Julia Darling
In memory

I first met Julia about twenty years ago amongst a whirlwind of women's education courses, creative writing groups, International Women's Day events and so on. We would often bump into each other at the metro station on our way to these various events, Julia pushing a pram with her eldest daughter inside.

Since then our lives have occasionally woven together at shared workplaces, social events or creative writing events.

I have fond memories of sitting at her kitchen table eating home made soup discussing the art of writing. She gave me encouragement and support with my own writing which gave me the confidence to continue with a writing project at that time.

I will always remember her warm smiles and that she would always stop to say hello. I will remember Julia as a brave but always warm and friendly woman who has touched the hearts of so many.

My thoughts are also to Bev and Julia's daughters.

Almond Kellacher

I met Julia when she came to Cockermouth in 2003 to do a reading and workshop for Slate on 'Sympathy and Empathy'. Within minutes of meeting we were nattering over tea and biscuits in Jonty's café. Although I spent so little time with Julia, I found her to be one of the kindest and most generous people I have ever met. She gave so freely of her of herself. Her workshop was a revelation. She had twenty-five people (mostly mutual strangers) focused and enthusiastic, working hard, buzzing with ideas. I have never experienced so much good energy at a writing workshop, so much laughter and openness. Everyone went away touched by her special gentleness and vitality. I liked her enormously and wish I had the chance to get to know her better. Notwithstanding her extraordinary oeuvre as a writer, her courage and integrity, she was, quite simply, a lovely person, and the world is a happier place because of her.

Elizabeth Stott

A few years ago Julia helped us develop the Common Knowledge arts in health network for Tyne and Wear Health Action Zone, and she immediately engaged participants in making the subject of art in health enter their personal experience. Her television piece last year for BBC's Inside Out said more for art in health in 15 minutes than I've heard in 15 years.

Julia embodied art in health, always speaking about it from the everyday and the personal, looking into the heart of illness and finding healthy messages therein. Art in health is too often regarded as a treatment rather than as a channel for expression, which is probably why the health and medical sector challenge it to be evaluated as a clinical practice. But Julia's web log shows it is about testimony and participation, and about celebrating the "difficult patient's" experience – what better evidence can there be?

Mike White,
Centre for Arts and Humanities in Health and Medicine.

Yesterday I read these many tributes and thought I had nothing to add, but something came to me last night. I met Julia on many occasions over the years, at readings, workshops, just around, in lots of guises we shared - editor, promoter, writer, teacher. For a couple of years we helped pick the winners of the Northern Arts Writers Awards, before I worked here, and that was great fun - serious work she met with humour and concern for her fellow writers. And since working for Northern Arts and the Arts Council I've realised from a different position how important and unusual she was.

What came to me last night was the tone, the timbre, of Julia's voice - I suddenly felt it again in my memory. For me her voice, which those who saw her perform, or who met her will recall now, captured all the generosity of spirit, all the humour, warmth and compassion Julia so naturally shared with many, many people. She always left me - and others, as is clear from these memories - feeling she had been pleased to see me - when the privilege was really all mine. My sympathies to her family.

Mark Robinson
Director, Arts & Development
Arts Council England, North East

I discovered Julia's writing three years ago on the suggestion of numerous friends. I don't know how it took me so long - take up Creative Writing in the North East at any time in the last decade and Julia's work was beautifully unavoidable.

To me Julia was like a glow worm. She could light a room simply with her impish grin, and on speaking, sent out sparks of enthusiasm that continued to grow inside people long after.

I found her weblog extraordinarily moving - in her circumstances she should have been the one who was doing the taking, not the giving, yet there was often some nugget of existential wisdom that was truly magical and inspiring for all sorts of other scenarios.

Julia, may you party long with the other departed souls, that inhabit the shoes, that hang from trees in the Vale. I was just one face in the audiences at your readings who never got to say 'hello', but was touched hugely by your work and your life.

Linda Parvin

From across almost thirty years I have memories of an ever cheery Julia at Falmouth art school — warm, generous and completely lacking in connivance, yet still with a keen sense of social justice.
.. wish I'd kept in touch..

Betty L

Thursday 8th April 2005

It seems cliché to write,
To send contemplative 'Goodbye's'
Inundated with heartfelt sympathy
Dressed in a sugary guise.

It feels wrong and raw
To defy my truest heart
For as long as i have known you
This disease has been a part.

