Minutes of the meeting at La Rosa Hotel on the above date.
Present: Adele, Jenny, John, Michele, Pip, Ian (chair).
Apologies: Gill, Karen, Lesley.
Topic: Members’ work-in-progress.
Matters Arising
Ian asked for news of interest to members. Jenny reported watching the new BBC TV series: The Gallows Pole and asked whether the absence of a script and the consequent ad-libbing worked for other people. The consensus was: it didn’t. Moreover the constant clopping of clogs was intrusive.
Members’ Readings
Jenny — continued reading from her period novel in-progress based on the historical figure of Mary Eleanor Bowes, the heiress of a vast fortune from the Durham coalfields.
John Lyon, Earl of Strathmore, has just been refused as a son-in-law by Mary’s widowed mother. He rides away to the nearby Walden Arms, where he books a room and two bottles of brandy. Mrs Bowes has retired to bed after the emotional strain, as has Mary, who is feeling guilty about using her mother to gain entry to London social circles. Hearing from her maidservant that John Lyon is lodging nearby, Mary dashes off a 5-page letter to him, and receives a reassuring Forever Yours in reply.
By the end of summer Mrs Bowes has repented and withdraws her opposition to the marriage, and negotiations take place lasting a year. In conversation with her son, the dowager Duchess is incensed at the requirement for John to change his name to Bowes in order to inherit, referring to Mary as “the coal-heaver’s daughter”, but is won round by the size of the fortune that will accrue, which will comfortably pay for repairs and embellishments to crumbling Glamis Castle. So on February 24, 1767, in St George’s Chapel, the handsomest lord in Europe marries the biggest fortune in England.
Ian — read a poem entitled It Was A War. Members agreed it was altogether depressing. Ian promised to bring something lighter-hearted to the next meeting.
Adele — read a further instalment from her Covid Diary for 2022.
Friday 7 January. Health Secretary Sajid Javid is worried about the number of old people being hospitalised with covid. But 70% of hospitalisations are of the unvaccinated. Fylingdales school still has not recovered from a flood which destroyed library books, and covid has created a hole in pupils’ lives. The author, a council librarian, begins visiting the school to bring books and read stories.
Saturday 8 January. Deaths from covid have topped 150,000 nationwide. It is David Bowie’s birthday, which is the opportunity to hear some great songs being broadcast.
Sunday 9 January. The days of the covid map showing green and yellow for outlying regions of Great Britain are long past. It is now black overall, with the occasional pocket of dark red. Mum and William are taken for a drive, followed by lunch out. Mum takes the view that there’s no point in doing nothing and going nowhere simply to stay alive. A good day-out was had by all.
Monday 10 January. Scarborough is halfway down the league table for covid. Middlesbrough is the worst-hit in the country. Stories of parties in No 10 Downing Street are not going away, having taken place at a time when ordinary people were being fined £10,000 for simple lockdown violations. Australia has decided that Novak Djokovic can play in the Open Tennis after all.
The author reflects that news nowadays has to be sensational, else it’s not news.
John — continues with his novel in-progress Jack the Painter. The drunken hero, contemplating suicide at Portsmouth docks on Hallowe’en, meets the ghost of Jack the Painter, the most wanted man in England in the 17-cent. The piece alternates between the hero’s reflections and his altercation with the ghost who is trying to tell its own story. Declaring he has problems of his own, the hero has a flashback to a horrific incident in Afghanistan when he witnessed the bombing of a bus full of children.
Michele — read a further instalment of her novel in-progress: The Undesirables, set in Southern Africa during the Boer War, 1898-1902.
Dr Finn Milne, the new doctor at Camp Irene, has completed several weeks of visits to the nearby camp for blacks, where conditions are appalling. He is accompanied by Anna, now a trainee nurse, to act as interpreter. Basic hygiene measures are put in place, including piping-in clean water. Dr Finn attends a breech birth, both mother and baby near death. He manages to save the baby but the mother’s case is hopeless. Back in the hospital at Camp Irene, Finn begins to notice how attractive Anna has become now that she is getting adequate rations. He casually asks if she has anyone to go back to when the war is over. He instantly regrets it as Anna, recalling her dead fiancé Eloff, breaks down in tears. Knowing he will be unable to sleep for thinking about Anna, Dr Finn takes 2 drops of laudanum and falls asleep in the treatment room. Anna returns, having forgotten her shawl, and plants a gentle kiss on his sleeping forehead.
The meeting closed at 12:59 PM.
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