Matt Kendrick
Writer | Editor | Teacher
WELKIN PRIZE 2024 - SHORTLISTED
Clay Pit Remains
by Louise Prinjha
Clay pit. Sandy lane. Aveley. I burrow into my memories. I recall the sweltering heatwave of 1976. The flies. The landfill stench. My brother and I squirming through bushes. Tunneling under high fences. Sauntering past large KEEP OUT signs. Standing at the top of a cliff created by years of excavation. Sliding down into piles of rubbish. Then, I dug into the internet. Clay pit. Sandy Lane. Aveley. I unearthed two mind-blowing facts. Our playground was the dumping ground of East London’s toxic waste. And 200,000 years prior, a steppe mammoth had died there. Leaving behind only its fossilised bones.
Louise is a medic, who has spent her career listening to and gathering stories from her patients. In 2007, she began writing her own stories in both fictional and memoir form. She studied a Creative Writing MA at Birkbeck to hone her writing skills and to become part of a vibrant writing community.
