Weekly Meander #28: Layering the present on top of the past

24 hours in Cambridge. Plus a tool to control which topics you'd like to hear from me about.

Hi! Thanks for joining me on this weekly meander through my week just gone as I navigate a time of personal and professional reimagining. If you’re new here, do check out this post for a bit more about me. TLDR: I'm a documentary filmmaker coming to the end of distributing my debut feature doc -about the history of nuclear power - and currently exploring/expanding into the next steps of my working adventures, whilst also navigating parenting (including a newly received autism diagnosis) & perimenopause. Some balls may be dropped! If you enjoy my writing, do feel free to leave a comment. And of course I'd love it if you'd consider subscribing to get all my posts delivered straight to your inbox or the Substack app.

---

Hi friends,

How are we all feeling? It's been a big week out there on the global stage. Whether you're in the US or not, this week's presidential election result certainly feels seismic and I hope you're all doing whatever you need to to take care of yourselves as the implications for us all, wherever we may be, begin to be fully felt and understood.

Myself, I've been yo-yoing from obsessive consumption of rolling news and political commentary on the one hand to - metaphorically & literally - curling up and hiding under a blanket, wanting to block the world out completely, on the other. But I was also inspired by this gentle piece from

Rachel Goddard

:

Finding hope in noticing nature

Walking back from school with the kids through the woods and feeling the crunch of leaves and twigs underfoot definitely helped me feel grounded in the here and now of my own reality. If you get a chance to get out into nature over the next few days, I'd definitely encourage you to – it can’t help but make you feel better.

This kind of grounding in the present has also felt helpful for me over the past week as I've been re-orienting myself following a spot of mental time travel into my own history - by way of a brief but emotionally immersive trip to Cambridge to screen my feature documentary The Atom: A Love Affair.

I was a student at New Hall, a women-only college at Cambridge University, now called Murray Edwards, from 1996 to 1999. My journey to get there wasn't straightforward and, like a fair few of my peers, I didn't apply directly but ended up at the college via something called 'the pool'.

And yet, from the moment I stepped onto the grounds – with their stunning, decidedly 'un-Cambridgey', Brutalist white concrete buildings, with ducklings swimming in the sunken fountain court and eye-catching sculptures by female artists dotted about the verdant gardens – I felt completely at home.

Image/Murray Edwards college, Cambridge

I know it's a hackneyed old cliché to look back misty-eyed on your student days – but cliché or not, those three years really were some of the very best of my life.

I learnt how to think, to engage with other people's ideas and to interrogate and express my own, critically but confidently. I took my first steps into making films, including my one and only foray into drama, a short film called Cake, as well as my documentary debut, filmed at a dog training school in Cambridge and titled (brilliantly, I'm sure you'll agree 😄) Educating Rover - both subjects for another post, perhaps?! And I met some truly excellent people, many of whom have gone on to become lifelong friends (you know who you are if you're reading this).

But there was something else about the place too. From its foundation, 70 years ago this year, the college was an embodiment of an audacious dream and a fierce ambition for women's education.

Ann Kennedy Smith

, author of the sublime

Cambridge Ladies' Dining Society

, wrote a lovely piece earlier this year about some of that history, and some of those audacious dreamers, if you'd like to learn more:

Cambridge Notebook #10

Looking back, I'm sure I felt this history when I was studying there, though it wasn't something we discussed much amidst the daily business of lectures and supervisions, formal halls and bops¹. The very physical space seemed imbued with a sense of defiant optimism about what was possible for us as young women. And certainly as I've moved away in time from those days, that sense has become more firmly embedded in me. Each time I return, I feel it a little more strongly.

I've been back to college numerous times over the 25 years (count 'em!) since I graduated. But this one was particularly special for me, as it felt like a real coming full circle and layering up of versions of myself across time.

I had an almost palpable sense of the ghost of my younger self – made even more real by the physical reality that the bright, modern auditorium in which 47-year-old me sat watching my work up on the big screen, occupies the exact same site which previously housed the large Victorian house I lived in in my third year (demolished just months after we graduated), in which 21-year-old me stored the Hi8 video cameras and giant U-matic editing machines of the long-since-defunct Cambridge Film & TV Society on my bedroom floor.

Also along for the ride was a slightly older version of me, one from the mid-2000s, working as a development researcher in TV documentaries and pitching ideas to commissioning editors, amongst whom was one Dorothy Byrne, then head of News & Current Affairs at Channel 4, now President of Murray Edwards.

That version of me was pinching myself as my executive producer and I sat in the President's Lodge grabbing a quick bite to eat for lunch with Dorothy, before heading over to the auditorium for the screening. And afterwards, when we retired to a local hostelry for dinner…

I was so intensely aware of this physical dance with memories of times past. And my talking about it led onto a fascinating conversation over dinner about other occasions when we'd experienced this kind of full-body immersion back inside another time and place whilst re-visiting a formerly-important location from our lives, including a recent, unexpectedly moving, school visit.

The following day, with the luxury of a few hours to myself in Cambridge before getting my train home, I made a point of physically walking back along familiar roads, through Kings College and out across the Backs, to the Sidgwick Site and the English Faculty (this last one simultaneously familiar and strange, as the faculty moved into a 'new' building years ago now, but after my own time studying there).

