Minutes of the meeting at La Rosa Hotel on the above date.
Present: Adele, Harry, Ian, Jan, Jenny, Kaz, Laura, Magda, Michele, Suzanne.
Apologies: Gill, John, Jonathan, Pip, Suzanne.
Topic: Members’ work-in-progress.
Matters Arising
Ian said he’d seen Adele’s photo on the front page of last week’s Whitby Gazette in connection with Whitby Lit Fest, and was there anything she wanted to say about it. Adele said the article took her by surprise, since the photo shoot had happened weeks ago. But the article covered the Lit Fest’s acquisition of a new and useful partner, Cause UK, who would help them organise the event and bring their fund of experience to bear.
Adele said in connection with booking the Spa, that its main halls had a maximum of 300 seats each. This was true of Whitby in general: its venues all max out at 300 seats. But agents and publishers generally tell their big-name authors not to accept bookings for venues with less than 500 seats. This is poses a problem for our Lit Fest.
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.
Mary and her current beau, Mr “Nabob” Gray, have been tracked down by the unscrupulous Andrew Stoney at Grosvenor Salon in London. Mary has discovered that two of her dresses are muddy and stained. Andrew, seeing the opportunity to rid himself of Mrs Parrish, the longtime servant of the Bowes family whom he has been cultivating for information about Mary, owns up to the servant having worn Mary’s dresses at his instigation in order to accompany him socially. This angers Mary, who is urged by both Andrew and Mr Gray to dispense with the hapless lady’s services forthwith, and to pension her off with £1,000. A blazing row ensues between Mary and her discharged servant who, by means of veiled threats to expose Mary’s scandalous private life, succeeds in upping the severance to £2,000.
Magda — continued with her social history of Covid 19 and Lockdown. The author takes exception to the government’s use of the term “lockdown” hitherto associated with controlling prisoners, plus the cavalier redefinition of words like “pandemic” and “case” to mean whatever the government wishes them to mean in support of draconian measures carrying legal sanctions. She served 3 affidavits on the Cabinet Office to define these terms, or admit by default that enforcement measures based on them have no legal validity. All 3 affidavits are ignored, which legally empowers her to disregard the laws concerned.
Michele — read out the introduction and prologue to her completed novel: The Undesirables, set in Southern Africa during the Second Boer War of 1898-1902. The novel is introduced by a brief historical summary of the causes of the War, which began when British troops invaded the Transvaal to support the seizure of its newly discovered wealth in diamonds and gold. The prologue compellingly describes the Boer heroine Anna expertly shooting an impala, which foreshadows the difficulties the British would face against such foes.
Jan — continued reading her history of Christiana I’Anson, an Edwardian society lady who elopes to New Zealand with her lover Isiah and her three children. Her divorce has gone through, but her ex-husband has been awarded custody of the children, plus a massive amount in damages which would bankrupt Isiah, hitherto a man of standing and substance. Christiana and Isiah have established themselves fairly comfortably in New Zealand, but they now face court action there and decide to flee again, this time to Tasmania, where they will not be found so easily. The family board a modest steamer, the Southern Cross, bound for Hobart. There they move into a £150 house (the New Zealand house had cost £500). Christiana is shocked by Isiah’s parsimony, enforced by their straitened circumstances. She yearns for status in the community, but Isiah, who has had status and lost it, is preoccupied by lack of money.
Adele — read an entertaining poem: I seem to have lost my muse, an appeal to all and sundry to locate her errand Muse as if she were a lost family member, and effect a reconciliation.
Kaz — read out two song lyrics composed by her son, planning to set them to music herself:
Soldier of Memory: a soliloquy by a metal soldier left to rust and forget. Or is he a flesh-and-blood man?
The Fall: an apocalyptic poem about rock, moon and stars.
Harry — read a further passage from Sea Wife. The SS Marwarri, diverted from its journey home, has crossed the Atlantic for America and is now off the mouth of the Savannah River, lashed by the skirts of Hurricane Donna. Water has entered the radar hut and wrecked the equipment. The pilot has arrived but declines to enter the River mouth without radar assistance, which means the ship will have to anchor till daylight. The author takes about an hour to cobble up a fix for the radar.
Laura — reads an extract from her occupational diary, describing her work as an opinion pollster. The current poll takes her to Grangetown, a deprived township just east of Middlesbrough, her client being the local authority who are keen to plan for leisure provisions. She finds herself asking some almost destitute passers-by such questions as “how satisfying is your life?” [if it weren’t for pets/family, not at all!] and “can your neighbours be trusted?” [Nope.]
Laura asked the meeting if the material she was collecting (stripped of course of all identifying information about her interviewees) might be entertaining enough for a general readership. The consensus was yes, definitely. The sheer absurdity of the situations her clients got her into held out promise of that.
The meeting closed at 1:10 PM.
Whitby Writers Group 