Shirley Read-Jahn

This week, I am featuring an inspirational woman, Shirley Read-Jahn, who has led a most colorful life indeed. She was born to an English rose and a German-British spy father, educated in a private school in England, coming of age in London’s legendary sixties, before becoming a cave-dwelling hippy on the Greek island of Crete. Shirley takes us to exotic places where she lived and loved.

Excerpts from Dancing through life, Volume 1, From the Back Cover
‘Loaded with heavy backpacks, my sister, Pam, and I hit the road for four months. After a number of weeks traveling through Europe we arrived off the ferry from Athens into the port of Heraklion, Crete. In the youth hostel we asked the manager what we should see and where we should go. Waggling his finger, he solemnly intoned, “Whatever you do, do NOT go to Matala. It’s filled with sex and drugs and filthy hippies.” So, we got on the next bus to Matala.’

1. Tell me about yourself.
I was born in England during World War II, but at 3 years old moved with my older sister and parents to live in Germany, after my father’s wartime spying job became redundant. As a British diplomat post-war in Germany, he was moved around meaning that I moved constantly throughout my life, attending 11 schools before I was nine years old, as we changed from one British Army school in Germany to another. When my mother had finally had enough, at 9, I was placed for 7 years into an English boarding school to get some much-need discipline. I went on to university, specialising in modern languages, eventually moving to Spain then Greece, where I spent one of the happiest times of my life living in an ancient Roman burial tomb in a cave in Matala, Crete.

I then travelled quite extensively, eventually marrying 4 times and living in different countries. All of this has made me strong, fascinated about the world, opened me up to so many experiences, and, people tell me, full of joie de vivre, hence the title of my memoir, Dancing Through Life. I’ve done so many different types of work from landscape design, interpreter work, paralegal work, political volunteering, and co-founding the San Francisco Jazz Festival (SFJAZZ). I’ve danced in many middle eastern dance troupes, and met so many celebrities through the jazz world, circuses and theatre people I worked with, that the memoir comes in two separate volumes in order to tell a major part of my personal history.

2. Synopsis of your book (memoir) in one sentence.
The life stories in both my memoirs are truly a dance: now joyful and leaping, now phoenix-like as I lift myself up from the ashes and reinvent myself, from covering my youth in an almost-Victorian English boarding school to the men, marriages, triumphs and misfortunes, the countries I’ve lived in, the fascinating entertainment performers I knew, and eventually how I became a writer.

3. Why did you write this book?
Friends and family have repeatedly told me they love listening to my stories about my life and that I should write them down. I also wanted to leave a history of my life for my son and his children so they would know who their granny really was.

4. What message or lessons did you want your readers to take from this book?
Grab life by the horns. Jump right in, go after what you want, try it all out. And awake each day with a smile on your face to offer someone else, to cheer them up. There are so many roles women can take on in their lives. I hope my memoirs reveal some of those different women’s roles they can place themselves in just from seeing what I have done, and that their men will appreciate what women can accomplish.

5. How many hours do you write in a day?
I get up very early to write. I have Parkinson’s Disease and other health issues and the mornings are when I function best. These days I write about two hours a day, sometimes more. It depends on how I’m feeling and all the other things I need to do, or enjoy doing, during these precious days left to me, being in my late seventies now.

6. Are you currently working on a book at the moment?
Yes! I am currently writing two books. One is a travel memoir, the first in what I hope will be a series of travel memoirs, set in Australia where I now live. The second is very exciting to me. I inherited a genealogical tree put together by my great grandfather. It goes back to 1202 and lists what my ancestors did in their lives. His father, my great-great grandfather, was an intimate friend of Charles Dickens and it was Dickens who got my great grandfather his job in the first free library in England, in Manchester, where he worked all his life. It turns out that many of the maternal side of my family have been involved in writing, in libraries and running bookstores.

I’m putting together a biographical fiction book based on this history. I like to write a children’s book while producing one of my adult books. For example, when I was writing a biographical fiction called Hidden in Plain Sight, a British Military Agent’s Story, about my father who was a spy in World War II in the Soviet Union and England, I took time out to write and illustrate some of my children’s books. I followed the same process while writing my two memoirs. I’ll mention here that I’ve found illustrating my children’s books to be very good for me in that it demands hand-eye coordination, which helps regarding my Parkinson’s Disease.

I have published 7 kids’ books, 2 memoirs, and 1 biographical fiction book, all written since 2019, so I guess you’d call me somewhat prolific! I certainly find writing and drawing very soothing and a great distraction against any health woes I might be dealing with on a day-to-day basis.

7. If you are not writing, what are you doing when you are not writing?
I’ve been a belly dancer for most of my adult life and fortunately am still able to teach. I also regularly play table tennis, do tai chi, and try to walk a little each day (the hardest part of Parkinson’s for me). I’ve learned that many people with Parkinson’s are still able to dance even when walking becomes difficult. Maybe I should play music while walking and dance my way along the street! Aside from that, I much enjoy spending time with my husband. We now lead a quieter life, gardening, reading, visiting family and friends when Covid allows, but we used to travel around Australia in Snowflake, our 1989 diesel camper van, hence the travel memoirs I’m starting to write. My husband also comes with me to markets in our local area where we set up our marquee and sell my books. It’s a super way to meet people and talk about books in general.

8. What would you advise emerging Indie authors?
Just start. Go for it! Don’t worry about any of your writing being perfect. Editing comes later. Just let it pour out of you. If you want to write a timeline, and like to be organised, do that. If not, don’t even worry where you start. Even start at the end of your story then fill in the beginning and middle. Perhaps write in a stream of consciousness. Don’t worry about proper punctuation or syntax. Get your own thoughts and feelings out of you and onto paper. I happen to think it’s rather a good model to use when writing your first draft. As said, editing comes later. You’ll feel wonderful once you’ve started writing your story; the characters will become dear to you. It’s a wonderful escape. Also, I’d apply that modus operandi to living one’s life; I certainly have! Don’t wait for things to happen. YOU can make things happen. If you want to marry, for example, don’t wait for your prince to ride up on a white horse and sweep you away. Look for him, find him, and lasso him!

9. What are you reading right now?
I always have two or three books on the go at one time, flipping from one to another. Occasionally, I get totally immersed in one only and read it from cover to cover often in one sitting. I much enjoy reading various authors’ memoirs on the friendliest site online called We Love Memoirs. I’m currently reading one of Beth Haslam’s memoirs. She always brightens my day by making me laugh from the way she can turn any situation into something funny. I’m also reading books on how to market one’s books, plus books written about my great grandfather, culling information for the next book I’m writing.

10. If you were a fruit or a vegetable, what would you want to be and why?
I’d be a star fruit. Throughout my long life I have always felt humbly special, optimistically certain that a bright star shines over me bringing me luck. We all have our trials and tribulations, but I’m grateful for my own guardian star above me, knowing it will always ensure I come out alright in the end, and it’s that knowledge that lets me get up each day with a smile.

Check out more of my author interviews here.

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