I Was There
Shatila is a Palestinian refugee camp in outer Beirut. It does not appear on maps, and many Beirut residents do not even know it exists, let alone go there. Yet it is home to 17,000 people - some of them Palestinians whose families have lived there for several generations, some of them Lebanese drawn by the low coast of living - crammed into an area the size of a cricket field. In 1982 Shatila, and the neighbouring Sabra camp, were the scene of a massacre, when up to 3,000 people were killed.
Peter Mortimer lived two months in Shatila, towards the end of 2008. During his time on camp he created a children's drama group at the Shatila school, and adapted one of his own fables, Croak The King & a Change in the Weather into a 30-minute theatre piece, incorporating dance, music, and mime.
Despite having only the basic grasp of the language, the children performed the play in English. It was performed twice to camp residents on the writer's final day - and in September 2009 the same production came to the North-East.
Peter's book about his time in Beirut, Camp Shatila: A Writer's Chronicle is published by Five Leaves Publications (October 2009), and can be ordered from Inpress.
Read an extract from Camp Shatlia: A Writer's Chronicle
He was recently interviewed by George Galloway for Press TV, and the show can still be seen on the internet (see below). Peter says: "My interview is about 15 minutes in, with some nice footage of the Shatila children too."
Published by Five Leaves Publishing (2007)
ISBN: 978-1-905512-21-8
Price: £6.99
Where Peter Mortimer first journeyed, others later followed. He was the first writer to travel and work with fishermen out on the high seas, experiencing conditions not seen on land for 200 years. The Last of the Hunters, though much sought after, has been unavailable for years. Described as 'a minor classic', it is now brought out in a new updated format, though containing every word of the original.
Fishing is dangerous and unpredictable. Lives are often lost. This is a harsh, macho and dangerous world of thirty-foot long rust buckets about which most of us know nothing. Peter Mortimer lived the life, working on six separate boats over a six months' period, winning respect from the fishermen and developing his own respect for people whose working conditions are primitive, and whose job security is non-existent. North Shields fishermen often work with unprotected machinery for 18 hour days, exposed on open decks to the harsh elements and the vagaries of the North Sea.
This new edition contains an Afterword which brings us up to date with the people of the distinctive North Shields fishing community, and how the changes in fisheries' policy have affected them.
Original edition published by North Tyneside Libraries and Arts, 1987.
Order The Last of the Hunters from Inpress.
Published by Five Leaves Publishing (2007)
ISBN: 978-1-905512-15-7
Price: £6.99
Off the Wall is the chronicle of a unique theatrical journey which saw six Cloud Nine actors and playwright Peter Mortimer striding the width of England to perform their specially commissioned play in remote rural areas. The actors, like medieval troubadours, walked through rugged terrain along the length of Hadrian's Wall, arriving each evening at remote rural venues for their performance.
The book is a fascinating insight into the Roman Wall, the contrasting fortunes and dymnamics of such an unusual journey, plus a full transcript of the play, a fast paced satire whose main subject is Hadrian's Wall itself - and one entrepreneur's attempts to turn it into the world's longest theme park.
Order Off the Wall from Inpress.
Published by Mainstream Publishing (2005)
ISBN-10: 1-84018-946-0
ISBN-13: 978-1-84018-946-9
Price: £9.99
When Peter Mortimer was commissioned to write a play about a little-known riot between Yemeni and British seamen at Mill Dam, South Shields, in 1930, he decided to take the long trip to Yemen itself in search of inspiration. Undeterred by post-11 September government warnings against visiting this 'highly dangerous' area, Mortimer set off and found an extraordinary and surprisingly Anglophile country.
Cool for Qat documents this remarkable journey, during which Mortimer pieces together how the riots of 1930 arose and considers their relevance to Western attitudes towards Muslims today. He meets many remarkable characters along the way and immerses himself in the national custom of chewing the narcotic qat leaf.
After visiting the ex-British Protectorate of Aden - through which many of the seamen passed en route to Britain - Mortimer travels on to San'a and then Tai'iz. It is while visiting the isolated mountain villages surrounding this city that Mortimer finally meets men who worked in South Shields some 50 years ago. Carrying a battered book with images of Yemenis living in the North-east in the '30s from home to home, trying to jog distant memories, he realises his visit has taken on a new purpose - bringing a small part of the country's history back to where it belongs.
Back in the UK, Mortimer's investigations into the 1930 riot reveal a society with many striking similarities to current times. Then, as now, Muslim immigrants were treated as scapegoats for all manner of ills, tabloid newspapers drummed up prejudice and hatred, and the powers that be often used fear and racial mistrust to disguise their own economic failings. Cool for Qat questions just how 'civilised' the Western world - and Britain in particular - is in comparison to Yemen. It is a touching, thought-provoking and at times humorous document of one man's travels through a country about which little is known in the West.
Order Cool for Qat from rBooks.
Read more about the play RIOT (script now available in book form).