Minutes of the meeting at La Rosa Hotel on the above date.
Present: Adele, Gill, Harry, Jenny, Jonathan, Kaz, Lesley, Pip, Ian (chair).
Apologies: John, Laura, Kaz, Michele.
Topic: Members’ work-in-progress.
Matters Arising
Ian asked Jenny to report on progress with organising the Christmas Meal. Jenny asked for venue preferences, and it was eventually decided to book with The Magpie Cafe for 7 December at 1:15 PM.
Pip recommended Harry’s book: The Best of Days, a memoir of the sea.
Jonathan announced a performance by the U3A Singers at Flowergate Reform Church (opposite Skinner Street) on 8 November at 2:30 PM.
Members’ Readings
Jonathan — read an article describing the adventures surrounding the inaugural Lawn Tennis championship at Wimbledon, 1877, and involving one of the competitors, the Revd J T Hartley of Burneston parish.
Kaz — read two of her poems: No Stars Overhead and Krampus.
Harry — circulated and read aloud his moving poem about a dying soldier crushed under a cannon in a 19-cent battle. He had offered the poem for analysis by a newly developed AI tool for writers, and he circulated the tool’s report. The critique was remarkable both for its insights and for its blind spots: the most notable being its complete failure to recognise poetry, and war poetry in particular, observing that the piece “didn’t have a traditional narrative structure.”
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. Irish soldier-of-fortune Andrew Stoney displays his odious nature by beating-up his wife Hannah in front of witnesses, for remonstrating with him for bringing home his “whore” and trying to pass her off as his cousin. Andrew has discovered to his chagrin that he could not legally get his hands on Hannah’s fortune until he had fathered a son by her, after which he would be allowed to administer the estate on behalf of the boy until the latter’s majority.
Lesley — read a Hallowe’en short story entitled By Invitation Only. Newlyweds Mark and Sandy are invited to a dinner party by Aunt Eliza, whom he has never met, but is reputed in the family to be a witch. Expecting an ugly old crone, they are surprised to be welcomed by a beautiful mature lady who makes them comfortable in a well-appointed guest suite. Unexpectedly a fourth place has been laid at table, and presently a gentleman arrives and is introduced as “John”. He says little, but Aunt Eliza treats him as an intimate. Next morning, the strange guest having gone, it emerges they have just celebrated the Celtic festival of Samhain, at which the beloved dead return to feast with the living.
Adele — read a further instalment from her Covid Diary. It is end-February 2022. All legal requirements surrounding covid-19 have been ended, and there is no weekend report of infections and deaths, the figures being now merged with Monday’s. The author discusses the anomalies surrounding covid classification, and asks what the point was of reporting a death as due to covid when it wasn’t?
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has driven all covid news from the networks. Extensive sanctions are announced against Russian oligarchs with connections to Putin, and Roman Abramovitch has seen fit to place Chelsea Football club under a board of governors, whilst retaining ownership pending its sale. Many retail shop chains are pulling out of Russia.
A new immunotherapy drug Baricitinib has been approved for hospital treatment of covid-19. The new Omicron strain of sars-cov-2 is beginning to spread, though what effect this will have on mortality and hospitalisations is unclear. Morale is low in the NHS, as over 300,000 are waiting for treatment for general conditions. Patients are being advised not to wait for ambulances, but to get themselves to hospital. Mother’s partner William has been admitted to Scarborough Hospital in emergency.
Gill — read from her recently published children’s book, Dust Bunnies – the Uninvited Guests, which describes the perils of these mythical beasties which breed in the squalor of a poor-quality boarding house.
The meeting closed at 1:05 PM.
Whitby Writers Group 