics and my non-combatant status.
Judging by the looks of the fighters around me, this had simply boiled down to an
issue of initiation and acceptance; a very Afghan thing about loyalty and brotherhood.
To refuse now would have made my presence at best uncomfortable, and at worst,
untenable.
A battered plastic bottle was set up as a target. As I squeezed the trigger and the first
rounds cracked against some rocks reasonably close to the bottle, the gawping bearded
guerrillas who had clustered around began to grin. It wasn’t a question of them ever
expecting me to fire in earnest, just about passing some strange macho muster.
After only minutes of instruction, the ease with which I was able to handle the rifle
was proof of the AK-47’s reputation as a so-called ‘user-friendly’ weapon. It’s the
firearm of choice among mercenary suppliers who know that those who end up
shouldering this oddly toy-like weapon – which fires 600 rounds a minute, each
powerful enough to punch a hole through a man’s chest from 100 yards – will have
had little or no proper military training. Put another way, it’s ideal for everyone from
Rwandan peasant farmers to Liberian schoolkids-turned-killers.
That afternoon, following my noisy initiation in the Hindu Kush mountains, I picked
up a few of the dark copper-coloured shells that lay in the dust to keep as souvenirs.
En route through Pakistan on my way home from Afghanistan, I suddenly decided to
throw them away, ostensibly for fear of being pulled aside at airport security checks,
but also because of some lurking guilt about coveting a trophy of violence. Pausing to
drop them into a bin outside Islamabad airport, I couldn’t help wondering where these
bullets had first come from. How did these rounds make their way from a high-tech
manufacturing plant to the war-torn wilds of Afghanistan?
It was, of course, in Russia – Afghanistan’s mighty former communist neighbour –
that the AK-47 (Avtomat Kalashnikova model 1947) rifle, and those eight-gram
bullets, were invented. The brainchild of a second world war tank sergeant, Mikhail
Timofeyevich Kalashnikov, the AK-47 was the weapon favoured during the cold war
years by non-Western powers. Robust, simple, cost-effective, it was the mainstay of
‘military assistance programmes,’ in which Russia supplied its communist allies
around the world – officially and unofficially – thus ensuring the AK-47’s global
proliferation.
With 100 million AK-47s across the planet, the rifle’s familiar silhouette is part of
modern iconography, making its way onto the flag of the Islamist Hezbollah
movement and the Mozambique national coat of arms. In other African countries,
Kalash – a shortened form of Kalashnikov – has even become a boys’ name.
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Whatever we may think about the morality of arms manufacturing, vast numbers of
AK-47 bullets start life legally in Russia. In the grimy, polluted city of Tula, 170km
south of Moscow, bullet-making is a way of life. This city – home to 550,000 people
and hosting a military garrison of airborne troops, a 16th-century kremlin as well as
various onion-domed churches and cathedrals – manufactures only one other product:
the samovar, Russia’s answer to the teapot.
Since at least 1940, the Tula Cartridge Plant has been producing rounds that fit the
AK-47. Today it is the biggest domestic and export supplier of the bullets, which are
marketed abroad under the ‘Wolf’ trademark. At the factory, which resembles a scene
from a socialist realist painting, 7.62mm rounds trundle off the conveyor belt by the
million in a choice of either brass or bimetal jacket with a steel case. These are packed
by some of the 7000-strong workforce into handy boxes of 20, or crated in larger
numbers for bulk orders.
Many of the new rounds are likely to be sold through the Russian arms export agency
Rosoboronexport, which also deals in older bullets sourced from cold war stockpiles.
Ever since those tense years four decades ago, Russia and other central and eastern
European countries have been sitting on billions of rounds manufactured for use in a
full-scale war with the West that never came.
‘Much of this ammunition is 20 or 30 years old, all from the 1970s and 1980s, so it’s
near impossible to check on where they come from, and that’s just the start of the
problem,’ insists Alex Vines, a human rights and Africa analyst who has intensively
researched the arms trade. According to Vines, former Soviet republics desperate for
hard currency were only too happy to sell off their large surplus armouries in the wake
of the communist meltdown.
******
It’s at this point that our bullet, especially if it originates from an older stockpile, can
slip into a far more sinister channel, to become part of the vast ordnance on offer to a
new breed of east European racketeers.
And what a breed they are. Gun-runners extraordinaire, like the Ukrainian Leonid
Minin, or the Russian Victor Bout. Many people say that Yuri Orlov, the character
played by Nicolas Cage in Lord of War, is based on Victor Bout.
