The Luminous Girl

Photo of Lucy Partington by Roger G. Partington

At the heart of Something In Nothing is the story of the Luminous Girl, a bright young woman with an angel on her shoulder. She is the light to Bluebeard's darkness.

She first appears in the poem "Enter Our Heroine." Various characters watch her as walks through the town, not just Bluebeard, but also Beauty, the young man, and of course the Girl's mentor and unlikely fairy godmother - the old woman at number 5. The Girl visits the square, the cathedral, the old woman's garden, Chapel Park, the bookshop and a student cafe. Everywhere she brings her "elegance and firm grace" and of course light.

As I have previously mentioned in my blogpost about the background to the collection, I was inspired (if that is an appropriate word perhaps "triggered" would be better) by a real Luminous Girl, a young poet I knew called Lucy Partington, who was murdered by Fred West.

At the end of the online launch of Something In Nothing I had a discussion with Fiona Sampson, in which I talked about Lucy. I have agonized over the years about how I could write let alone publish this collection. In the end I did not talk about Lucy in the collection itself, but rather in this blog and in interviews. I did not want to exploit Lucy's story and I am sure there was an element of survivor's guilt in my decision. Lucy was just standing at the wrong place at the wrong time - at a bus stop in a park that hundreds of school girls crossed every day, it could have been any of us.

Mary Mulholland in her review in Alchemy Spoon Substack wrote that she wondered "why this information wasn’t included for it affords the book a poignancy which was not elicited by the more generic description", so maybe I was wrong. Lucy is too often portrayed as a victim, a name in a list of names, but Lucy was so much more than that - she was a luminous person and a talented young poet.

Lucy's sister Marian was in the audience for the launch and wrote me a lovely email afterwards, which has taken away my anxiety and feelings of guilt. The audience at the launch responded wonderfully: "Lucy is part of your community, part of ours as poets", "a beautiful way to honour Lucy as the luminous girl she was. " All of which makes me even more determined to celebrate and remember Lucy through my readings and the book.