Supporter Annie Fanning, who has donated phone credit since the early days of PC4R, has recently published the second volume of her book, #OrkneyTales, with proceeds helping to fund our vital work. Here, you can find out more about Annie’s writing inspiration, read an exclusive extract from her latest volume, and learn how she uses her creativity to help play the Facebook algorithms each Friday during our fundraising ‘conga’…
Hello all! I’m Annie and I’ve been a member of PC4R since Jape first asked his friends to top up the phones of some refugees he met in Calais, back in 2015. In fine PC4R style, one of his friends shared the request with a group that contained a friend of a friend of a friend of my sister, who tagged me. The resonance was something else. I’ve never been a refugee or anything close, but we had to leave my childhood country (Tanzania) when I was 12 and since then I’ve been fairly rootless – boarding schools, different towns and circumstances, everywhere feeling temporary. It’s only in the last six years have I found home, here in Orkney.
In the early days, we topped up one to one, which means that Jape could message Anwar or Maya and tell them, “Your phone has just been topped up by Annie.” We would get emergency requests that we could deal with immediately by going online, buying a top-up voucher and emailing the code to Jape. It was this direct connection with someone I could help that I found so fulfilling… and still do. To know that my £10 will make someone’s phone ping with the top-up notification they have so anxiously been hoping for is a source of deep reassurance and satisfaction.
As you may well know, PC4R is a Facebook group that plays the Facebook algorithms to spread the reach of the Appeal as widely as possible. To do this, we have to concentrate all our energies into one appeal post a week – the Friday Conga – and generate as many comments, threads, likes and engagement as we can.
My comments every Friday are usually something to do with where I live, here in Orkney. Over the years, they have morphed into a Saturday morning two-minute tale for people to read while slurping the first coffee of the day, and to excite more comments to keep the Conga alive well into the weekend. Then, I was asked to apply the hashtag #orkneytales, so that people could find them more easily among the Saturday morning revels. Next, it was suggested I gather them up into a little book that could be sold to raise funds for the charity. So I did.
The first book, #OrkneyTales, was published in February 2022. It has sold 108 copies to date, raising £710. Volume 2 came out at the beginning of December 2022. It has sold 43 copies to date and (with the help of a few extra Volume 1 sales) has already raised £240.
If you would like to buy either volume, and help to support Phone Credit For Refugees in the process, you will find the books here at Tasywisp Publishing on Facebook. Each book costs £9.99 to include UK 2nd class postage and packing, and £6 of this goes directly to PC4R’s vital work.
Want a sneak peek to see what to expect? Then read on, for an extract from #OrkneyTales Volume 2…
Gale Force Laundry
When a dry day with wind force 6 or 7 is forecast, many Orcadians pop a load of laundry into the machine overnight to be ready for pegging out the next day. With a well-anchored line and proprietary storm pegs, wind speeds of up to 65km per hour get your washing dry in no time at all.
The day a couple of years ago dawned dry and sunny, with a gentle force 3 breeze, forecast to freshen to 5 or 6 by evening. “Perfect,” thought James, as he hung three lines of washing across his garden – almost all his bedding and pretty much all of his underwear. James did not belong to the ‘little and often’ school of laundering. In fact, the plan was to take the dry sheets off the line when he got home from work and put them straight back on the bed.
By midday, the sky had blackened and the wind had picked up. James, at his desk in town, sighed with the mild resignation of one well used to the capriciousness of Orkney weather. The thought of having to bring still-damp clothes back into the house and trying to dry his duvet cover on the radiator was not appealing, but it had happened before, many times.
At just gone two, his phone rang. It was Isla, his lovely elderly neighbour on the left.
“Oh Chaimesie,” she wailed. “Yur claits are coming untied from yur line.”
Isla was not the kind to panic. If she thought some of James’s washing was about to blow away across the outrun and into the Flow, she was probably right. Making his excuses to his colleagues, James jumped into his car and started for home. At the Oystercatcher’s roundabout, his phone rang again. It was Isla.
“They’ve arl gone, Chaimsie,” she warned. “There’s nothing left. But mebbee some got caught up on the hedge round the side!”
James put his foot hard down on the accelerator and sped for home. If there was any chance that he might be able to retrieve something, anything, before it was blown off the hedge or ripped to shreds, he had to take it. Just past the Scapa Distillery, the police clocked him at 85mph.
“Well,” said the Sherriff, when it was James’s day in court. “A predicament many of us will sympathise with. Tell me, did you manage to save anything?”
James shuffled in embarrassment.
“Er, yes Sir, all of it.”
“All of it?”
“Yes Sir. While my neighbour on the left wasn’t at her window, my neighbour on the right took the washing in for me.”
The Sherriff beamed with delight.
“What a blessing it is to have good neighbours. I am so pleased that this tale has a happy ending. Three penalty points and £100 fine. See the clerk on your way out. Next!”
Like what you’ve read? You can purchase Volumes 1 and 2 of #OrkneyTales by Annie Fanning here! £6 from each sale will go directly towards purchasing phone credit for refugees who are currently homeless, making dangerous journeys or living in harsh camp conditions.