Indeed, the movie’s director, Andrew Niccol, is rumoured to have rented the Russianbuilt Antonov cargo plane used in a fictional African arms delivery scene from Victor
Bout himself. In another case of fiction mirroring fact, the thousands of AK-47s used
by extras in the film were bought by Niccol on the international arms market. Given
that the average going rate for an AK-47 in Africa is $30, it would hardly be
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surprising. Niccol has said: ‘I actually did become an arms dealer in the making of the
film, or in the logistics of making it. I had to get hold of a tank for a scene and 3000
Kalashnikovs. I bought real Kalashnikovs because it was cheaper than getting fake
ones.’ One can only assume that Niccol was making a political point by showing just
how easy such a transaction is.
Men like Leonid Minin and Victor Bout are typical of the new breed of racketeer. So
it’s possible that, on its journey, our bullet was one of five million catalogued in
documents uncovered during a police raid on room 341 of Minin’s co-owned luxury
Europa Hotel in Cinisello Balsamo, outside Milan, on August 4, 2000. Or perhaps it
was among the 113 tons of 7.62 rounds the Ukrainian delivered by air into the west
African country of Ivory Coast just a few weeks earlier – a dispatch that was revealed
in a fax discovered during the same police operation.
Ironically, the Italian police weren’t there to arrest Minin on any arms offences. When
they crashed through his hotel room door at 3am that August morning, it was because
of a tip-off from an unpaid prostitute. During the raid – in a scene one reporter
described as ‘straight from a Tarantino film’ – the leader of the so-called Odessa
Mafia was found freebasing cocaine, naked, while flanked by a quartet of call girls.
‘The Italian police arrested him for a minor offence and only later found out who he
really is. Then they started to take an interest in the case,’ complains Johan Peleman, a
chain-smoking Belgian and one of the world’s most prominent arms-trade
investigators, who has served on several UN expert panels.
To call Peleman’s task difficult would be the ultimate understatement. The world in
which ‘bullet detectives’ like him operate is characterised by a complex array of
international and local arms brokering syndicates, clandestine air transport, money
laundering, embargo busting and ruthless regimes. It’s a shopping-in-the-shadows
world, where inventories of illegal arms – which could easily include our bullet –
circulate between traders and suppliers. Then, when a customer is found (usually
someone prevented from buying in the mainstream government markets), our rifle
round is shipped by civilian cargo companies to a transit point, from where it is
transported to its final destination in a war zone.
Fake end-user certificates (EUCs) are the first line of camouflage for the illegal arms
dealers. In theory, these documents are provided by a purchasing government to
guarantee that that country is the ultimate user of the arms being bought. But it is
rarely this simple. ‘I have come across countless fake EUCs,’ confirms arms analyst
Alex Vines.
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One such example was the Pecos company of Guinea in West Africa, a front
organisation that supplied a seemingly endless stream of counterfeit EUCs to the arms
smuggling network of Victor Bout (pronounced ‘butt’ in Russian). A former KGB
major, Bout has been referred to as the ‘poster boy for a new generation of post-cold
war arms dealers’, who play an insidious role in areas where the weapons trade has
been embargoed by the United Nations. Though worldwide in scope, Bout’s main
trafficking beat is the volatile Central African Great Lakes region, from Burundi,
Rwanda and Uganda across the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to Angola.
A specialist air transport fixer since the early 1990s, Bout has been the overseer of a
complex network of more than 50 aircraft, distributed among several airline
companies and freight-forwarding outfits.
Although the arms merchant – formerly based in the United Arab Emirates and now
rumoured to be in Russia – has been pursued for years by bullet detectives like Johan
Peleman, a positive visual ID only became available when two Belgian journalists
bumped into him at an airstrip in remote rebel-held Congo in 2001. Bout was then
working with Jean-Pierre Bemba, the leader of the Mouvement Pour la Libération du
Congo.
During that time, one of the journalists, Dirk Draulans, saw two of Victor Bout’s
planes, carrying the registration numbers 9T-ALC and MLC – both unknown to
international aviation authorities. Later, a Belgian researcher verified that the aircraft
had been flying between Uganda and DRC at least until November 2001.
UN officials have accused Victor Bout of using many ‘flags of convenience’ and
subcontracting arrangements for his aircraft to facilitate illegal arms and diamond
smuggling activities, despite Bout’s assertions that his aircraft were simply used to
deliver supplies to mining sites and take valuable commodities like coltan and
cassiterite out of places like DRC and Angola.
‘Landing heavy cargo planes with illicit cargoes in war conditions and breaking
international embargoes such as the one on Angola requires more than individual
effort,’ stated a UN report on Angola in December 2000. ‘It takes an internationally
organised network of individuals, well-funded, well-connected and well versed in
brokering and logistics, with the ability to move illicit cargo around the world without
raising the suspicions of the law. One headed, or at least to all appearances outwardly
controlled, by Victor Bout is such an organisation.’
