Well, we didn’t win an award for the “Children of Craig-y-nos” but, along with four other runners-up, we received a certificate
commending us “for excellence in communicating medical and health information in a book for the lay reader”.
The prize was awarded to “Medic: saving lives – from Dunkirk to Afghanistan by John Nichol and Tony Rennell – a very worthy winner.
Book short-listed for award
“A powerful story told in words and pictures assembled from first-hand accounts…reveals shocking details of children’s lives in a Welsh TB hospital.”
That’s what the judges say about “Children of Craig-y-nos”.
Well, I guess I never thought of it in that light. To me who spent four years in Craig-y-nos as a child it seemed normal. I didn’t know anything else.
It is only now with a distance of more than 50 years I realise in writing this book, along with Carole Reeves, that it was far from normal.
There are five books short-listed for the Open Book Award and the winner will be announced on Tuesday evening at a special presentation to be held at the
Wellcome Foundation. The others on the shortlist ( General readership, category) include “Manufacturing Depression, the secret history of a modern disease” by Gary Greenberg, “An Infinity of things: how Sir Henry Wellcome collected the world” by Frances Larson and “Medic: saving lives – from Dunkirk to Afghanistan” by John Nichol and Tony Rennell.
So you see the field is very strong…the miracle is that we have even got as far as the short-list! I will be travelling by train from Scotland to London tomorrow…
Our brochure for Forth Valley Open Studios with over 100 artists and more than 70 venues is now at the printers. Phew!. …what a relief!
Now we are starting on the media campaign. Today sees a full page centre spread in local newspaper, Wee County News.
I rang up the Editor to thank him and asked when their online site was going to be updated. He told me tomorrow. I asked if our story on Forth Valley Artists would be going up . He said only some stories get put up so I did a bit of quick talking and expained that it would bring a lot of people to his newspaper site etc if our story did go up.
He promised he would have a word with the web-master….and to think I nearly didnt make that call.
Ann Shaw is an artist/writer based in Scotland working in new media. As a journalist she campaigned and wrote about many social and medical issues. She is a feminist and founder member of Falkirk Womens Aid, active in the trades union movement and former member of National Union of Journalists Equality Working Party, and founder member of Forth Valley Open Studios.
