We were delighted to welcome award-winning author and broadcaster Horatio Clare to Horatio’s Garden Midlands, who joined patients and volunteers for an evocative creative writing workshop.
This is the fourth workshop to have been generously funded by Rathbones, with previous workshops hosted in both Horatio’s Garden Scotland and Horatio’s Garden London & South East by esteemed authors Denise Mina and Robert Macfarlane respectively.
Horatio is the writer of several acclaimed books, including Running for the Hills (2006), Down to the Sea in Ships (2014), The Light in the Dark – A Winter Journal (2018) and the acclaimed Heavy Light published in 2021, about breakdown, healing and recovery. His essays and features are published in various leading titles, including The Financial Times, Travel + Leisure, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Spectator and Conde Nast Traveller, where he is a Contributing Editor. He is also a regular contributor to ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ on BBC Radio Four and is the presenter of numerous radio documentaries, with his Sound Walks forming a fixture of Radio 3’s Christmas schedule.
Despite many December engagements, Horatio generously found the time to spend an afternoon in Horatio’s Garden, where he was warmly invited to tour the horticultural haven with Head Gardener Alex and Arts Activities Assistant Lauren before beginning his workshop. Beneficiaries and volunteers soon joined the trio, with Horatio later referring to his visit as “something rather wonderful.”
With everyone comfortably settled in the homely garden room, Horatio introduced the focus of the afternoon’s workshop, namely light, its particular qualities, meanings and necessity.
Reading excerpts by authors including Emily Dickinson, Denise Levertov, and Rabindranath Tagore, the gathered group reflected upon each piece’s representation of light, responding to them in turn.
Horatio also read from his own book, The Light in the Dark – A Winter Journal, bringing landscapes and characters from his winter tales to life. Taking inspiration from his book, which inspires the reader to illuminate what is, for many, a time of darkness, introspection, and sadness by looking outwards, being in, and observing nature in winter, Horatio encouraged everyone to consider two prompts. One was to contemplate a moment with a memorable quality of light, the second to recall a time when each person had found light in darkness.
Both generated thoughtful discussion amongst those gathered, particularly in relation to each person’s unique experience of Horatio’s Garden and the myriad ways in which its nature, light, birds, and plants illuminate their lives. The group generously noted and voiced their uplifting memories, some old, some new, with one lady in particular enjoying a rich and moving conversation with Horatio about their shared pleasures – flowers, light, weather, seasons, memory, observation, her life, and his.
Following the workshop, Horatio said: “It was really a very extraordinary experience. I cannot tell you how much I admired the patients, the staff, the hospital, and of course, the garden. I was left with profound respect for what you all are doing.”
Horatio also generously included a mention of his time spent in Horatio’s Garden in this beautiful rumination penned for The Daily Mail, a contemplative celebration of the restorative power of a New Year venture into nature.
We are enormously grateful to Horatio for sharing his creativity with us in Horatio’s Garden Midlands and are very much looking forward to welcoming Horatio back to the garden for another workshop later this year.