As ever, the UN’s use of earnest rhetoric in pointing out the obvious is masterful.
Across Africa, bullets, guns and other weapons are delivered with alarming regularity
in illegal operations that are chastised in a similarly feeble manner by global bodies,
yet remain immune from direct international legal action.
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In response, campaigners against the arms trade are placing great emphasis on the
need for all states to mark shells and cartridges with codes or marks denoting batch/lot
number, manufacturer and country of manufacture, year of production and a code
identifying the original recipient of the ammunition lot – such as a police or military
force. All of which would help in identifying the convoluted supply chain either back
to its original source or to its real end-user.
During many years of working across the African continent, I have stood on countless
dirt airstrips watching Soviet-era cargo planes being loaded up with anything from
gold and diamonds, to rocket-propelled grenade launchers and mortars, much of which
has little or no accompanying ‘paperwork’.
‘African conflicts are wasteful of ammunition and are always in need of more. The
guys who carry this stuff in are just flying truck drivers,’ says Alex Vines. He has a
point.
In August 2003, at the height of Liberia’s rainy season, I flew into the capital,
Monrovia, on the second humanitarian aid flight to have reached the country since the
upsurge of the civil war a few weeks before. The aircraft was flown by a group of
volunteer pilots who told me that days earlier, coming in to land on the first aid flight,
they had almost collided with an unscheduled incoming cargo plane. ‘Later we found
out it was flying in ammunition and guns for President Charles Taylor, which some
people said was coming from Libya,’ the 58-year-old Swedish pilot told me. ‘It’s
always the same across Africa, you never know who is flying what.’ One member of
the pilot’s own crew even admitted to having ‘ferried a few bullets’ in his time.
For arms dealers, it’s well worth the risk. According to Johan Peleman, while it’s
difficult to put an accurate figure on the profits men like Victor Bout make, back in
2002 the Russian was sitting on a fortune. ‘The Rwandan government alone owed
Bout $21 million. That gives you some idea of the sums involved in his business. But
that doesn’t include barter operations – arms for coffee or arms for diamonds,’ says
Peleman.
******
There is, of course, an altogether different price to be paid for every bullet that lands
in those war-torn African lands . Take the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has
been the focus of Victor Bout’s activities in recent years. Sustained by the easy
availability of bullets and guns, war crimes and other human rights violations have
been widespread and almost non-stop. Extra-judicial executions, unlawful killings of
civilians, torture, rape and other sexual violence, the use of child soldiers, abductions,
looting of villages and forced displacement are among the atrocities to which bullet
suppliers are callously indifferent.
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TEXT 4
How many rounds delivered by these international dealers in death might have been
used during May and June last year [2004] when dissident elements of the RCD-Goma
opposed to the transitional government, took control of the city of Bukavu in South
Kivu province in Democratic Republic of Congo? During the terrible days that
followed, these dissident militias subjected the civilian population to systematic
human rights abuse until government troops retook the city. Many of the guns and
bullets they used were undoubtedly supplied illegally.
More than 60 people were killed and more than 100 women and girls were reportedly
raped, including 17 who were aged 13 or younger. Some were raped as their parents
watched helplessly. One victim was only three years old. Extensive looting was also
commonplace. The abusive acts became known popularly among the militiamen as
‘opération TDF’ – operation [mobile] telephones, dollars, daughters – because this is
what the soldiers demanded at gunpoint after forcing their way into civilian homes.
Many of the killings took place during looting, often after the victims had given all
they had or simply because, as one informant told Amnesty International, ‘they didn’t
like the look on your face’. On more than one occasion soldiers reportedly levelled
their AK-47s at children’s heads to extort money from householders, demanding
dollars for the life of each child.
The victims included Lambert Mobole Bitorwa, who was shot at home in front of his
children; Jolie Namwezi, reportedly shot in front of her children after she resisted
rape; Murhula Kagezi, a student killed at his home while his father was in the next
room fetching a mobile phone to give to the soldiers; and 13-year-old Marie Chimbale
Tambwe, shot dead on the balcony of her home apparently because a militiaman
believed she had pulled a face at him while he was looting in the street below.
******
This is the bloody endgame in the story of our 7.62´39mm copper-plated, steeljacketed bullet. On arrival at its final destination, entering the tissue of its victim, it
usually travels forwards for about 26cm before beginning to yaw. Ballistics experts
and doctors speak then of ‘damage patterns’ – a sanitised term for the way the bullet
rips through abdomens, legs, arms or brains, sometimes deflecting off bones before
exiting, leaving a gaping, bloody hole.
If all this is to stop, then tighter global controls are imperative. The question is
whether the political will needed to implement such legislation exists against the
murky backdrop of a lucrative business that deals in genuine weapons of mass
destruction. Just as the profiteering has become a way of life for the dealers, so it is,
too, for those who dispatch the bullets by pulling the trigger.