Snapping at the heels of life
Prowling, ready to pounce.
Throwing body and mind into turmoil,
Made manifest ounce by ounce.

The waiting, makes an end surreal.
Numbs and undermines,
Obscure but familiar death,
Dampens the fear we feel.

Choking down the Solid Air
And never losing the will,
May You Never fear what is unknown
Retrospectively but happy you'll wander Over the Hill.

So in the musical arms of John Martyn
Will you meet a peaceful end.
Know there are many you've touched deeply,
Used words as a comforting friend.

To the one I once knew
As my mummy in reserve
See this poem not written in vain
But as a creative dedication, to your inspirational verve.

Every time I came on this site i would find myself sitting down to write a poem, song or just a ramble about the world. As Julia's health worsened, my thoughts were often with her. I logged on and read How to Behave With The Ill and in true form, sat down and wrote this poem for her. Regrettably, I didn't mange to get it to her and so .... this poem inspired by and written for you, Julia, is available on-line.... I hope you're still logging on and relishing in everybody's loving and admiring words.

Thank you for inspiring me in what I love doing most.

Holly Reed Macrae

Dear site, dear readers,

My sincerest condolences first of all.

As in Keith Armstrong's case, my fond memories concern mostly the international exchanges she was involved in. She performed, together with the Poetry Virgins, at a poetry festival I organised in Groningen, the Netherlands, in 1996. As I said, fond memories, because she was so good at conveying to young students - like myself at the time - the pleasures of poetry, both reading and performance-wise. I can safely say that their performance then inspired quite a few aspiring young poets to actively participate in creative writing/performances classes.

Poets from Groningen also went to Newcastle frequently, and she was sometimes willing to put some of us up for a night or two. I'll never forget the advice she gave me when things started to happen for me literary-wise and I called her from Holland to ask her how she coped with success: eat lots of ice-cream! So I did and it helped. Thanks Julia.

To Bev, Scarlet and Florrie: she will be sorely missed and I sincerely hope all the memories on this site will help you get through this.

Willem Groenewegen

I had the honour, the pleasure and the fun of appearing in Eating The Elephant Julia's play. I had read this amazing script and wondered what the author was like and then came the day when I walked into rehearsals to find this fab woman talking to our director Rachel. Needless to say that lovely woman was Julia and then began for me a friendship which I have cherished for the last eight years. I loved her dearly and will miss her dreadfully.

Monica Gibb

I was so saddened to hear that Julia had died last week ..... we have lost yet another great voice and immense personality to cancer. I knew Julia in the early 1980s in Newcastle. As an eager young feminist art student, I joined Sugar & Spikes, the women's cabaret group she founded, and made them, along with Jazawaki women's band, the subject of my dissertation and a lousy betamax video documentary on women in entertainment. In the past week I have had a few giggles remembering us in our pink boiler suits delivering sketches about caps in mouths to a bemused audience in a working men's club on Tyneside ~ went down like a lead balloon I seem to remember! Julia was an inspiration ~ 100% committed, warm, funny, generous, talented, courageous ...... much missed by so many. Wherever you are now Julia, I am sure you are flying. My thoughts are with Bev, Scarlet, Florrie and all of Julia's close friends and family.

Sara Furse

I met Julia when I did publicity for Crocodile Soup. From our first telephone conversation I was charmed by her generosity, enthusiasm, patience and understanding. She made the often difficult and nerve-wracking publicity process feel easy and fun. Her launch party in Newcastle was the most exuberant and warm affair that I have ever organised. I loved calling her about reviews and interviews when we would end up chatting about life, shoes, families and children. I was pregnant with my first child then, and Julia always made me feel that she was more keen to hear about my bump then about her publicity tour. I loved her writing too, her humorous and humane voice, her original and lyrical view of ordinary lives. Funny, wise and honest, she was wonderful and exhilarating company. I feel privileged to have known her.

Tasja Dorkofikis
Random House

Julia gave a well attended and well received reading in Cockermouth on 18 December 1998. We laughed with her at the adventures of Gert Hardcastle in 'Crocodile Soup'. Julia stayed overnight in Loweswater — a delightful guest — and another time stayed nearby one Christmas. The guest book entry I found today and it brought tears since the few words encapsulate her enjoyment and her life-force. "Thanks so much for the beautiful night at your house - the whiskey, the sausages, the books by my bed, and the sight of the lake out of the window". It will be a treasured entry. Thank you,Julia, for your many gifts.

