It was out of that juxtaposition, I think, that the central idea of The Binding was born: that people can put part of their lives into a book, and walk away remembering nothing. Would I do it, if I could? What would it be like? And what would the wider implications be? But occasionally I’d come across someone who was ‘stuck’ – whose whole life had become defined by a story where they were a victim or a villain – and I began to wonder what would happen if I could simply reach out and take that story away from them, leaving them to begin again. Being a incorrigible daydreamer – ahem, I mean, writer – I suppose it was inevitable that I’d pretend I was an apprentice, and start to imagine the life around me…Īt more or less the same time I was a volunteer with the Samaritans, and had the privilege of hearing people’s stories, which were often traumatic or painful, and ‘holding’ those stories for them, feeling that my act of listening somehow helped them to heal.
It was all wonderfully tactile, with a sort of subtle glamour that made me imagine another, older, world. I started studying bookbinding a few years ago, and I was immediately seduced by it: by the processes that haven’t changed in centuries, the materials – the coloured papers, gold, embroidery silk, leather – and the tools, which are made of wood and bone and metal. She is the author of seven acclaimed books for young adults and has had two plays produced, one at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Bridget Collins trained as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art after reading English at King’s College, Cambridge.
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