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 1, H, ENGLISH)
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TEXT 4
Some years ago in Liberia, I met a 14-year-old soldier who called himself J-Boy. He
was sitting on a bridge overlooking the Po River, smoking a joint and loading some of
those familiar copper-coloured cartridges into his rifle. Had J-Boy himself ever killed
anyone, I asked.
‘Oh sure man, plenty, plenty,’ he assured me with a smile. ‘With this good AK and
these real fine bullets, it’s way easy.’
(Control Arms (a joint campaign between Amnesty, Oxfam and the International
Action Network on Small Arms) campaigns for tough controls on the arms trade. See
www.controlarms.org)
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TEXT 4
‘From Factory to Firing Line: The Story of One Bullet’ – Student
activities
Activity 1
Which of the following reasons, do you think, sum up the author’s purpose in writing
this article? You may choose more than one.
•
•
•
•
•
•
To make us aware of the vast amounts of money made by arms traders.
To help promote Nicolas Cage’s new film, Lord of War.
To express his disapproval of Nicolas Cage’s new film Lord of War.
To highlight the lack of international controls on arms dealing.
To make readers aware of the atrocities being committed around the world.
To explain the history of the AK-47 assault rifle.
Activity 2
Which of the following do you think Pratt is trying to suggest in the opening two
paragraphs?
•
•
•
•
•
This is going to be an exciting article which will engage the reader.
The article is going to be about a glamorous topic.
Bullets are not glamorous, just deadly.
Films and television glamorise death and violence – but he’s not going to.
People of today are no longer shocked by the spectacle of violent death.
Activity 3
This article is divided into four sections, (separated by ***).
• Briefly, what do we learn about the bullet’s ‘journey’ in each section?
• How does the idea of a journey contribute to the overall structure of the article?
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TEXT 4
Activity 4
In the first section of the article, Pratt demonstrates the ubiquity of the AK-47 rifle.
• How does he do this?
• How many examples can you find in this section of Pratt juxtaposing the bullet
with the ordinariness of every-day life? What effect is being created here?
• Overall, what is suggested here about attitudes towards the rifle and the bullet?
Activity 5
(a)
The second, and longest, section of the text deals mainly with international arms
dealers and with Victor Bout in particular. How is Bout characterised in this
section? Is he portrayed as:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
heroic
sinister
anonymous
criminal
glamorous
shady
other?
You may choose more than one description but you must be prepared to justify
your opinion by close reference to the article.
(b)
What function do Bout and Leonid Minin fulfil for the author?
Activity 6
In the second section, Pratt also talks about the making of the film Lord of War.
(a)
In what ways might it be said that the film seems to step over the boundaries of
fiction and into the real world?
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TEXT 4
(b)
Pratt finishes the third paragraph of this section with the sentence, One can only
assume that Niccol was making a political point by showing just how easy such
a transaction is.
How are we meant to interpret the tone of this sentence? Is it:
•
•
•
•
•
•
ironic
serious
questioning
humorous
sarcastic
other?
Activity 6
As ever, the UN’s use of earnest rhetoric in pointing out the obvious is masterful. (Six
paragraphs from the end of the second section)
Pratt is clearly being ironic here and criticising the United Nations.
• What is the specific basis for his criticism?
• What wider issues are reflected here?
Activity 7
The first two sections of the article seem to be quite factual, dealing with the cold
reality of the bullet.
• How, in the third section, does Pratt change the focus of his article?
• What emotions does this section provoke in you?
• What techniques does Pratt employ to provoke these emotions? (In answering this
question, you should refer to aspects such as use of language, sentence structure,
setting, detail, statistics . . .)
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TEXT 4
Activity 8
In the final section, the bullet reaches its destination – human flesh –and Pratt paints a
vivid description of the damage it inflicts.
• What, does he say, do governments need to do to stop the distribution of arms on
such a wide scale and what problems do they face in trying to implement controls?
• How effective do you find the story of ’J-Boy’ as a conclusion to the article as a
whole?
Finally
As a serious journalist, Pratt goes to considerable lengths to anchor his article in
reality. He sets out to avoid any accusation of ‘making things up’ and makes it clear
that, as well as writing from personal experience, he has engaged in substantial
research on his topic.
Work through the article dissecting it and noting how Pratt convinces the reader that
he knows his subject and is dealing in indisputable fact. You should work under the
following headings:
•
•
•
•
•
Personal experience
Use of detail
Use of statistics
Interviews he has conducted
Quotations from other sources
The best way of doing this might be to use different coloured highlighters for each
heading. You would end up with a very colourful article, clearly identifying all the
different sources of evidence David Pratt uses to ground his article in fact.
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