Michael and Hetty Baron

This poem was written by Julia in response to a postal request from me asking her to listen to the song Acrobat by the band Maximo Park and write a response. It was part of a mail art project I was running at Waygood Gallery last summer. I'd asked 10 local bands / musicians to record some of their work onto the blank CD I'd sent which I then posted on to one of 10 writers. I paired Julia with Maximo Park. The band had written a song especially for the project - Acrobat, (which will feature on their first album - out next month). Julia really liked the song and responded almost immediately. I have posted her poem here as many will not have seen it before.

My love goes to everyone close to Julia

Topsy Qur'et

Julia was a student on our first-ever Arvon course and we hit it off straight away. I can fetch up so many memories of larky days at Lumb Bank over the years. Here's one for her much-loved daughters: early morning in the garden, in maybe 1989, Julia wailing across the valley to the hillside opposite 'I miss my babies'.

I met her last in 2003 at the launch of her brilliant book of poems Sudden Collapses in Public Places: she was on top form and the audience loved her work and her performance. She told me that she still kept a card I'd sent her over ten years earlier. That was Julia all over - a generous and good friend. Julia my dear, here's to the next life. Meanwhile, I'll think of you rolling a fag with the angels.

Susan Burns

The very first time I picked up Julia we talked a while. It was raining and it seemed foolish to get out of the car when she was early. It might stop we both said. I talked to her about my football articles for The Mag - a Newcastle United fanzine. She told me about her ongoing work as a writer in residence and about her latest ideas. She used Five Star taxis all the time and I picked her up several times after that. I now knew she had 'been through the mill' and you know something - she never moaned. I thought she had won her big battle. However, working mainly on the management side in the office and not on the road, meant I hadn't seen her for a while. I often wondered which of the lads were now picking her up and giving her some little anecdotes for another Taxi Drivers Daughter. So now, on the very day I had sent my book idea off to a publisher I am confronted by a newspaper article reporting that Julia has been taken from us. Well, the nice idea, rejection email, came the very next day. So quick.

What would Julia do - I thought?

Keep on trying, sounds good to me and for the brief moment our lives crossed, the inspiration and motivation was worth its weight in gold.

Tony Fiddes

A bright light has gone out in all our lives. She will be much missed.

Jennifer Hinves

words, music, laughter,
shared under that bleached red umbrella,
echo still.

Paul G. Whittaker
Wyncote PA, USA

I learned about Julia's death last Saturday [16 April] while I was in Peru. My partner had e-mailed the news to me, she had cried on learning of Julia's death, and both I and my travelling companion were deeply saddened. Julia's life had some how touched our own.

I first encountered Julia and her work in 1989. Although I was introduced to Julia a number of times by friends who had worked with her, I think it is more than fair to say we did not know each other. She may have vaguely recognised me, like one does with strangers one repeatedly encounters. I was more than gratified that Julia did acknowledge some vague recollection of me on a couple of occasions.

I was a bit in awe of Julia. Even on our first meeting, I remember I blustered on about how wonderful her poetry was, and seconds after felt entirely crap about how engraceiating I must have come across as. Subsequent encounters were a lot less profuse, I tried to act kind of cool while my heart was fluttering.

Over the years I have seen Julia read on a number of occasions, I have attended her plays, read her books and listed to her work on the radio. A meagre poem of my own even shared pamphlet space with one of hers back in the late 80's. For the last 7 years or so I have had one of her poems pinned up at work, The Shipping Forecast. So you could say I am a bit of a fan!

My own work is in the area of mental health, and I have mentioned Julia's work as an example of the use of poetry as an aid and support for people to promote and direct their own well being. This is one of the powerful legacies which Julia has left.

My sympathy goes out to her family and all who knew her. As we all know she was much loved and she will be greatly missed.

Allison Mosley

I've just come back from teaching my first course at Arvon. There was a photo of Julia with Jackie Kay in my room and lots of photos of writers all over the house.

I remember: the time Julia booked me an appointment to have all my hair cut off, and hot raspberries and ice cream.

She lit lots of candles in me, the kind of candles that can't ever be put out.

P.S. I love the idea of A Waiting Room in August being on the wall for people to read. Would be great if it happened up and down the country.

