A life in London

It will always be difficult for me to juggle working with my ‘other’ interests. I am a 28-year-old woman living and working in London, and in my case the ‘other’ is writing and music. Everything else fits in around them.

I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t writing something. I’ve written short stories since I was tiny and if I go for more than a week without writing something down then I’ll either be grumpy like a bear or exhausted.

I first learnt to play the violin at school and joined various orchestras and chamber groups as a child. I now play in bands, usually ones with some kind of folk influence. There’s something quite funny about seeing the big boys with their guitars, and then me tootling along in the background.

Like the queen of England I have two birthdays! It is always fun to have both my calendar birthday and my Parsi birthday (roz) to look forward to. Not only does it get me a couple of more presents than I would have otherwise, it is also great for easing the pressure over who to spend my birthday with. Also, my mum putting chalk with a fish motif outside the front door and us having our own little ceremony with the tilo (vermillion mark on forehead), yoghurt and rice every year does bring me a little closer to my Zoroastrian roots.

Bahar Brunton

It was interesting to grow up with my Zoroastrian mother and atheist father in London. Obviously, living here, I was surrounded by people of many backgrounds and faiths, but I have found this is not something which most of us talk about. It just is, and is accepted, at least in my experience.

Perhaps growing up surrounded by such different outlooks influenced my ability to write from different characters’ perspectives. In daily life I can always see things from both sides of the argument. But then maybe I am just looking for something to link and explain my behavior. Not every writer comes from a background that is similar to mine, and plenty of people are able to view situations objectively.

I lived in Brighton on the south coast for three years while I was at university. It is a wonderful city filled with artistic people and a vibrant music scene but it always seemed that I would move back to London at the end of my course. I really couldn’t imagine living apart from any of my family and friends staying in London. This city is also a useful place to live in as it provides many opportunities to further artistic ambitions.

A scene from The Highwayman

After leaving school and university I was faced with the awful question of ‘what now?’ Beyond deciding to continue living in London I had no real answer to this. But I had to earn a living, so I did a couple of short-term office jobs, and quickly found out they weren’t for me. They were perfectly fine jobs, working with nice people and for good money, but I found the whole environment very difficult and could not write one word during my time there.

I’ve had a few moments of real luck in my life, and one of them was meeting the band "The Boy Least Likely To.” I had been playing violin in a few bands, both during my time at university and beyond, and was playing with another band when I met these guys. They were headlining a gig that I was playing at, and afterwards asked me to join them. For the next two years I had a wonderful time touring with them. We did a few tours around Britain, two in America and even had a one-off trip to Sweden. I was able to earn enough of a living to get by while I was playing with them, and had plenty of time to write during the weeks in between our touring. My time with them ended when they decided to use different instruments for their next album, but it really had been lovely while it lasted.

Reality came calling and I needed to find another way to earn money. I happened to see an advertisement for a vegetarian cook in the window of Dandelion, a local health food shop, and although I had never cooked professionally I thought I’d try for the job, just for interview practice, really. To my immense surprise I got it, and I have been there ever since. I enjoy creating new dishes and the hours fit in so well with my writing that I can’t complain.

I had another stroke of luck not too long after I had started working there. I met Kate Sawyer, an actress, who had just started up her own theater company, The Curious Room. Having read some of my work she asked me to write a play based on the poem The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes for them to take to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It was performed in London on The Battersea Barge before spending a month in Edinburgh, and I nearly passed out from nerves every time I saw it!

Since then, a few more exciting things have happened with my writing. I had a short story, "The Evil Around The Eyes,” read out at an "Are you sitting comfortably?” evening. These are nights put on for new writers by The White Rabbit. Also, another short story, "Earthly Creatures,” was short-listed for last year’s London Short Fiction Award. An audio version of this story is available to listen to on the website four­thirtythree.com. At the moment I am working (with director Sergio Amigo) on a play based on the life of Sofka Skipwith, a Communist Russian exile with an amazing life story.

I am working in London, writing away and playing my violin with my friend Luke (under the name "Little Bear”). Everything seems to fit in, and I just wish that I could do more of it.