(This post will make more sense if you read the ones below, first)

After a cold, wet weekend and a chilly Monday and Tuesday, I’ll be off back to work again in a few minutes as this is the evening for teaching my evening literacy class - something I always enjoy once I get there.

Meanhwile, here’s the next part of my story about my first public performance with the poetry group, Late Shift. See: ‘Will I make it to Ledbury Literary Festival?’

Everyone knows that stage fright is unavoidable – and there I was, on the M5 on my way to Ledbury Literary Festival and still there was no sign of stomach butterflies or clammy palms. OK, then, enjoy it while it lasts, I thought. It’ll happen with a vengeance when I get nearer to Ledbury. I entered the town and found the hotel we’d all booked into for the night. And still I felt perfectly calm.

I booked in, and went out again to meet up with the others, as arranged, at the festival office. Seeing them was a pleasure, unalloyed by any hint of lurking panic. Maybe it was saving itself till I reached the venue?

Well before the programmed start-time, we trooped in to the hall, where at least 100 chairs were waiting for the audience. Our audience! Still not a flutter to disturb my composure. Every time I’d begun to think about the possibility of stage fright, I could feel a physical block in that part of my brain. Try as I might, any thoughts of that nature refused to materialise. It was then that realisation dawned:

I’d been ‘zapped’ by our family friend, a highly skilled psychologist, who mainly worked with children. I’d been talking to him a couple of days before my big event, and worrying about the possibility of stage fright, so, in his own inimitable way, he’d fixed it.

Hypnotism doesn’t have to be obvious to be effective. Quite the reverse, I’d imagine. Whatever the truth of it, I managed to give a good-enough performance, without a twinge of stage fright. The audience seemed to be enjoying my contributions just as they enjoyed the others – and their silences were as telling as their applause.

Love Bites, by Late Shift was a huge success, and because I was never troubled by stage fright, or even the fear of it, from that day on, I’ve been able to focus on perfecting my delivery - thanks to our friend. What a gift that was!

Next stop – the Edinburgh Festival (not quite next, exactly, but maybe the most exciting !)

Gaining new skills when you get older – especially when you’re on the down-hill side of fifty - is unimaginably rewarding.