Arts and Humanities - OU Community Online

Nigel Warburton is taking his ‘little’ history of philosophy to one of the biggest bookshops for a public discussion including ‘what is reality?’ and ‘how should I live?’

Nigel a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Open University's Faculty of Arts is the guest at a free literary event at Foyles Charing Cross Road, London at 6.30 - 7.30pm on September 20.

His engaging book A Little History of Philosophy ‘explores key moments in Western philosophy from Socrates to the animal rights movement, explaining some of history’s most compelling ideas’.

Join Nigel for an entertaining and engaging survey of philosophy’s biggest questions and discover why they remain pertinent today.

This event, at The Gallery, Foyles, is free but tickets need to be reserved by emailing: events@foyles.co.uk

• Visit Foyles website:

What and when did you study with the OU?
I started my studies in 1999 with S103 Discovering Science, because I wanted to refresh and expand my knowledge of general science. At the same time, I was researching my first booklet about ghost stories and legends from my home town and I found myself becoming increasingly interested in the ways in which people experience the world. For example, why do some people believe they see ghosts while others don’t? It seemed to me that learning more about psychology would increase my understanding of the processes involved and so I studied DSE202 Introduction to psychology followed by the other three core psychology modules (ED209 Child development, D317 Social psychology, and D309 Cognitive psychology). I rounded off my studies in 2004, covering all the bases with A103 An introduction to the humanities, and graduated with a first class BSc (Honours) in Psychology.

Did you always want to be a writer? And how did your OU studies help you?
I suppose I did always want to be a writer, yes. I’ve certainly always seen writing as something I could do, from as far back as being in primary school, and I’ve always been drawn towards scribbling away in one form or another. One particular teacher at my middle school – Mrs Whitman – went out of her way to encourage me to write and I owe her a debt of gratitude.

More recently, my OU studies have definitely helped me in several ways.

To begin with, understanding more about psychology has helped me to appreciate that much of my favourite subject matter (ghosts, legends, and the “fortean”) cannot adequately be understood in black and white terms of whether or not such and such an event really did occur. There are all sorts of subtleties involved, such as the ways in which people perceive and recall events and the ways in which they then describe what they experienced, and the ways in which all of these factors feed back into each other. And that’s before you even get to the question of whether or not “ghosts” are supernatural manifestations – on which subject I remain stubbornly agnostic.

Secondly, I’ve found that my OU studies trained me to think more critically about things in general, and that is a very useful ability as regards researching and planning writing projects.

Also, the simple self-discipline that’s so necessary in studying with the OU is invaluable when it comes to sitting down and forcing yourself to write on those days when you’d rather do anything but!

You have written several books relating to London’s ghost stories and legends. Where does your interest in this area come from and where do you get your inspiration from?

I’ve always been interested in ghost stories, mysteries, and all manner of weird goings-on, and am probably a bit too curious for my own good, so I wanted to look more deeply into what was causing the sort of reports I enjoyed reading about. This was many years ago and at the time I naively thought that it would just be a matter of visiting “haunted” locations and waiting for something to happen. It soon became apparent that this was too simplistic.

After a lot of long, eventless, and often very cold nights in allegedly haunted houses I came to realise that, regardless of whether or not the ghosts supposed to haunt these places were real, the stories told about them definitely were. Those stories were things I could actually find out more about.

Have you ever seen a ghost?
No, although it’s not for want of trying! There’s no doubt whatsoever that “ghosts” exist, but considerable doubt as to whether or not ghosts are spirits of the dead, as in the popular conception. The more you look into the matter, the more you realise that ghosts represent a more complicated concept than most people realise.

All sorts of different experiences get labelled as a ghost, including feeling cold or nauseous, catching a whiff of an unexpected scent, hearing a creaking sound at night, taking a photograph that shows an odd-looking effect, and so on. Actually, this illustrates another benefit of studying psychology – it has helped me to appreciate how we impose artificial categories on the world, and how those categories often have very fuzzy boundaries.

How important is research?
For what I write about, it’s absolutely vital. For one thing, understanding the historical background of a ghost story enables me to put that story into its appropriate context. For another, research can sometimes reveal deep problems with a story that has passed into popular mythology. There is, for example, an oft-repeated tale about a phantom monk that haunts Buckingham Palace. The monk is supposed to have died after being locked up in a punishment cell of a priory that stood on the site long ago, and which was destroyed after the dissolution of the monasteries in the mid-sixteenth century. When I tried to find out further information about this priory from the Museum of London, I learned that no priory or monastery had ever existed on the site. The closest religious establishment had been the leper hospital of St James, which stood on the site of the present-day St James’s palace. So perhaps the phantom monk has a connection to that hospital, or perhaps this ghost only exists within the story told about him.

Who are your favourite authors?
There are so many, but to pick two who have been among my favourites for as long as I can remember, I would have to say Stephen King and Michael Moorcock.

As a writer and proof reader, what have you found the most challenging things about your career?
Writing is a very solitary pursuit and I know a lot of writers would say that the enforced isolation is a challenge, and I guess that would go for proof readers too. To be honest, though, I rather enjoy that aspect of it!

However, coupled with the isolation is the problem of staying motivated without colleagues around to push you on. That can be a real challenge, but I suppose that’s why God invented deadlines.

