Minutes of the meeting at La Rosa Hotel on the above date.
Present: Ian, Jan, Jenny, Kaz, Michele.
Apologies: Adele, Gill, John, Jonathan, Magda, Pip, Suzanne.
Topic: Members’ work-in-progress.
Matters Arising
Ian said (on behalf of Adele): The Lit Fest will be looking for volunteers to help with general duties nearer the time (6-9 November). If you sign up for updates on the website (https://whitbylitfest.org.uk/lit-fest-25/) you will get all the updates on this and other matters.
Ian asked for a show of hands on whether we should have a meeting on Thursday 31 July 2025. A majority vote said yes. Ian confirmed there would be a meeting. But there will be no meetings during August.
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.
Andrew Stoney tricks Mary Bowes into marriage before the Bishop of London by faking imminent death after a bogus duel to preserve her honour. George (the butler) and his wife Lizzie (the lady’s maid) discuss the disastrous situation in bed, and decide their best strategy is to give their new master as little excuse as possible to dismiss them.
Downstairs a party of Andrew’s friends and relations is in full swing, but with no sign of The Countess (Mary). The scene is one of chaos and debauchery. Andrew confronts Mary in her bedroom, she says she’s getting ready. In full view of Lizzie he consummates the marriage. There are no signs of pistol wounds on his body – he brushes off this fact with the remark that he heals easily. Thereafter his behaviour grows ever more creepy, arrogant, threatening and cruel.
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 again meets with Governor Sandhurst of Cape Town (based on the historical Lieutenant General Lord Charles Somerset), and is able to report a great improvement in his daughter’s condition, which he puts down mainly to grieving for her mother’s death. Fryer feels overawed by the governor’s presence, and politely maintains a professional distance between them.
Fryer, who is keenly interested in botany, meets the botanist (Joseph Maxwell) in his library. They strike up a friendship and express interest in doing fieldwork together.
The nurses at the hospital complain to the Principal about all the extra work Dr Fryer’s insistence upon scrupulous cleanliness is causing them. The Principal has no sympathy with their complaints.
The governor’s daughter continues to improve, and Fryer discovers her making detailed plant drawings. She reveals her mother was an artist. She also asks to see Fryer’s adopted dog, Bella. Fryer thinks to himself he has never had a female friend. The governor invites him into the library for a brandy, but Fryer soon excuses himself on the grounds of having to get back to the hospital for his ward rounds.
Jan — has a problem with her history of Christiana I’Anson, an Edwardian society lady who elopes to New Zealand. Her online chatgroup researching Christiana’s life has turned up evidence contradicting her assumptions about her subject’s career in New Zealand. Jan asked the group for their advice: turn her manuscript into historical fiction, or correct her history, which will entail substantial further research into a woman who contrived to vanish from the public record not just once, but four times. She has recently unearthed a biography: Before His Time, about her grandfather, Lionel Alfred Wharrad, a Midlands industrialist of dominating presence, which casts light on her own researches, and whose existence was hitherto unsuspected by her.
Kaz — read a powerful evocative piece about the preparations for, and course of events at the Whitby Regatta she had witnessed at the age of 12: the assembly of gypsies’ fairground structures on the Pier, the boats almost filling the harbour mouth, and the fabulous firework display that evening. Everyone agreed they’d like to see her article published in time for this year’s Regatta, and mentioned the Whitby Advertiser.
Kaz also sang a song she’d written: The Storyteller.
The meeting closed at 1:00 PM.
Whitby Writers Group 