Minutes of the meeting at La Rosa Hotel on the above date.
Present: Adele, Harry, Ian (chair), Jenny, John, Kaz, Laura, Michele, Pip, Suzanne.
Apologies: Gill, Jan, Jonathan, Magda.
Topic: Members’ work-in-progress.
Matters Arising
Adele gave a brief report on the Boggle Hole workshop: A Way With Words, run by Suzanne Elvidge and Steve Hoey, with guest speaker Garry Burnett.
WWG members who were present: Suzanne, Michele, Adele, Ian.
Adele also reported that Whitby Lit Fest has announced the headline authors for the festival, scheduled for 6-9 November 2025. The organisers have successfully signed up Lee Child and Rob Rinder to head the bill.
Members’ Readings
Adele — read an articulate diatribe about being failed time and again by male-oriented medicine in matters concerning contraception, sterilisation and Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). This provoked a lively discussion which Ian was reluctant to guillotine.
Michele — continued reading her new novel Beneath the Surgeon’s Coat, recounting the career of the fictional Dr James Fryer, who is based on the historical personage of James Barry (born Margaret Anne Bulkley in 1789).
Dr Fryer takes up his new post as military surgeon in Cape Town, and is eager to make a start on ward rounds. He makes himself unpopular with the nurses by his zealous insistence on scrupulous hygiene, a feature of his career which will contribute to his notable success in the post. He is summoned to meet the Governor of the colony, a striking man who makes a profound impression on him.
Laura — read from her Opinion Pollster diary about a survey into tobacco abuse by homeless people, revealing heartbreaking stories of health problems caused by the habit, often taken up to combat the grief of sudden misfortunes. Many of her respondents seriously tried to give up smoking, but had failed to sustain the effort. A lady who at first refused to respond later sought Laura out to reveal her story.
John — read a humorous poem: Folk Bloodbath, which observes that the appearance of a banjo at a folk song event is the signal for an inevitable torrent of blood and guts in the songs to be sung.
Suzanne — read a story: Dreading Christmas, told by a mother grieving over the loss of her son Andrew by suicide after his partner Brian had contracted AIDS and died. Andrew had been rejected by his father David, the narrator’s husband, when he came out to the family about being gay.
Jenny — continued reading Chapter 22 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.
Scurrilous anonymous letters start appearing daily in The Morning Post, attacking Mary Bowes’s licentious lifestyle and her neglect of her children. Andrew Stoney, writing as “Monitus”, undertakes to defend Mary in a spirited if flowery style. But Mary’s faithful butler George Walker is not deceived. Having already spied on Mary’s secret tryst with Stoney, which he views with deep misgiving, he notices similarities in style and vocabulary between the letters attacking and defending Mary, and feels compelled to act, though without revealing his suspicions. He goes to great lengths to persuade a reluctant Mary to instruct her solicitor Joshua Peel to make legal provision for her children by dividing up the estate to ensure their share. When Mr (Nabob) Grey discovers what Mary is about to sign, he is all in favour.
Harry — continued reading from his current memoir Sea Wife, Chapter 30: A Streetcar named Desire.
It is September 1960. The SS Marwarri has crossed the Atlantic and is now at anchor at the eastern mouth of the Mississippi River, awaiting the pilot’s order to proceed to New Orleans, 100 miles upstream. The pilot tells them that the river has “an arcuate estuary bedevilled with avulsions”. The captain has no patience with the pilot’s erudition.
Ian — continued reading from his long-awaited novel: Anitra’s Petition.
It is June 1994 in Esh Winning, Wear Valley. Anitra comes home with the week’s shopping, hoping to get on with knitting a jumper for a boy she fancies. But first she makes a mug of tea for Uncle Peter and goes in search of him. She interrupts a difficult conversation concerning herself that Peter is having with an unexpected visitor: an important official from the planet Mars.
The meeting closed at 1:11 PM.
Whitby Writers Group 