So, I have the very great privilege of staying for a whole week at Talliston House and Gardens courtesy of The Essex Book Festival. I have been lucky enough to have been involved in some spectacularly bonkers events with The Essex Book Festival and I have a feeling that this week will be another to add to the Essex Book Festival list of off the wall triumphs. I would say that it is a great opportunity to have some time on my own and a bit of peace and quiet but after an entire year of being pretty much on my own with complete peace and quiet, that novelty is starting to wear thin. This is something else entirely, however, and I am going to try and bring you a flavour of the experience in some ramblings and I hope you enjoy them as much as i will enjoy writing them.

Tallis – hidden or secret, Ton – a place in or near a wood. Talliston is literally hiding in plain sight and is a not so hidden gem sitting happily and madly in the Essex countryside of Great Dunmow. Talliston is a house where thyme stands guard at the front gate and where time has no power. Some years ago, twenty five years in fact, a man called John had a vision. Well, he started with a set of circumstances, in the way that many do, but it is what he did with those set of circumstances that makes him extraordinary. He took an ordinary house, a 3 bed ex council house semi on an estate in Essex, and turned it into a land of ten different countries and countless portals besides. Talliston is a sacred imagination space, a world of many worlds and a theatre, if you will. A space and time of suspended disbelief, a fantastical reality where house and human have the chance to play and breath together. Gathering together his favourite places and times, John has transformed each room into a different world with the most complete and utter care and attention i have ever seen. There is no detail left untended, no object left without a job, each and every item is so loved and thought through that my mind has been well and truly burst open.

To set the scene, you walk up to Talliston and the front garden is The Old Rectory, England, in 1852 complete with a 20,000 year old standing stone upon which is carved a labyrinth. The hall and stairs take you to Italy, Palazzo di Ombre, in 1992 while the living and dining room is a Welsh Watchtower in 1887. The kitchen, where i sit now, is 1954 New Orleans and just round the corner is the bathroom, a Norwegian Lighhouse set in 1986. The back garden is Ireland, 1933 and (where i am sleeping) is the shed, a Canadian trapper’s hut in 1948. Go through to the conservatory and you have a Waystation in Japan in 2282. Upstairs leads you to a bedroom in a Scottish Manor in 1911, another bedroom in 1977 Granada, Spain and a 1929 New York investigator’s office. The loft is a Cambodian tree house of course. I’m not even joking. Oh, and there is also a tipi stored under the shed which is the ultimate magic portal and is set up in a field in the summer. Every room is a moment in time and is entirely led by John’s love of those places and his love of beauty. Every object in the house knows exactly what it has to do. Each object stands proudly, knowing that it has been carefully considered and chosen for its own unique job.

All of the places are woven together beautifully in a story, The Stranger’s Guide To Talliston, of Joe, a 13 year old boy, who becomes trapped within the Labyrinth trying to find his parents and facing the challenges along the way that any decent hero must face. An ordinary boy on an extraordinary journey, there are many words that hit home. The Labyrinth is protecting the last magical places on earth which is something that rings true to the way that we are using up our beautiful earth’s powers. All of the ancient mythologies are there and set within a new story.

There are 5 motifs running as themes throughout the house. There are many many things that connect all of the disparate parts throughout the house but there are 5 motifs that represent the stories and are the bedrock for John’s thinking and way of leading life in general. There is the Oak and Acorn that is Inspirational, giving ideas for building a better now. The Bumblebee that is Challenging, to encourage continuous improvement. The Butterfly, Transforming, about creative focus on producing, not consuming. The Labyrinth, Magical, about the pursuit of dreams and adventures and the Ship, The Journey, that with inner belief, we can all achieve extraordinary things. I may focus on one of those each day that I am here. I might end up slipping through a portal and finishing up who knows not where. I can already feel myself wanting to go on about ants and the Japanese 7 lucky gods. Most of all I want to talk about magic because that is really what this is about, for me anyway. I’m guessing that each person who walks through these doors finds their own story and why wouldn’t they.

I have always believed in magic, I never stopped. Magic is ridiculed, magic is feared and people try and stamp out magic although it makes no sense, why they would want to do that? As we grow, we are told to only believe in what we can see, to tone down our imagination while, all the time, the entire universe around us is hidden in plain sight. We can’t actually see space but it is there. Our imagination is infinite, it picks out what we know and fills in the rest of the picture which is amazing isn’t it? When we play, we can go wherever we want, think whatever we want. Imagination transcends that which we are told is real and that is what we are told to dampen. The term, magical thinking, has even become pathologised as a psychological disorder, although the act of prayer could be thought of as magical thinking. What exactly is magic? Is it knowing what is possible or is it knowing what is impossible? Is it thinking about what a thing is or what it is not? We often define ourselves by that which we are not – I am not thin/clever/beautiful/rich etc etc and we become fond of creating safe binary narratives that limit our thought. Is magic the space between everything being possible (which would be very boring indeed) and everything being impossible (which would be soul destroying)? It is in the space and the contrasts of the possible and the impossible that magic lies. All of the ‘Aha’ moments lie in the spaces. Imagine that moment when you are watching a magic trick, that glorious suspension of the possible and the impossible, that feeling of intense curiosity and your heart and mind asking one question on top of the other, that holding of breath and focus on awe and wonder. That is magic. Imagine if our whole lives were directly connected to that quality of the spaces in-between. Well, that is what John has done with Talliston. The whole house manages to hold the spaces in-between, the gaps where the magic lies. Not only that, you can come and have a taste of that magic as Talliston is open to Joe public as well as Joe down the rabbit hole and round the Labyrinth. John will take you around Talliston and tell you the tale of its creation and of all of the minute details and your mind, too, will be blown wide open. John also hosts tea parties and dinner parties here and you can stay overnight in any of the magical rooms. I’d strongly advise it and, now that we are all being released back into the wild, Talliston will be open once more from the 12th April. Do it… Although don’t blame me if you end up through some portal and being very very very late back home.