“A miss,” bawled Wanda.

I once received some junk mail informing me that I'd had been selected at random (subject to status) to attend an exclusive Fab Holiday Homeshare Presentation, in the Centre of London. Enticed by the embossed possibility of a £1,000 prize in cash, I rang up and confirmed my appointment. I even convinced a friend of mine to tag along as a temporary fiancée - the best kind to have.

Duly assembled on the day, each couple was assigned their individual sales guide and we were all whipped into a gentle frenzy by a slideshow and a cheering session. They were simpler times.

Later, segregated from all other couples and any contact with the outside world, we got down to the finer details with our personal guide - the meek and unassuming Wanda. After a minute of polite conversation, Wanda had ascertained our financial circumstances and confirmed that we qualified for the deal of a lifetime. She'd also mentioned her struggle to bring up her young son on her own, purely on the proceeds of her commission.

Without warning, she stuck an arm in the air, like a swimmer in distress, and Pete swaggered over - with the speed and banter of an East End barrow boy (with a tie).

Supervisor Pete was as smooth an operator as ever Sade sang about. He hemmed us in with four irrefutable concepts, like a distortion of the Four Great Noble Truths. If we liked it, could afford it, understood it, and could use it then there was no reason not to write out a cheque immediately.

It was fiendishly brilliant psychology. If we didn't like it there must be something wrong with us, unlike the rest of the cheering hordes. If we couldn't afford it then what the flip were we doing there in the first place. If we couldn't understand it then we must be stupid. And if we couldn't use a fabulous, virtually no-strings-attached holiday home for the same two-weeks every year until the end of time then God help us.

Pete made it clear that any negative response would brand us second-class citizens of the worst kind. i.e. people who weren’t buying.

"Of course," he added tellingly at the end of his victory speech. "If the answer to all four questions is 'yes' and you’re still not interested, then Wanda hasn't been doing her job properly."

Wanda, you will not be surprised to learn, turned suddenly fish-eyed and cast her gaze rehearsedly downward. I even checked the floor for glass beads, in case she’d been crying.

Now we were really up a gum tree: the pressure was on. I wondered how the other couples were doing and if it was too late to tunnel into another cubicle and form an escape committee. All thoughts of 'I hope we don't end up with the Queen Anne cruet set' evaporated as we locked wits against the wily Pete and his affordable special-price-today-only repayment scheme.

For a while, it looked like I’d be seeing in the next twenty New Years in the same holiday block in Portugal. Or a similar standard alternative destination, subject to availability and transfer charges.

Then my silent prayer to St. Jude* was answered. In a sudden burst of inspiration, I started chatting to Pete as if we were chums.

"So Pete, have you got a new car?"

My logic being, if he had then he must be loaded and if he hadn't then timeshare sales couldn't be that successful.

Caught off guard, he snarled at me, "Yeah, newish; why?"

"And tell me," I questioned him like a strutting TV lawyer, "Did you go down to the showroom with a pocketful of money or did you take a brochure away to think about it?”

The metaphorical penny dropped; the only kind he'd be getting from us.

"I’ve ’ad enough," he surrendered, which is the timeshare equivalent of: 'It's a fair cop guv.' Then he stormed off muttering in a loud voice: "You’re obviously only here for your free gift."
 

As opposed to a charm demonstration perhaps?

I hope it won't come as a shock when I tell you that the £1000 top prize in the draw eluded me. My blue vinyl suitcases did nicely though, thank you. And besides, it was a small reward beside the real prize - a one-day sales psychology seminar, courtesy of Fab Holiday Homeshare.

I believe the company is no longer in business.

* St. Jude is the Patron Saint of lost causes.

Life Writing - Remembering Kitty and Fred

I received a letter in the post today, from a stranger.

It was from the niece of a neighbour, from London where I grew up. The letter informed me that Kitty had passed away at the end of June and a family service had been held. Barely 30 written words but enough to form a bridge across the last 40 years.

My brother and I would alternate, as adults, sending Kitty and Fred some Christmas gifts and a card. We always received a present each in return, sometimes with a short, handwritten note. I didn't know Kitty well and even when Fred died I didn't feel it right to express anything beyond condolences and flowers. Somehow, I always felt there was something prim and proper about them but I think I still saw them through a child's eyes.

Kitty and Fred never had children of their own. But they were always generous to us, buying toys and taking an interest in what we were doing. David and I weren't really close with them though, which makes their generosity all the more touching.

Latterly, Kitty and I said more in our letters; updates about the present from me and comments about the past from her, about how much London life had changed. It occurred to me only recently that Kitty was the last person who would remember the local shops as I knew them.

Mr Thomas, running the fruit and veg shop with his son and daughter - the scent of apples always lingering in the air, along with soil from the sacks of spuds spilling across the concrete floor. The way that, years later, when every shop tried to sell everything, they would wrap up a single toilet roll in newspaper for you to carry home. And Lil's, on an opposite corner, selling sliced meats, bread and breakfast cereal. Even then, those shops seemed so small. Especially Mr & Mrs Pitman's sweetshop - where jars of sticky boiled sweets crammed the shelves, just out of reach, like a children's purgatory.

