At the centre of my writing room a stout desk of dark wood sits, its green leather top decorated with gilt curlicues. It is, I think, called a pedestal desk because it’s held up by two drawer units at either end. Perhaps thirty years old, it originally belonged to my dad. He installed it in his front room, the home where I grew up, a few years after my mother, his wife Margaret, died. That room, north facing, often smelled a little musty on account of its sunless alignment, its early 1970s lack of insulation and its floor vent heating system.
My Dad, Phil, bought a comfortable brown leather chair to go with it and sat there to deal with any post or paperwork, or occasionally to read one of his multitude of volumes that lined the wall-wide bookcase on his left. He used the desk drawers to store important documents and files of bills paid and bills owing. It was his habit, grounded in a career as a diligent public servant and cemented by a need to ensure he never reneged on his financial responsibilities, to keep a meticulous record of such things.
A Writing Room
In early 2016, when our family home was still full of young adult children, my husband Paul enlisted the help of his friends to build a writing room for me. Though still working full-time as a journalist, I was also writing fiction and had begun to move away from short stories to dabble in longer form pieces. The spot he chose was at the end of our garden in a tranquil suntrap where an old greenhouse had been. I remember watching it rise from the ground squat and sturdy, and how excited I was by the prospect of a room of my own. And though I’ve had it almost ten years now, and I know I could write almost anywhere if I needed to, the privilege of having a dedicated space has not waned.
The design was simple. Single storey (though not single story!), with well-insulated white walls inside, cement floor covered with click-together wooden boards, felt roof, a glass sliding door almost the width of the room and stained timber on its facade. It was, and still is, the most perfect, peaceful place to write, with a view out to our garden and a glorious strawberry tree with reddish, peeling bark.
A Trusty Writing Desk
Once it was built, Dad offered his trusty writing desk and chair to furnish it and I gratefully accepted. An old two-seater, blue leather sofa fit well against the back wall, alongside an Ikea bookcase, now adorned with novels and a sprinkling of holiday mementos.
Still, the desk dominates and my children say it makes the space smell faintly of their grandad’s front room, of musty books and comfort. And I like to think a little of him is still present in it.
A memory sticks with me of the day my dad walked down our garden to inspect the freshly painted room and his desk in its new home. It was one of those soft May mornings, a Saturday probably because he called most Saturdays for tea and warm soda brown from the local bakery. A gentle sun reflected on the glass of the wide door, its peel-off stickers still not quite removed. I slipped the catch and slid the door open and he stepped inside and took a breath.
‘Very nice,’ he said impressed. And he put his hand on his desk and patted it.
‘This is grand, isn’t it? It fits very well.’
He stood for a moment, looking at the green glass lamp, the marble pen holder with manual calendar and the Toledo sword letter opener, all of which he’d given me to go with the desk, and he rearranged them. When he was satisfied, he patted the desk once more and we strolled back up the garden toward the kitchen. Half way there, he stopped to admire a recently planted silver birch, its ghostly branches decorated with bright leaves and fluffy catkins.
‘I suppose I’ll be gone before your first book is out,’ he said.
And I hurried to contradict him and assured him he would live until he was at least a hundred, and jollied him into the kitchen. But of course, he was right. He died less than a year later and eighteen months before my first novel was published.
Wishful Thinking
Now, sitting at my desk, his desk, populated, along with his gifts, with a pile of papers and books, reading glasses, hand cream, a mug of tea and a large wooden owl, I think of that day and wish I hadn’t hurried him on to his tea and brown bread. I wish I’d put my arms around him and thanked him again for his gift to me, and told him how much it meant and would continue to mean, how much he meant and would continue to mean.
I’m not alone in that wishful thinking, I know. When a loved one dies, grief is often coloured with regret for the things we failed to say and a longing to travel into the past in order to say them. Short of inventing a time machine, all I can do when I sit down to write is honour his diligence with my own and acknowledge how he gave me the foundation that holds up my words.
(c) Fiona Gartland
Fiona Gartland is a crime fiction author and journalist. Her latest novel, Under Her Care, is due for publication in April 2026.
Visit Fiona’s website here.
And read more from Fiona on Writing.ie here.
