The making of Vellum (or what I know of it)

Vellum is the result of treating and preparing calf skin so it can be used as a paper-like medium. It was used by medieval monks to create wonderful works like the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels – each page took days, weeks or months as the scribe mixed his own inks, laid out a design using pinpricks and score lines, then carefully applied shapes and colours using handmade from goose or swan feathers. Such was the impact of their work that many of the design philosophies they refined are still used today. (When I was hating a shift as a newspaper page designer, I thought back to those monks who could only dream of the speed and accuracy I could apply with just a mouse and a screen.)

The production of vellum itself took weeks or months. Time was different then. I’ve always wanted to own a vellum page but I struggle with the knowledge it’s a long-dead animal. Nevertheless, the concept of vellum means a lot to me.

During the pandemic, visiting pubs was an extremely disappointing experience. You couldn’t stand at the bar, you couldn’t meet people, you couldn’t really do anything except sit and drink, and that was never the point of pubs. So I did a deal with myself – instead of effectively wasting time and money by sitting alone and drinking, if I went to a pub I had to take the laptop and write something.

One night I scrolled through the phone, looking for inspiration, and I found the note: “Write something called Vellum.” That was it. That was all. Somehow or other, five pints later, I was heading back to the boat with the poem more or less written – very little of it has changed since that night. I don’t remember writing it; I’m not even sure which pub I was in or where I was moored. It was almost like I played the role of the paper-like medium and someone else wrote on me…

The storyline will be familiar to anyone who’s ever believed in anything, only to discover your belief has been used to fit other people’s agendas, leaving you angry, hurt and confused over how to continue your relationship with the thing you believe in. Like the monk, it’s primarily about artists and the way business corrupts the art. (“If you’ve never been ripped off, you’ve never been in the music business,” as a dear friend of mine often puts it.)

I have my own opinion on what the monk does once he’s discovered his works of art are being “collected, traded, sold…” but you’re fully entitled to your own!

Vellum appears in my anthology Signal Violet, on sale now in print and ebook versions. While you can purchase it via many online outlets, almost all of them take a bigger cut than they give me from the price. If you buy via Lulu I get the relatively fairest cut. Thank you!