P.P.S I am going to send a copy of The Poetry Cure to the hospital where I had my hip op and hope that my consultant reads it. Hope everyone will send it to their doctors too!

Louise Tondeur

I have known Julia for many years but only became close in the last four when she invited me to join her in creating work for medical practitioners. I then joined her for creative writing sessions on Friday afternoons and they brightened up my week. She also recommended me for roles in her radio plays and I was lucky enough to play Maureen in Appointments earlier this year. Typical of Julia, she sent me a lovely card thanking me for my contribution but SHE wrote the words, I only read them.

Like most people, I shall miss her smiles and laughter and her generosity of spirit. She would lighten my day when I felt down. I wish Bev, Scarlet and Florrie the strength to carry on without her and I send my best wishes to her parents and family members.

Val McLane

I didn't know Julia well; but like many another I won't forget her joy in living, her exuberance, her sheer, wonderful, extravagance of human warmth.

Was it perhaps not accidental that my eye was caught, last week, by a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke that I hadn't seen before? It's called Odette R ..., but I hope my version, below, can have another title:

Michael Ayton

Linda France

In Nov 2004 I sent an e-mail to Julia and to my delight she responded, with the ease and good cheer that one would expect from a dear friend. She was muse, inspiration, the very heart of courage. Impish and laughing; serious and determined. She had wide arms that embraced all the edge-walkers, eccentrics, and weary people. She gave me a glimpse of the art of living and the arduous task of dying while still filled with life. So much to do. I feel she will not want to "rest in peace" for very long! She will be up and doing, moving us along in our dreams, throwing shoes and gauntlets into our paths, so we stop and question, remember to get on with living, appreciate every breath, every step. To write, write, write and never to give up.

My love to Julia's beloved; and to all her family and friends.

Suzanne Duce

Julia was uncomfortable with expressions on the lines of "after a long fight against cancer", and certainly to think of Julia is to think of someone working with, rather than against. For all the time we knew her, cancer was part of her life, not as something to be accepted meekly - her lively interest in treatment of all kinds is reflected in her weblog - but as something that she was living with, rather than dying from.

The tributes and memories that have flooded in to this website return again and again to the theme of her generosity. Specifically, she was generous with herself; everyone who knew her even slightly felt that there was a bit of Julia that was theirs - an evening, a poem, a workshop, a conversation - something that made her a special friend. She didn't raise barriers, she opened herself to others.

This quality shaped her writing: it also fed other writers' work. Again and again the other night, at the gathering that was to be her last launch and which became her wake, we heard the word "inspiration". At workshops, as a publisher, as a fellow-writer, she brought out the best in others.

The same applies to us, with her website. George Orwell said that "Good prose is like a windowpane"; so is a good website. When we receive compliments about Julia's site - and, better still, when we don't, when people comment that it's very pink, very Julia - I know that we are among the artists and craft workers Julia has inspired to better, simpler, more creative work.

It has been a joy and a privilege to know her.

Jean Rogers and Roger Cornwell

Julia and I did a couple of gigs together at the Cheltenham Lit Fest: several years ago, in her days as a Poetry Virgin, and again more recently, when The Taxi Driver's Daughter was freshly published.

She always smiled, always gave, always belonged among the brighter shades of rainbows. I shall look for her again when sun and rain kiss the sky.

Marcus Moore

Dear Julia

You were a star right up to the final bell
Still kept writing while trying to stay well
Battling with the beast until it won
You never gave in to a loaded gun
A literary Queen to an audience wide
A light went out on the day you died.
You won our hearts and fed our minds
Your plays, poetry and books touched many kinds
Always giving encouragement to the novice writer
And taking the time to champion a fighter
I'll never forget the help you gave me
Launching my book to make money for charity

Dear Julia long may you reign in peoples hearts.

A personal tribute from Sylvia Mitchell

I would like to offer my condolences and those of Lapidus. Julia was due to take part in our conference in early April and was sorely missed. Some of our members wanted to dedicate time and space to her and read from her web diary and her poetry.

I met her a couple of years ago at a poetry workshop in Derby and used her book Sudden Collapses in Public Places to great effect while I was Writer in Residence in Nottinghamshire Hospice last year.

We are just putting together our next issue of our magazine and are hoping to include a personal tribute to Julia by one of our members.