You write a column in ‘The Morton Report’ – can you tell us more about this?
The Morton Report is an online pop-culture magazine based in the US but with a worldwide readership. The Morton in question, by the way, is the famous celebrity biographer Andrew Morton.

I was contacted by the magazine shortly before their launch earlier this year. The launch was timed to coincide with the marriage of Prince William to Kate Middleton and the editors were looking for someone to write an article about ghost stories connected with locations such as Clarence House and Westminster Abbey. They must have been reasonably pleased with the result because they subsequently asked me to contribute a regular column.

My column is now one of The Morton Report’s featured columns, under the title “Notes from a Weird World: Pondering the paranormal, the unexplained, and the just plain odd”. My articles appear every Tuesday (Tuesday evening in the UK) and your readers are more than welcome to visit the site for a weekly dose of weirdness!

What else would you like to achieve in your writing career?
My next specific objective is to see our book about the Battersea poltergeist in print. It’s an incredible tale – certainly one of the most bizarre real-life stories I’ve ever read about, let alone had the opportunity to look into. (James has recently co-authored a book with Shirley Hitchings about the poltergeist that troubled Shirley's family in Battersea, south London, for a number of years beginning in 1956.)

Thinking long-term, I would love to get paid to write fiction one day (I write fiction solely for my own pleasure at present) but for the moment I’m happy to continue using writing as an excuse to explore strange stories, strange behaviour, and strange ideas.

What advice would you give OU students who want to become published authors?
Write. There’s no point in just planning your book, or reading articles about how to write – you have to do it, and you have to keep on doing it, in much the same way that athletes have to continually keep up with their training. Luckily, a writer’s training also involves reading a lot, and as any good writer must necessarily love reading that has to be good news.

For many people, I think joining a writers’ circle would be a good way of getting useful feedback. Personally, though, that’s not for me – I’ve never been much of a social animal!

Finally, I heartily recommend a book by Stephen King called On Writing. Part memoir and part practical advice, it’s the most inspiring book on the subject I’ve ever read. In fact, I rather fancy reading it again now.
 

• Find out more about James's work

No one in the audience for the opening night of The Living End watched more intently than Open University student, and now graduate, Walter Smith.

The OU took a leading part in getting 73-year old Walter’s black comedy about coping with retirement onto the stage and launching his new career as a playwright.

Years earlier aged 66 and a retiree from the engineering industry his new life of leisure was, in his own words, “sending him mad”.

“I was in a vacuum,” said Walter, from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.

“You can’t play golf five times a day and I am no gardener,” he said.

So he turned to the OU to keep his mind active and it was a toss-up between the arts and sciences.

Walter had always been interested in the arts despite having a fulfilling career in Project Engineering.

“At grammar school I was asked by the careers teacher what I was interested in and I said drawing – so he sent me to Raleigh Cycles where I became a draughtsman!” he said

He started writing in 1976 while off duty from working on an oil and gas plant in Orkney.

“There was not a lot else to do up there.

“It was mostly short stories and about my own life,” he said.

He began several OU short courses in writing.

“I was enrolling for a new one and someone said why don’t you do a degree?”

This year he finished an Open Degree in English Literature and it was the creative writing elements which encouraged him to write plays.

He entered The Living End in a local competition. It did not win but it was picked up by Brightside Productions in Mansfield and staged by them last September.

Set in the near future it sees a government solving the problem of rising pensions costs by launching a lottery with one lucky couple winning a blissful retirement – and the rest getting the bullet!

With widows exempt and some children keen to offload their parents it raises all kinds of questions about old age.

Walter, who writes under the name Harry Osbourne, says he was not influenced by his own experience of retirement but a story from 17^th century France where a Duke tries to impose euthanasia on the peasants.

“Seeing your words come to life on stage is quite a memorable thing,” said Walter, “and the OU played its part.”

He would “absolutely recommend” studying with the OU to other retirees and his experience of the course and the support he got was positive.

“It is fulfilling and there is a point to it. It saved my sanity,” he said.

Walter is planning to take his degree to Honours with the Advanced Creative Writing Module A363.

 http://www8.open.ac.uk/platform/node/4940

“We were keen to establish an annual award of some kind as a way of celebrating and remembering our mother’s life”, explained Sheila. “She won the prize for top pupil at North Kelvinside School, Glasgow but was not able to go to University and began a career in banking. She always maintained a keen interest in history, art and literature and encouraged both my sister and I to pursue academic goals.”

When Mathena retired, she joined The Open University to indulge her love of learning. She studied throughout the 1990s, gaining her Diploma in European Studies in 1993 and a BA in 1999. “She was very proud of her achievements and developed a real passion for Shakespeare during her studies – particularly the Sonnets. We think she would have been really delighted to be supporting others and recognising excellence in a field that was so close to her heart.”

Award winner Jan says she can identify with the idea behind the award. “Because my career as a fundraiser was a way of remembering my father's life, I appreciate what Mrs Ross's family wanted to achieve in setting up a prize in her name. I feel honoured to be the first recipient”.

If you’d like to make a donation in memory of a loved one, please contact Karen Hart on 01908 659141(email k.l.hart@open.ac.uk)
 

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