Showcase: Kenwood Pond + Two Moods + Who Am I?

Edited by Charlotte Maddox

Hello, and welcome back to November’s (R)evolution Showcase!

I’m Charlotte, Prize Manager at the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, awarded by the Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation. We celebrate stories that take us on a journey and broaden our horizons, tales of courage and discovery, but often the most powerful adventures are quieter ones, tracing change over time and reminding us how both people and places evolve.

One of the threads I’ve noticed running through the pieces I’ve had the pleasure of reading this month is a sense of looking back and taking stock of how much has changed and how those changes shape the people we become. There’s such joy in wrapping yourself up in the cosiness of nostalgia, letting it transport you to another time, and perhaps even another version of yourself. A time before the internet, before smartphones and, in this first piece, even before sensible dentistry (for which, I might add, I’m feeling especially grateful after having to endure a filling just last week!).

Kenwood Pond by Josephine Renton, captures this reflective spirit beautifully. With tender detail, it takes us back to post-war London with summers spent swimming and the first small freedoms of youth.

Kenwood Pond

My most enduring memories of long-ago Kenwood Ladies Pool are mostly set in late summer when the sun, already low in the sky, created ever-changing patterns of crimson brightness on the still water. This small lake, nestled deep in the woodland area of Kenwood on Hampstead Heath,, was my secret place where I would often go once school was finished for the day. I can see myself now – a gangly 13-year-old wearing a black Janzen bathing costume, and the sort of rubber bathing cap that caught your hair when you struggled to put it on, secured by a strap underneath your chin.

Maths homework I couldn’t do because I’d been daydreaming instead of listening to explanations, English essays to be completed and maps to be neatly drawn and labelled were all forgotten, still buried deep in my leather satchel, once I dived into that silky water. The pool was deep and not designed for weak swimmers, so there was always a woman life-guard on duty. It was she who encouraged me to try for my mile: 16 times to the furthest life ring and back. The surface of the pool was dotted with several such striped cork rings strategically placed where exhausted swimmers could rest.

I didn’t need to rest as I confidently swam past the reeds on the bank and a late brood of fluffy ducklings. I had discovered breast stroke, which didn’t tire me like crawl and I felt that I could swim forever. I could swim back stroke well too, but the trouble with that particular stroke, was that you couldn’t see where you were going and kept bumping into things, or even other people, and the clouds overhead were not a particularly good navigational aid, I had decided. No – breast stroke, now that I’d at last got my arms and legs co-ordinated, was the best. It was like a watery country walk, going at a pace where I could pass the time of day with the mallard mother and listen to the gentle breeze bidding the trees goodnight.

I’d lost count of how far I had swum but suddenly I noticed the lifeguard was waving to me. I was on the home stretch. I had swum my mile – a feat  I have never aspired to since.

On my way back over the Heath, I noticed that dusk was beginning to fall in earnest. Autumn had really arrived and the long summer days were over for another year.

On reaching Gospel Oak and the busy road leading up to Highgate hill, I would have to wait for a trolley bus, with its long overhead parallel antennae attached to the electric wires overhead, that would take me down past Kentish Town and then Camden Town, till I reached home. The bus conductors never believed I was still under 14 and tried to catch me out by asking what year I was born. “Nineteen forty-five” I would reply without a second’s pause, so I was grudgingly allowed to still ride for half fare.

Home for me for a year or so of my youth was one room on the third floor of a tall rooming house, shared with my mother. I came to quite like living there, once I’d recovered from my initial dismay. The house was shared not only by many other, often rather interesting people but by nine cats and four dogs as well as a colourful theatrical couple who ran the whole establishment. Fish and chips and tinned fruit were very frequently on the menu, as there was only one small, inadequate cooking ring attached to the gas fire. A small pan could be boiled to make a hot drink, and crumpets and thick slices of bread could be toasted by holding them on a fork in front of the fire, but that was the extent of our culinary ambitions in those days.

My most vivid autumn memories were formed a few years earlier, when I was about nine or ten. I feared visiting that particular dentist with a passion. His practice was on the edge of Regent’s Park, but I had no eyes for anything on the way there. I was too occupied anticipating the inevitable pain ahead. The waiting room did nothing to lift my spirits, either. I can see it now: tall sash widows with heavy brocade curtains and a small shiny table in the middle of the room. On this table were copies of Punch magazine for adults – to the uninitiated a satirical political magazine that looked at first glance to be quite child friendly, with all its strange cartoon figures I couldn’t quite understand, despite my initial curiosity. Then there was a nod to the unfortunate children whohappened to stray into that awful place, in the form of Schrubbelpeter – cautionary rhymes for naughty children. There was poor little Suppenkaspar who for some reason, known only known to himself, suddenly went on hunger strike, and refused to eat his soup. He is no more, having faded away through lack of nourishment.

I had never sucked my thumb, but was still filled with horror about the boy who indulged too much in such an activity and got his thumbs cut off with a huge pair of scissors wielded by some malevolent being in the sky. The illustrations were graphic. There were fountains of blood gushing from where his thumbs should have been.

While I was still dwelling on the horrors of that picture I heard my name being called. My mother put the book back on the table and I stood up with shaking legs, as if I were being called to my execution. Let the torture begin. There were no numbing injections in those days and I was beginning to know the line of neatly lined up drill heads very well. The thin needle-like one was a killer, guaranteed to hit the nerve spot on, but the grey onion-shaped one was almost as bad, built as it was for the longer sessions of drawn out pain rather than the short sharp bursts of agony. I didn’t mind the rest so much although the teaspoon or so of silver and lead amalgam that the offending tooth was stuffed with felt like a mountain in my mouth for days afterwards.