If I make that walk of old in my memory, I reach the High Road where Pete ran the other fruit and veg shop. Where his labrador Sam would sleep all day, unimpressed when Pete picked up an apple and twisted it in half. Further along, Bob's Wavy Line store - probably one of the first convenience franchises. Bob used to reach for the top shelves with his pincer on a stick, like a 1970s Doctor Who monster. The advertising 'Go to work on an egg' still proudly displayed on the wall, and Bob resplendent in his white coat.

There was Chappel's too, the newsagent a door or two away; the only place you could buy newspapers back then, and fireworks. Past the baker's was a sub post office, the one where I used to save my milk-round money for my holidays. In a savings book I kept for decades - the total frozen at £5.11 since 1978. On the opposite side of the High Road was a hardware shop. Buckets and pans and mops, stacked outside and in, as if in a hurry. There were parafin heaters on sale and the thick scent of polish in the air.

Kitty knew all those places, all those faces now lost to time. It's a world I visit occasionally in dreams, a shadowy half-remembrance of travelling on routemaster buses, of going to the library to look at picture books and stumbling around Coronation Gardens with mum, David and the dog.

It's a realm of bright sunshine and smiles, of pleasure in small things. I still have a Lesney's matchbox car which came from Kitty and Fred. It's an heirloom of sorts from my brother - an ambulance.

I wish I'd spoken to Kitty more, about her memories, about the East London of my childhood. But I didn't. L. P. Hartley opened his novel 'The Go-Between' with: "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."

Not only is it true, but I've now lost my tour guide.

Crossing the Line

In March 2008, I crossed a line. My commissioned feature, Last of the Line - an intimate piece about my relationship with my late brother, David, and reflections on life without him - was published in The Guardian.

I'd pitched the original idea six months earlier, but a combination of moving editors and the email Bermuda Triangle added to the delay. It was an interesting process, start to finish. Part of you feels like you are selling off the family silver at best, or whoring your soul at worst. Another part of you feels as if the world will judge you.

However, I wanted to tell some of David's story and the amazing way he dealt with the cancer that claimed him. The ambitious writer in me also wanted to produce something intensely personal and yet meaningful to ther people. To see whether I could translate my experience so that a nameless reader might understand it and feel it. In short, to see whether I could cut it as a 'proper' writer.

Unsurprisingly, it was a challenging piece to write, to accurately portray David's character and our interactions without overdramatising or diminishing them. I carefully prepared the ground with friends and family who knew him well. People were generally supportive although there was some unexpected fallout much later on.

What made it all worthwhile was a letter I received from a newspaper reader, about the sudden death of his own brother, unlike the nine years I had to get used to being without David. When I read that letter it was a sobering moment, to realise both the power of the written word and its ability to bridge the gap between strangers. This is what real writing is about - not fame or fortune or books on shelves - connecting with people. Although it has to be said that it paid well.

Writing that piece changed how I write fiction. I'm less afraid now to draw directly on personal experiences or incorporare aspects of a person or memory. I don't know if it makes my writing any more powerful but I feel liberated as a writer.

Here's a link to the feature:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/mar/15/familyandrelationships.family1

Objectively, it's an okay piece. A little hammy, here and there, and I still cringe at the ending. In my defence, I wrote to their requirements and I wasn't afforded an edit - the first time the new editor contacted me was very close to publication.

Today would have been David's birthday, and without doubt he would have hating me writing this. It won't shock you to know that I can live with that. Here's to you David.

Failure is the Writer's Friend

I've had a lot of writing failures. The stories that don't sell, the articles on perpetual circulation, the novels that amble around like docile sauropods. The topical gags and sketches that live and die without an audience.

Sometimes I get despondent; more often, just peeved. But part of me takes a secret delight in it. Because, in order to get this many rejections, I must be making a hell of a lot of submissions. I watch myself, to see what he'll do next when the standard rejection letter arrives or when nothing comes back at all after months of wondering. And if, despite all that, I still write something new or edit something old, and whizz it off to a new prospect, I smile a little. I know I've got it bad. And that's good.

Fair weather writers are ten a penny. Any time I hear someone say "I've often thought about writing something..." I change the subject - they're a lost cause. For hardcore writers - even the not so literary ones like me - writing is an itch, an obsession, maybe even a religion. It shapes how you see the world and how you see your own life. It makes you pay attention.

So with that in mind, I present a comedy writing failure list - and all of them hard won. Or rather, hard lost. Some wrote back nicely, others left me hanging.

C5's Swinging, C4 Bremner, Bird & Fortune, News Huddlines, The Now Show, Watson's Wind-Up, Newsjack, Jimmy Carr, Lead Balloon, The Comedy Unit, Glasgow, Shoot The Writer, The Last Laugh, For Training Purposes Only, Work supplement in The Guardian, BBC Writersroom x 3, C4 Comedy Lab, Parsons and Naylor, The First Post, Private Eye, Readers' Digest, Jonathan Ross, Graham Norton.