A night in with a dram and a book: what’s not to love on darkening autumn evening? And so Canongate and Balvenie Whisky have joined forces on an excellent collaboration, Pursuit: The Balvenie Stories Collection, bringing together some of the hottest writers around to write tales – fiction and non-fiction –  of determination, achievement and perseverance. Here we have Sara Collins’s contribution, an affecting story on how it feels to leave home behind.

 

‘State of Emergency’ by Sara Collins, taken from Pursuit: The Balvenie Stories Collection Edited by Alex Preston Published by Canongate

 

We loaded the car and drove into the hills. We packed the radio, because we needed it; and nappies, because we needed them, too. We took fifty US dollars per head, which the law allowed us, but not much else, because this is the story of the things we didn’t carry and, since it was Jamaica in 1977, we didn’t carry much. By this time the State of Emergency was already seven months old; there had been an outbreak of political violence in the lead up to the elections – the beginning of a long national nightmare – and my parents decided we had to leave.

The prime minister, Michael Manley, had promised to smash capitalism ‘brick by brick’, and I guess you could say we were getting hit by all those flying bricks. We drove all night, until below us the place we’d come from was nothing but a black shadow sinking into the sea, caught in the first glaze of sunrise, and, even though we loved that old landscape and all its green undulations, we didn’t look back. We were ironing ourselves out of it, getting the hell away.

I want to tell you how, after you’ve left a place this way, you may find yourself needing to write about it, keeping in your rearview a litany of things you don’t remember, with as much choice in ...

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Author and illustrator – and campaigner – Kate Milner is garnering great praise and prizes for her beautifully-illustrated and empathetic picture books. It’s a No-Money Day follows her award-winning My Name is Not Refugee and explores life below the poverty line with sensitivity and stunning artwork. With more than one in four children in the UK growing up in poverty and many dependent on foodbanks to survive, Kate Milner has given us an excellent starting point for parents to discuss a difficult issue with young children.

 

It’s a No-Money Day By Kate Milner Published by Barrington Stoke

 

 

To mark publication of It’s a No-Money Day...

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The Coorie Home

‘For me, coorie encompasses the Scottish inclination to welcome all.’

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Callum and the Mountain

‘The town, he decides, is a painful disappointment and everyone in it bears the blame – don’t they know they have a super-brain in their midst?’

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David Robinson Reviews: The Anarchy by William Dalrymple

‘Money talks, and in the story of the British conquest of India, it talked louder than almost anything else.’

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The Summer Isles

‘Some strange congress takes place when you look at a seal, some hint of recognition, reinforced by the sense that it appears to be mutual.’

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The Stone of Destiny

‘Although the dream left her with a residual feeling of terror, she felt strangely hopeful.’

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The Devil Upstairs

‘The boards in your place creak. The pipes clang. The doors bang. And sometimes I find it a little hard to sleep.’

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Faces that Fled the Wind

‘Hawwa loves many things, and what she loves she gives a name’

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Little Pearl

‘Tom wasn’t just my brother, he was my best friend. We did everything together. He always looked out for me.’

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