HICKATHRIFT PRESS

Andrew Stephen explains how he became a successful Hickathrift Press author and poet

I was quite shocked to be introduced on Radio Cambridge recently as “Andrew Stephen – football fan, writer and poet”. The interview was about one of my great loves, Cambridge United, but the other two descriptions rather caught me out. Thanks to Hickathrift Press , and the sterling efforts of Dave Phillips, I have now published five books. But, for many years, I was convinced that publishing was for other people.

It’s not that I haven’t always written. I got into plenty of trouble at King Edward VII Grammar School in King’s Lynn in the early 1970s for producing subversive magazines printed on a banda machine, one of which I remember was called Onan’s Lump. Ratz Alley was another. We produced them in the print room above the playground and then dropped them from the window onto the boys below. A number of these magazines were banned by the headmaster, who saw a worrying similarity to the anarchic Oz magazine, which was all the rage with wannabe hippies at the time.

Amazingly, many years later and by now a teacher myself, another magazine I produced was banned by the headmaster at the school where I taught. It had started out as a bulletin for my department and evolved into something much more wide-ranging, and which was distributed to all staff. I used the same method to defy the ban that I had employed all those years earlier at KES – I changed its name. The headmaster was the only person in the school who didn’t receive a copy after that. I was given enormous help in this by the English Department I managed, and by the lady in Reprographics, who became known as Moneypenny for her part in what was meant to be a clandestine operation. When I retired and moved to Norfolk, the newly-renamed Phoenix came with me and these days it comes out each month. In addition, I write the Lennensian Newsletter for former pupils of my old school and the Amber News for fellow members of Cambridge Fans United. I also write programme articles for the club called Hot Off The Habbin.

I very much enjoyed my time as a state boarder at school in King’s Lynn. I was one of several servicemen’s children there while their fathers served abroad. It was a way of life that has more or less died out now. It ended rather badly for me when I was asked to leave midway through my A-levels, which led to an unintended gap year before I decided to take a chance as a teacher. It was a career I loved, although I’m not sure that I’d want to do it now.

During my gap year in 1972, I worked in factories, bought books and wrote poems, either to or about girls, and tried to make sense of things. Perhaps that is what writing is for. I didn’t write much during my working life, and certainly not poetry. Meanwhile, many times I intended to throw out a couple of box files full of yellowing bits of paper that recorded the pain and uncertainties of adolescence. I’m glad I didn’t – as you’ll see.

Forty years after leaving my old school I was persuaded to return and look round it, and subsequently I joined the Old Lennensians and became a governor and a trustee. I am actively involved with the school – now a comprehensive known as the KES Academy –  trying to pay back some of what I owe it. I have worked closely with the last two headteachers and become great friends with the current Head of English, Ian Corns.

Through the OLs I met fellow ex-pupil Dave Phillips, who encouraged me to believe that my story was worth telling and, thanks to him, my first book Reading, Writing and Redemption was published. It is autobiographical and about education. It describes my experiences as a pupil, student and teacher, offering some views about what I believe education to be. It deals at some length with my time at KES and helped me to deal with some of my demons. Happily, it received many flattering reviews.

Then those old box files of my teenage poems came out and I was surprisingly pleased with some of them, which I gently reworked. Then I wrote some more, particularly during the pandemic when life became very restricted. Writing frees the mind in ways I never imagined when younger. Endless River, my second book arrived. Even though poetry is not a big seller, I was very proud of it. I think that it showed that even when I found life hard I have found ways of staying positive.

The Story In Your Eyes followed – a hymn of praise to Cambridge and to my ancestors. One of them was one of the first photographers in Cambridge and a truly great man in many ways.

Last year I wrote The Season That Nearly Was to explain my devotion to Cambridge United. Many fans of other clubs have written to me to say that they understood the symptoms!

Finally, my latest book Under A Norfolk Sky is, I think, my best. Ian Corns was a brilliant editor and Steve Ward’s photographs support the text brilliantly. Dave brought it all together with his usual skill and panache.

Poetry is very important to me. It is the only way I can express my deepest feelings and try to explain an often baffling world. The poems in this book are much more developed than my earlier ones and explore my love for where I live and the way it helps me to live the way I want to. It would be fair to say that I am at home here and inspired by the landscape and culture, now that I live a mere two miles from where I went to primary schoolpassed my 11-plus. The three short stories I have included are all on the theme of how we become the person we do. All writers will tell you that they answer to themselves first. When they please others, it is a great bonus.