Sheelagh Gallagher
Editor, Lapidus

I didn't know Julia, but was moved to buy her book of poems, Sudden Collapses, when I heard her reading on the radio. She captured brilliantly the pain and humour of the hospital visits I was going through following my own diagnosis with breast cancer. I visited her website regularly to check in and see how she was doing, and always felt cheered by her writing. I am thankful that her voice lives on through her writing.

Claudia McConnell

I just found out last week that Julia is gone. I was so surprised, I thought she was alright, I thought she'd survived. I've been traveling for a few years and had left Newcastle and gone back to Glasgow about 8 years ago. I can't imagine the world without Julia. I always think of people carrying on behind me and that they'll be just the same when I next meet up with them. Sometimes when I meet people I can't believe the years that have passed since we last talked, in person. I can't remember the last time I talked with Julia...it was probably at some book launch or other, maybe 5 or 6 years ago.

Julia was the warmest, funniest and most talented person I've ever met. She made me giggle. We spent some hysterical mornings in writing workshops up at the uni in the early 90s, run by Gillian Alnutt and Margaret Wilkinson. God they really turned us inside out. I think that's where her Godess on margarine tubs came from; I love that poem. When I think of performance poetry I picture Julia and Charlie Hardwick in the Red Herring café doing the birth stuff, and all the nights in all the odd venues; of one freezing night in Morden Tower with a tiny little electric fire and an audience of half a dozen (which was not the norm). But the thing I remember most about Julia is her smile.

She is the only writer who can get people to love everything she produces, and that web page of hers, that diary marching towards death is stunning; just what I would've expected of her. I think that Julia Darling was in this world just to show us how living should be done.

Irene Cunningham

APPALLED that I have only just found out that Julia Darling died. I did not meet her but I selected a short story of hers to include on one of the Penguin anthologies of women's short stories I edited. I found her work in a Newcastle-based anthology and it stood out a mile.. she could write. That sounds patronising but is not meant to be. When you read several hundred short stories — even published ones — that are not only weak but indicate that the writer should be doing anything but writing and then you come upon a real writer, fully formed, it is such a joy.. as well as a relief and when I hit Julia`s work, I knew I had hit on the real thing.

I read work of hers later and heard some on radio. Oh yes. No change there.

She could write all right.

Susan Hill

Miss you Julia Darling!

once October meant carved swedes, russet apples,
yellow leaves
now it's pink and I'm aware of brave footballers' wives,
plucky marathon runners, and fearless explorers —
all doing well despite bc.
there's pink pasta in Tescos,
vital statistics on every news bulletin

72 per cent of us now live for ten years
Risk factors? Having kids. Not having
Kids. Or having them too late
Why don't they quote you!
"We've made an art of it.
Our skin waits like a drum,
hands folded, unopened.
Eyes are low watt light bulbs"
Roll on November,
Me? I'm fine..........

Anna Dickie

Today – entirely by accident – I found a new hero. I was driving home from a meeting and tuned in about half way through the Radio 4 broadcast of The Dark Blue Settee read by Felicity Finch. We Geordies don't often get the opportunity to hear representations of our own culture in such auspicious forums as R4, so I was well taken aback when I heard Tamworth Road in Arthur's Hill get a mention. I made a mental note to look out the author of the play, which I enjoyed immensely.

On finding Julia's website, I discovered her Manifesto For Tyneside Upon England. Superb! Here was someone who could articulate with great beauty clarity what it really means to be one of us! But even as I was relishing the experience of discovering a true Geordie creative gem, I read on through the web pages about Julia's recent death. I was deeply saddened by this information.

I intend to collect as much of her beautiful writing as possible. May her star shine on more brightly than ever.

Aidan Oswell

Note: You can listen to the broadcast until Tuesday April 18th, via the Listen Again feature of the BBC website.

Its been a year since lovely Julia left us

such a space that can not be filled.

I'm going to visit her and take my flask of tea with me

I will sit quietly under one of the trees thats waking up for the summer.

She left us her words

I'm going to feel them and drink them down

I will remember her.

Pat Fisher xxx

Spring, the season of warmth and vibrant creative energy, must surely be Nature’s tribute to Julia.
Just a week before she died last Spring she wrote in her diary “It’s really a very incredible world”.
So in memory of her, let’s make it a time to look forward, be creative, love life and live it to the full.

Babs Short