Then the happy, September autumn leaves part of this story begins. In spite of my aching jaw and very uncomfortable mouth, I was in heaven as we  walked along under trees, me kicking the red brown and golden leaves as we went. They must have been mainly horse-chestnut trees as I found quite a few conkers too. I have always loved the russet brown shininess of fresh conkers since that time. Back in those far off days, like them, I also shone, with life, health (in spite of a few decayed teeth) and all sorts of plans for the rest of that day, for the year and what I was going to be when I grew up. But even the best conkers, if kept long enough eventually become old and wrinkled. So life’s lesson is probably to make the most of every wonderful day, every opportunity that comes our way, and don’t waste time on conker fights. Just be.

(c) Josephine Renton, 2025

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While exploring the theme of (R)evolution through reflection or growth is a really interesting approach, it’s just as powerful to see it expressed through the feeling of being lost. I love how this poem captures that feeling – of being adrift in a place and a thought, or even in ourselves. As the poem moves from confusion to clarity, from shadow to the vivid green of new life, it reminds us that change isn’t always something we chase: sometimes it finds us, when we pause long enough to notice where we are.

Two Moods

You’re looking for a gate,
an arrow made from twigs
that haven’t fallen yet.
Coming back the path
is hard to find, you’re in
the wrong wood.
Bludgeoned by shadows,
don’t know how
you got here.

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Trees are kicking
their legs in the air.
The shape of this
marble in my pocket
is cool as my palm.
A high note whisks
what’s left of the rain
around the greenest
leaves I have ever seen.

(c) Carolyn Oulton, 2025

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Continuing with our theme of change and evolution, our final piece invites us to turn that lens inward. Growth isn’t always about doing more; sometimes it’s about slowing down, noticing more and caring for ourselves in the process. Who Am I? follows the shifts we all go through: moments of strength, doubt, overwhelm and renewal, capturing how we grow even when we feel lost. It’s a quiet, honest journey, and a reminder that finding ourselves is rarely straightforward, but always meaningful.

Who Am I?

Who am I?
I am a feather, white and soft;
The breeze holds me aloft.

Who am I?
I am naught but what You wrought,
With You and in You,
Around You.
No self yet as I reach for mother’s breast.

Who am I?
I am two wings, fuller and stronger
Beating and gliding,
Joyfully sliding
On currents of air that whisper to me.

Who am I?
I am she, part of mother and family.
Her of the scraped knee,
Grieving for a snail’s passing.

Who am I?
I am a creature of air and being.
My wings hold me aloft, my eyes are far-seeing.
I dance and I twirl
But labour more
To stay aloft as I did before.

Who am I?
I am the sister, the daughter; I study
I can’t do it all
The sprawl of me is pulled and pushed too frequently.
Trying my best is muddied.

Who am I?
Myself I grow larger and harder,
I still sing with the stars and the moon when I can
But my wings have not grown.
So, if the sun does not burn through the clouds I sink,
A fledgling woman growing up to soon,
But still I have wings.

Who am I?
I paint, learn and play,
I have plenty to say
I cry and I sigh –
All alone today.
I am sad, coz I’m bad.
But, I can still see the light,
I write.

Who am I?
My wings do not hold
The clouds were too wet
Myself was too great.
I am fallen,
But, rest at the side of a lake.
I see the reflection of rippling light,
It dispels any fears of the coming night.

Who am I?
I eat and I toil
I drink and I spoil
I read and I hear
But know night is near.
Despite a him in my life I live in fear.

Who am I?
I thirst, the lake is beckoning,
I drink, but beyond reckoning slip and dip
My weight pulls me down.
I go further and panic…
But then see two little hands
Reaching down, reaching in after me, I am pulled back to land.

Who am I?
I am mother and loved
A him and her.
No me, no sleep, no time
But love, sublime – all encompassing.
It’s real, I feel
I Fear.

Who am I?
I thirst some more
It’s worse than before.
And the water doesn’t look clean anymore.
However, I am bound to this ground,
And know if I drink I might sink.
I thirst, I go
I sink faster and further
Through the murk below;
Oily and black, wings plastered to my back.

Who am I?
I work 28 hours in a day
No time to watch three now at play
No time to be, no time to see.
No money.
I pray and say:
“Help, I see no way out today.”

Who am I?
I choke, I can’t see
I scream, I can’t hear.
Grasping weeds at the bottom increase my fear.
I look up though and see
Some light,
So I struggle harder, with all my might.

Who am I?
I drink, I don’t think
A tear in my eye is brushed away,
No time today.
Unknown and alone but
I pray.

Who am I?
I am in the dark
The light but a spark,
I am alone far from all I’ve known.
It is cold. I am old.
Ready to go?
NO!
So I reach for the light and
It grows.

Who am I?
I wake from a sleep so deep.
Should be dead, say thank you instead.
I throw the bottle away
Him and him and her and her, they need me today.
I pray.

Who am I?
A hand through the light
I hold on with all might.
It’s slippery, slow,
But I won’t let go.
It pulls me to land,
I’m on the sand
Can’t see my wings, but can feel
I look up to the sky,
I will try.

Who am I?
I am she in a house and a chair
Admiring the other’s silver hair,
Her eyes of compassion
Her hands of healing,
A peaceful feeling.

Who am I?
I still thirst, but with dry wings
I look not to the lake to slake this thirst.
It has done its worst.
My wings are soiled, my body is spoiled,
But I look to the sky and
My wings dry.

Who am I?
I am in His place
I can see His face
I don’t kneel but lie on the cool stone floor.
I leave myself on the cross and I walk through the door.

Who am I?
I am a feather, not white and not soft
But I love the breeze and it holds me aloft.

Who am I?
I am She.
I am Me.
I am not afraid.
I am remade.

© M. Miller, 2025

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