Minutes of the meeting at La Rosa Hotel on Thursday 29 November 2018.
Present: Adele, Louise, Mike, Pip, Roy, Graham, Ian (chair).
Topic: Members’ work-in-progress.
Matters Arising
Final numbers are in for the Christmas Lunch on 13 December. 8 members are booked, and Ian will go along to the White House after the meeting to pay-up, since the venue requires full payment in advance by 1 December. People can still join the party (apply to Ian via the Contact page) but will be choosing from the ordinary lunchtime menu.
Last Saturday’s Yorkshire Post (24 November 2018) carried a two-page spread by the newspaper’s lead journalist Chris Berry featuring the cattle-breeding and stock-judging activities of our member Pip.
At Ian‘s request Pip read out the article to the meeting. WWG makes a point of recording and celebrating all our members’ successes in any field, because nowadays books are marketed not so much on content as on the author’s back-story.
Members’ Readings
Roy [Wesson’s Dilemma] — Charlie Wesson and “Mr Brown” listen to Charlton recounting his wartime experience as an SOE agent in occupied France, since this is behind the blackmail threats he is being subjected to. Charlton describes his infatuation with Heloise, the wife of the farmer (Albert) with whom the sabotage unit he leads is lodging, and how Albert’s anger at their relationship prompts the unit to move its HQ. Listening to Charlton’s story, Wesson suddenly realises that the unit’s explosives expert, Denton Reeth, has got to be his estranged father. He remonstrates with Brown that this information has deliberately been concealed from him, in violation of the mutual trust he insisted on as a precondition for his involvement.
A lively discussion ensued on the feasibility of the timeline, as the meeting pooled its collective knowledge of WW2 history plus police practice in the 1960s. This was guillotined by Ian who insisted that we could not do Roy‘s homework for him in committee.
Louise — continued with her memoir of life as a NHS radiologist. The department’s superintendent had a relaxed attitude to timekeeping, always arriving late with two of her dogs. She was never seen to do an x-ray herself. However she seemed to know well enough what went on in her department.
The barium contrast medium used in bowel examinations afforded plenty of occasion for embarrassment and inconvenience because patients needed to void this heavy bulky material directly after their x-ray, crossing the waiting room to the toilet, clad in nothing but a hospital gown open at the back. And on one occasion the medium got given to the wrong patient.
Ian [Anitra’s Petition] — Skating in the Speil, Anitra has an accident which concusses her. She is borne off the ice by Hermes and comes round in the sick-bay with Uncle Peter and Mr Sullivan in attendance. She suffers temporary memory-loss, forgetting her gaian name but able to recall the groubian name which Nanoud gave her. Dolpou takes Anitra back to the stateroom to recover, leaving Peter and Sullivan discussing the medical curiosity just witnessed. It becomes clear to Sullivan why Peter and Gaby, both medically trained, never let a terrestrial doctor examine Anitra or her brothers.
Hermes brings flowers for Anitra, and they kiss, to Dolpou’s consternation, realising the two young people must have first met back on the Moon. Once Hermes has departed she tells Anitra how a relationship with the judge’s own son risks her petition for human rights being thrown out of court.
Adele — read two new poems:
• Rooftops – describing the view over Whitby old town,
• Sunset on West Cliff – inspired by watching the sun set over the sea at Clara’s coffee shop.
Sunset on West Cliff has been chosen as Poem of the Week.
Ian, winding up, confirmed that the next meeting on 13 December would be the last one of the year, and the group would reconvene on Thursday 10 January 2019.
The meeting concluded at 2:05 PM.
Whitby Writers Group 