Connacht Tribune
Perseverance pays off for kids’ author Patricia
Lifestyle – The hilarious alien Bumpfizzle is Patricia Forde’s latest creation. Praised at home and in the USA, she’s now signed to a top UK publisher. She tells JUDY MURPHY it all began with her mother.
From the moment Patricia (Trish) Forde was able to read, which happened before she went to school – thanks to her mother Detta, who taught Trish and her siblings to read using the Irish Independent – the child had her head stuck in a book.
“My mother says she never saw the top of my head until I turned 14,” recalls Trish with a laugh. The inveterate reader went on to become a children’s author and now, three decades after her first book was published by local company Salmon Press, Trish has signed a deal with Penguin Random House Children’s section. It will see two of her illustrated children’s books being published by its Puffin imprint in the UK.
The former teacher and Artistic Director of Galway Arts Festival was born in Castlegar and moved to Galway City’s Market Street when she was 10. She has been writing all her life, even while working as a primary teacher and later as Artistic Director of Galway Arts Festival. The fluent Irish speaker then went on to write scripts for Ros na Rún and other TV dramas, in Irish and English. But children’s books are her first love and she has authored many, in Irish and English, with picture books being a particular passion.
The latest is Bumpfizzle the Best on Planet Earth, with illustrations by award-winning artist Elína Braslina. Published in Ireland by Little Island, it’s the hilarious story of a youngster who explains that he’s an alien on a mission to earth from Planet Plonk. Bumpfizzle is obliged to give regular reports to his Great Master on Planet Plonk and these are laugh-out-loud, as he documents life with his earthling family.
This fabulous creation, who’s trying to make sense of life on earth, was inspired by a voice Trish heard one day.
“I just heard this voice in my head saying ‘what to do, what to do?’ and got this idea of a family who has an alien living with them. He’s looking at the family baby trying to work out what it is,” she explains. Trish captures his confusion perfectly – one of Bumpfizzle’s observations about the baby is that ‘it leaks from both ends’.
Half way through writing the book, Trish had a dilemma. “Was Bumpfizzle an alien or simply a jealous older child?” With that in mind, she had “a delicate balancing act” to complete it and not lose the magic.
She succeeded and, ultimately, it’s up to the reader to decide whether Bumpfizzle is of this earth or not. In either case, he’s wonderful.
“It amazes me how your head works,” she says about how inspiration can strike. “For me it’s a pool of words that I hear in my head, or a voice, as it was with this book.”
For Trish, writing Bumpfizzle was the perfect light relief following her previous, more serious novel, The Wordsmith (also Little Island).
Written for young adults, it’s set post-apocalyptic location, Ark, where a despotic ruler, John Noa, has restricted people’s vocabulary to 500 words on the basis that words are destructive. Its heroine is Letta, a wordsmith’s apprentice whose job to give people the limited words they need. As the plot unfolds, Letta realises that Noa’s ultimate aim is to totally rid Ark of its language and therefore its culture and she must act.
Published in the USA as The List, it struck a chord in the Trump era, where language has become so debased.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
Galway 3-18
Cork 1-10
NEW setting; new opposition; new challenge. It made no difference to the Galway minor hurlers as they chalked up a remarkable sixth consecutive double digits championship victory at Semple Stadium on Saturday.
The final scoreline in Thurles may have been a little harsh on Cork, but there was no doubting Galway’s overall superiority in setting up only a second-ever All-Ireland showdown against Clare at the same venue on Sunday week.
Having claimed an historic Leinster title the previous weekend, Galway took a while to get going against the Rebels and also endured their first period in a match in which they were heavily outscored, but still the boys in maroon roll on.
Beating a decent Cork outfit by 14 points sums up how formidable Galway are. No team has managed to lay a glove on them so far, and though Clare might ask them questions other challengers haven’t, they are going to have to find significant improvement on their semi-final win over 14-man Kilkenny to pull off a final upset.
Galway just aren’t winning their matches; they are overpowering the teams which have stood in their way. Their level of consistency is admirable for young players starting off on the inter-county journey, while the team’s temperament appears to be bombproof, no matter what is thrown at them.
Having romped through Leinster, Galway should have been a bit rattled by being only level (0-4 each) after 20 minutes and being a little fortunate not to have been behind; or when Cork stormed out of the blocks at the start of the second half by hitting 1-4 to just a solitary point in reply, but there was never any trace of panic in their ranks.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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GARDAÍ and the IFA have issued a joint appeal to all road users to take extra care as the silage season gets under way across the country.
Silage harvesting started in many parts of Galway last week – and over the coming month, the sight of tractors and trailers on rural roads will be getting far more frequent.
Inspector Conor Madden, who is in charge of Galway Roads Policing, told the Farming Tribune that a bit of extra care and common-sense from all road users would go a long way towards preventing serious collisions on roads this summer.
“One thing I would ask farmers and contractors to consider is to try and get more experienced drivers working for them.
“Tractors have got faster and bigger – and they are also towing heavy loads of silage – so care and experience are a great help in terms of accident prevention,” Inspector Madden told the Farming Tribune.
He said that tractor drivers should always be aware of traffic building up behind them and to pull in and let these vehicles pass, where it was safe to do so.
“By the same token, other road users should always exercise extra care; drive that bit slower; and ‘pull in’ that bit more, when meeting tractors and heavy machinery.
“We all want to see everyone enjoying a safe summer on our roads – that extra bit of care, and consideration for other roads users can make a huge difference,” said Conor Madden.
He also advised motorists and tractor drivers to be acutely aware of pedestrians and cyclists on the roads during the summer season when more people would be out walking and cycling on the roads.
The IFA has also joined in on the road safety appeal with Galway IFA Farm Family and Social Affairs Chair Teresa Roche asking all road users to exercise that extra bit of care and caution.
“We are renewing our annual appeal for motorists to be on the look out for tractors, trailers and other agricultural machinery exiting from fields and farmyards,” she said.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
