Minutes of the meeting at La Rosa Hotel on the above date.
Present: Adele, Harry, Ian, John, Laura, Magda.
Apologies: Gill, Jenny, Kaz, Michele, Pip, Suzanne.
Topic: Members’ work-in-progress.
Matters Arising
Ian welcomed Magda to the meeting, a guest introduced by Kaz. Attendees went round the table introducing themselves.
Adele outlined plan for a book festival to be called Whitby Lit Fest and to be held in November 2025 (date to be decided).
Adele also reported the recent successes of the RNLI 200th anniversary production: Facing The Wave, which members will recall critiquing with the producer Antony Bellekom at a past meeting.
Members’ Readings
Ian —
continued reading from Chota Sahib, his uncle Charles’s memoir of being a box-wallah (travelling salesman) in India at the start of WW1. The hero visits Pune (then called Poona) and has had a successful sales pitch at the famed Musketry School. He continues his journey by rail to visit his list of prospects, but decides it might be worth making calls at various native states on the way. Here his reception ranges from ultra-polite to grumpy.
Harry —
continued reading his 1960s seafaring memoir. As newly-appointed First Radio Officer on the Marwarri, he has been permitted to bring his newlywed wife Beryl on the voyage to the Middle East and India.
The ship has docked at Madras in July and the weather, which ranges from hot to hotter, is in the latter phase. Topics touched upon include near-naked dockers, women loading coal, the risk of catching leprosy and elephantiasis ashore, being assailed by hordes of children hideously maimed or diseased, plus how horses sweat, men perspire and ladies glow.
Adele —
read an article: Back To My Birthplace, drawing on her experiences as a Whitby estate agent. She was actually given the job of selling the house she was born in 30 years earlier, a cottage on the Mulgrave Estate, where her mother was in service.
The cottage was in a poor state of repair, but would make a perfect holiday home when restored. Adele contrasted her own life with the life her parents had lived, as evinced by the facilities of the cottage – or lack of them. Mother had a heavy workload washing, cleaning and cooking appetising meals for a hardworking husband and hungry family. Yet she was uncomplaining and to all appearances contented.
Laura —
continued reading from her diary about her day-job as an opinion-pollster. In this extract, describing recent events, her task was to interview users of Bridlington Bus Station on their journey experience that day. In the course of which, respondents told her several other things that were on their minds.
She encountered a great deal of anger over recent government policy, with some admitting they had been angry enough to vote Reform. Others, having voted Labour out of habit, had been sorry they did.
There was much concern over whether pensioners were about to lose their free bus passes, and when the temporary flat-rate of £2 per bus-trip for all passengers was going to end.
There being time in-hand, Laura’s piece prompted a deep and wide-ranging discussion on how recent measures had hit elderly working women particularly hard.
The meeting closed at 1:05 PM.
Whitby Writers Group 