MIDLIFE WRITER

Hello, how are you today ?  I recently attended a Makaton workshop in my area. I am familiar with Makaton as I have virtually grown up with it. But it only in recent years through my church and using when I was undertaking a child care course, that I used it. Sadly I've gone a bit rusty so the course was as a refresher. And actually there were signs and that were new to me. Please feel free to leave a comment or suggestions below in the comments. I have tried to use the information in this blog to the best of my knowledge, any helpful comments will help how I research and create future blogs.  Makaton was first developed by a speech therapist named Margaret Walker in the 1970s. It was named using a few letters from the names of the first three Makaton teachers: Margaret Walker (MA), Katherine Johnston (KA) and Tony Cornforth (TON). Margaret Walker, founder won the Pride of Britain, Special Recognition Award , in 2019 for her dedication to and creation of Makaton.  Today over 100,00

We often question how long or short our poetry ought to be. To long and we risk the audience getting bored and nodding of before the end. But have you ever wondered what is the long ever poem, my brain asked me that question this morning. The answer apparently is said to be ‘The Mahabharata’, written by . Telling the tale of love and warfare between rival families It is seven times the length of The Iliad and The Odyssey combined. And would definitely exceed the word count on any social media platforms, and on here. I’ll let you find it for yourself if you desire to do so. The longest poem in English is ‘King Alfred’ by John Fitchett (1766-1838) of Liverpool, Merseyside, which is said to be 129,807 lines and took four decade’s to write. His editor, Robert Riscoe, added the concluding 2,585 lines. ‘Phew’ and I think beyond 16 lines is to big, and to when it was written there will have been no technology, no spell checker back then, possibly all written by hand and memory; is it any wond