My real name’s John Grenfell Smith, but I’ve been called Gus ever since I was at school. The only people who still call me John are two elderly relatives in Hartlepool. I’m Gus Smith when I write for adults, and Gus Grenfell when I write for younger people.
I lived in a number of different places when I was a lad – East Anglia (where I was born), Lancashire, and County Durham – but spent most of my adult life (so far!) in West Yorshire, where many of my stories are set. I now stay on the Isle of Arran off the west coast of Scotland, in an old ‘long house’ – like two cottages and a barn end-to-end – overlooking the Kilbrannan Sound and the Kintyre Peninsula, with my wife Tessa – who is a textile artist – three cats and a dog.
I’ve had many jobs during my life, including being a building society director, a market researcher, a folk musician, and a teacher working, at different times, with school refusers, adults with learning difficulties and grammar school students. This work was often part time, as we ran a smallholding, where we produced most of our own food – growing vegetables and raising cattle, sheep, pigs, goats and poultry.
We also raised a family – three girls and three boys – and we were foster parents too, with children coming to us for anything from a few weeks to a few years. We lived in a succession of rambling old farmhouses, which were always in a state of renovation that never seemed to come to an end. It was a gloriously chaotic time, and I can’t think, now, how we did it!
We always said we’d like to go and live on a Scottish island when the time was right, and we did! It was another big renovation project, but now it’s just about done, and we have a great place to live and work in.
I’m interested in all branches of the arts. In my younger days I used to tour folk clubs and festivals, though I always had a secret hankering to be a blues/rock singer. I’ve written dozens of songs and tunes, and play concertina and melodeon, though not as much as I used to. I can get by on a host of other instruments too, but concertina and melodeon are the ones I’m best at. I listen to all kinds of music – folk, rock, blues, jazz, classical.
I actually trained as an art teacher – but somehow ended up teaching English – and I love visiting galleries and exhibitions. I still enjoy… I was going to say painting, but it’s been a while since I picked up a brush; there are so many other ways to express yourself. My latest idea is an installation with a giant mock-up of a concertina as its centre-piece, looking like an old-fashioned juke box. When you press one of the concertina buttons, lights flash, and you’ll hear me singing a song or playing a tune (a different one for each button), and telling you when and where I learnt it, and a bit of personal history around it. I don’t know when it’ll be made – I need someone to help me with the technical stuff.
I’m a football fan, though mainly of the armchair variety these days, as even watching Scottish matches involves a two day trip. I do try to see a few matches at holiday times with my sons, and I’m a life-long follower of Sunderland’s varied fortunes. Ha’way the lads!
My main physical activity is walking, and I try to do some most days. There are so many wonderful coastal and mountain walks on Arran to enjoy.
I miss more frequent visits to the theatre and cinema, but at least we have the Screen Machine – a large articulated lorry that magically transforms itself into a hundred seat cinema. It visits the island every few months with some of the latest films.
Trees are constantly changing; with the weather, with the seasons, over the years. And – if you’re me, at least – you can sense some of the ancient magic that humans have associated with them from the very beginning.
Go into the heart of a wood and stand perfectly still. You can see, hear, smell and touch the trees, you can feel an atmosphere that may be either protective and comforting, or dark, brooding and scary. It’s easy to believe that a wood must be something more than just a collection of large plants. Our ancestors thought trees were inhabited by spirits, and you can understand why.
I would hate to live without trees. In my garden there are hundreds. You’ll find all the following varities, not including garden shrubs and cultivated fruit trees: alder, ash, beech, birch (2 kinds), blackthorn, crab apple, elder, fir, hawthorn, hazel, holly, ivy, oak, rowan, sycamore, whitebeam, willow (2 kinds).
The most spectacular tree is a huge ash that grows beside the burn (stream) at the end of the house. It’s about (I’m guessing) two hundred years old, and it’s not there by chance – or rather the house isn’t there by chance, because I think the tree is older than the house, and the people who built it put it there because of the tree.
In the folklore of trees, ash – and rowan – give you protection against witchcraft and evil influences. There are other houses nearby with old ash trees next to them too. I don’t know how effective they are, but I do know that my ash gives me a direct, living link to the past, to the hopes, fears and beliefs of the people who used to live in my house. That’s magic.
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