New book launches at Simpsons with kids' activities including music and planting
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At the start of National Children’s Garden Week, musician and writer Liza Mulholland, illustrator Marjory Tait and publisher Pauline Mackay of Ablekids Press will celebrate the launch of their new book The Musicians Storyflower at a free event at Simpsons Garden Centre (2pm-3.30pm) on Saturday, May 27.
There will be the chance for youngsters to play music, write, draw and plant.
It’s a way of celebrating the book, which was written by Liza Mulholland at the invitation of publisher Pauline Mackay.
Pauline explained: “I started some giant sunflowers off in lockdown and ended up growing a beautiful giant sunflower I called Peekaboo for the family centre.
"It was an amazing emotional journey, because I was growing this flower for others. I had had quite a lot to do with the centre because I had been storytelling there – and it is absolutely fantastic.
"But I was amazed at how people loved the idea when I was posting online and on social media.
"There were ups and downs – I am not a gardener! But I was getting lots of advice from people and could not believe the emotions I was going through simply because this was a flower for somebody else.
"Then I thought ‘Could I ask someone else to do the same thing?’
“I spoke to Liza Mulholland and asked her to keep a diary, then to write some music based on her experience.
"This book is what she did – and it is utterly fantastic! It is illustrated by Marjory Tait’s absolutely beautiful work.”
Liza explained how the book had become a project for her that allowed her to follow-through with her love of gardening as well as her music –she ended up writing The Sweet Pea Suite, some pieces of music for people at the back of the book, which is presented in diary form.
It begins as Liza gives an introduction: "I love flowers and thought this was a beautiful idea Although I am just a very amateur gardener, the project sounded like great fun."
Liza explains: "When Pauline had been growing growing her sunflower in lockdown and getting quite a lot of feedback and response online, it gave her the idea of getting someone to do something similar – and to say who they were growing it for.
"When Pauline approached me we were still in and out of lockdown. I think it was March or April in 2021. I kept a diary of progress and wrote some music to go with the book.
"It was lovely for me too, we were in and out of lockdown during that whole period. Me and my son Roddy were lucky enough to have a garden at the back of our house. With him doing football, I had never grown much of a garden, but we had a wee patio area at the back of the house – I’ve moved house which is why I’m talking in the past tense.
"So I made the patio and have been growing herbs and blueberry bushes and I always grew peas up the fence because they always did so well, it was a real sun trap there. So I planted sweet peas along with the pea pods.
"I decided who I would grow my chosen flower for – my late mum, she loved sweet peas.
"I thought it would be a lovely way to remember her and her love for sweet peas."
"I was keeping track of those throughout lockdown as well so it was really nice to write some easy tunes for beginners, young learners.
"I hadn’t realised that Pauline was meaning a printed book, initially. I had thought it might be an e-book!
"There are beautiful illustration and the book is aimed at children from eight to 12.
"I kept the writing as simple as I could. But I thought just a diary of whether the plants had grown a millimetre or whatever might be quite boring!
"So I wasn’t keeping a diary every day and tried to work in and include other elements, such as the history of sweet peas!
"It turns out that one of the first gardeners who would hybridise sweet peas – cross breeding them to create new varieties – trained on the Lovat Estate! Henry Eckford aged 16 did his gardening apprenticeship at Beaufort Castle! And then he went down to another big estate down in the South of England and went on to have his own nursery. He was one of the first because sweet peas had been wild flowers I think originating in Italy. o I brought in a little bit of their history.
"And it so happened that things were opening up briefly that summer and I was going to my friend’s daughter’s wedding in Barra and was going to go up to Stornoway to go into the archives to do the research for Metagama [the concert marking 100 years since the boat took island immigrants across the Atlantic to start a new life] that summer.
"So there is some family history in the book and in my mother’s village, my granny’s village where we spent time as kids in the summer.
"I was growing sweet peas in memory of my late mum because she grew them in her garden at home and I always associated sweet peas with her.
"So I was able to bring in a little bit of my family’s story and touched on immigration to look into that as I was in America on American Independence Day."
As well as reading Liza'a story sbout growing her plants, you can listen to recordings of her Sweet Pea Suite at: www.ablekidspress.com
Liza said: "We hope to do more events and Pauline and I have been chatting and doing things in some local estate walled gardens – there are plenty of places like that, and garden centres which are good places to do family-related event ins, so we hope to do some of that over the summer."
Pauline added: “On Saturday, Liza is doing the music side, Marjory will be doing art and because Liza is going to be busy with music, I’m going to do a little talk about writing. Simpsons will handle the gardening aspect!”