The misty skies and autumn leaves took me right back to my first Michaelmas term in 1996 as a nervous but excited 19 year old fresh off my gap year. It was almost intoxicating – a sort of walking meditation, a way of rooting myself in, and reflecting on, the life I'm living now, by looking back at the life I lived then.

I thought of my novelist friend Philippa Holloway, who’s a keen exponent of the art of psychogeography:

The term “psychogeography” was coined by the philosopher and founder of Situationism Guy Debord as “the precise study of the effects of the environment, consciously organised or not, on the behaviour and/ or emotions of individuals” in the mid-1900s²

A key way of practicing psychogeography was through the 'derivé', a kind of destinationless wander through city streets to get in touch with whatever feelings the space might elicit - just as I was doing that morning in Cambridge.

And I thought too of the dissertation I'd submitted for my finals as an English student back in 1999 – on the significance of place in the work of Margaret Atwood. Even then it seems, I'd been drawn to how different places can conjure different senses and experiences in us. And now, a quarter of a century on, I was back in the very space where I'd written that dissertation, having my own profound experience of place.

All very meta I know. But it sent a few shivers down my spine all the same.

Here are some images of the present I captured on my 'derivé that day – perhaps you can sense something of the past in there too. And maybe you might feel inspired to go on your own psychogeographic adventure? I'd love to know if you do...

Transport, Cambridge-style

Leaves & entrances

WORK WINS THIS WEEK

1. Re-watched/started writing piece on the next entry in my A-Z of Favourite Documentary Films

This week we finally got the very long and detailed feedback from the child development clinic following my 10 year old's recent autism diagnosis. It was a great prompt to re-watch one of the autism-related films on my favourite docs list – which I did together with my son – and I'm looking forward to getting the resulting piece polished up and ready to hit your inboxes soon. Without wishing to be too spoiler-y, I think I can safely say it's a joyous hug of a film – something I reckon we could all do with right about now.

2. An exciting evolution in my planned online discussion event for nuclear war film Threads

Since my last weekly meander post, I've published both a long essay on Threads (which I'm very happy to say has been the most read piece I've ever written on Substack, with close to a thousand views and some fantastic comments) and a bonus post highlighting various companion TV shows, films, podcasts etc to help you dive in deeper if you want to. You can read both here if you missed them:

When nuclear war came to Sheffield

'Threads' bonus post

I mentioned that I'd started planning a companion online event to discuss the film with a brilliant young Cambridge academic. I am still planning this – but as a result of some serendipitous conversations, it now looks like this will hopefully be part of a larger mini-series of events discussing some other atomic weapons movies as well, probably in the early part of 2025.

If it all comes together this will be hosted by another institution doing important work in this area and I can confidently say it will be a tremendously stimulating project which I'm sure a lot of you reading will find incredibly interesting too. I don't want to jinx the discussions by saying more just yet. But it's an exciting prospect for sure so stay tuned!

3. Created separate sections within my Substack so you can control what posts you receive

Lastly, some behind-the-scenes housekeeping. As I recently mentioned, Substack includes an optional feature for writers to create separate sub-categories within their larger overall publication, so that readers can customise their subscription if they so choose. Obviously I'd love you to read everything I lovingly craft for your delectation 😄 But I'm aware that, now I've moved over to Substack, I'm sending emails out a lot more frequently than I once did. And I also know inbox overwhelm is real!

So I've set up three sections:

1. for my meandering diary posts (aka my Weekly Meanders)

2. for documentary-related posts³, and

3. for posts on atomic culture & history which I'm titling ‘The Atom & Us’ (also the name of a new written interview strand I'm launching this month featuring a collection of people working in, writing on and thinking about nuclear issues in a host of fascinating and different ways).

By default everyone on the list gets everything I send out, but if you'd rather only hear about nuclear things, or documentaries, or just my blog-style life & work updates, you can absolutely do that (though I have to warn you, it is a bit of a faff!)⁴

You need to click through to Substack itself to adjust the relevant settings. Then click on the icon for your name on the top right hand side and under the drop down menu click on 'Manage subscription'. Then you'll be taken to a form that looks like this, where you can toggle the different sections on or off.

I hope that makes sense and may be helpful for some of you. And if you need any help with anything else related to my writing and/or Substack in general, just shout and I’ll do my best to get you sorted.

Well that’s enough from me for now I think so I’ll hand the baton over to you.

• What places transport you to a different time in your life?

• Would you/have you shared any embarrassing juvenilia (just thinking about Cake & Educating Rita again😄)?

• Do you love kicking your feet through great piles of autumn leaves as you walk this time of year, or is that just me?!

Sending all my warmest wishes your way and thanks as always for reading,

Vicki x

---

Watch my film on Netflix (in Europe) or Vimeo (everywhere else) - or see trailer, reviews & bonus content HERE

Find me on X /Twitter & at LinkedIn

Life stories website – coming soon...

1. Cambridge jargon for, respectively, fancy dinners held at the various different colleges and college club nights. Though come to think of it, I don't think we did actually call them bops at New Hall (and our massive concrete dome was a much cooler venue than all those other historic wood-panelled colleges!)

2. Walking in Imaginary Shoes, Philippa Holloway

3. There's some sort of glitch that means my Koyaanisqatsi post isn't currently pulling through to this section – I'm still trying to figure out why this is!

4. All my posts will always be readable from the Meandering Over the Pebbles homepage, so you can still find them later even if you don't get them sent to your inbox when I first publish them.