Welcome to another edition of WWG News!
Thanks to all the members who have got in touch with their snippets of information.
Adrienne has moved back to Whitby, and has today circulated members with her new contact details. I won’t reproduce them here because this is an open site. But if you haven’t received anything from Adrienne, or mislaid her details, get in touch with her, via me if you like, and I will get her to contact you.
Malcolm is holidaying on a friend’s farm in Zimbabwe, and sends best wishes to the Group. The weather is hot and the farm is busy. He is not sure when he will be back again with us, but ought to have some stories to tell when he does.
From a farm nearer home – Wragby Farm indeed – Pip reports that the lambing season is proceeding apace – and as soon as subsequent duties calm down she hopes to spend more time writing in one way or another.
Jonathan reports that the U3A (“University of the Third Age”) meetings have been cancelled TFN. As indeed have ours. Roger reports the same for Whitby Sheds. Members of all these groups are taking it hard, understandably so, since we’re talking about the enforced shutdown of their chief social lifeline for many older people.
Sue reports that her partner Rory “is a retired GP who has gone on the recall-to-active-duty list – and we’ve now had at least one British hospital declare that it’s in official crisis, unable to accept any more patients.”
Tonight the PM has announced stringent new restrictions on meetings and gatherings, even in the open air, and has ordered the closure of all non-essential shops. He summed up his message as: “You must stay at home”.
A resurgence of Wartime Spirit has been called for (…I don’t know what Germany is choosing to call it, but they’ve entered into the spirit of things with somewhat more dispatch than we have). Me, I’d say: Don’t Mention the War!
About the only similarity with WW2, so far as I remember it (I was only 3 then), was the insistence on pinning up every last chink in your blackout curtain. Take any risks you liked with your own life – but show a chink of light and it risked someone else’s too.
Living in London, there wasn’t a great sense of community as something which entailed life-and-death obligations to other people. And if you did feel that way you rarely got to feel it was reciprocated. I haven’t been to London in years, but I doubt much has changed. It will be a new feeling for most people there. One we’d associate more with China, or Soviet Russia.
Spoke with my daughter Leela this evening via FaceTime. My 3 year-old grandson Thomas showed a temperature at the nursery, which has led to a spell of house-arrest for the whole family. Leela was waving a bottle of beer in front of the television, evidently her family’s way of coping with the strain of social isolation. The label said “Corona” – it had been the last bottle in the shop. Wonder why?
Ian Clark
Chairman, WWG
Whitby Writers Group 