Minutes |4 December 2025

Minutes of the meeting at La Rosa Hotel on the above date.

Present: Adele, Harry, Ian, Jenny, Jill, Kaz, Laura, Magda, Michele, Pip.

Apologies: Gill, Jan, John, Suzanne.

Topic: Members’ work-in-progress.

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Matters Arising

Ian welcomed our guest today and potential new member: Jill.
Members introduced themselves briefly in turn, going round the table.

Ian then presented a token of our appreciation to Jenny for organising the Christmas Lunch which was to follow the meeting, plus her support for the Chair during 2025 which entailed chairing some meetings.

Ian began the sale of members’ books (as announced in the Reminder email) by passing round for inspection a copy of Chota Sahib (by Charles H G Nida, his uncle), giving a brief description of what it was about and how it came to be written, setting the pattern for sellers to follow. There were 4 purchasers.
All books carrying the Undead Tree (UDT) imprint were being sold today in aid of a national charity: in this case Freedom From Torture (FFT). Ian proposed that anyone taking away a UDT book would not need to pay today, but should donate directly to FFT on their website (see below).

Jenny offered three of her self-published novels: The House On Baxtergate, The Farm On The Moor, The House Under The Stars – a trilogy about a Whitby Family: the Dacres.

Harry offered his newly published non-fiction travelogue: No Right Turn At Gib, recounting the voyage of the SS Marwarri from Liverpool to Calcutta and back via New Orleans – hence the title!

Ian then offered a non-fiction title by our much-loved member, luthier Dr Richard Wood (1946-2017), with the curious title: My Lute is a Time Capsule [UDT]. It is a collection of snippets, mostly from The Independent, which are variously egregious, hilarious or thought-provoking.
The title arises from a luthier’s practice of reinforcing the inside of his instrument with scraps of waste paper, often topical news items. Since 200 years is no great age for a lute still in service (they can be readily disassembled and rebuilt), we learn of society scandal from the court of King Henry VIII from just such a source.
Richard’s collection represent his choice of snippets for the lute he was building: those that made it into the instrument plus those that didn’t.

Ian also offered further books by our (past) members:
A Song for the Bees (2010) [UDT] – an anthology of members’ poems, articles and stories.
The Wind is blowing a Hooligan, by David Agnew (1944-2018), his collection of “everyday poetry”.

Michele offered her debut novel: My Brother Themba – a dark story from apartheid days in South Africa.

Members’ Readings

There remained just enough time (5 minutes each) of members reading their work-in-progress plus 2 minutes’ discussion of each (though Ian reckoned the venue would allow us to overshoot) from the following attendees:

Michele — Beneath the Surgeon’s Coat. Dr Fryer goes on an adventure: a wagon train into the Cape Town hinterland, meeting Hottentots and wild animals.

Magda — explores Lines and Boundaries, notably Ley Lines. Coming from a scientific background, she is urged by an expert friend to try her hand at dowsing, with (initially) discouraging results. Dowsing instruments are often elaborate and expensive, but coat-hangers make tolerable substitutes.

Harry — distributed a piece criticised by a US correspondent, describing the embarkation of the SS Marwarri. She wrote “are you channelling your inner Dickens?” – which Harry didn’t know how to take. Ian (the resident “one-eyed man in the Country of the Blind” on USA matters) opined that few Americans could speak English properly and most were suspicious of people who could. Harry’s critic was no doubt referring to his ample use of subordinate clauses (virtually absent in “Merkin”). “Dickensian” would have carried a different connotation.

Pip — read from her autobiography Caicos Moon, about coming of age on a Caribbean island.
The island has long-stay visitors: John (late of Crete) plus family. They opt to decamp to East Caicos and live wild on that uninhabited island. Pip’s father, the DC of South Caicos, is annoyed: it will fall to him to keep an eye on them to check they’re okay. An inspection by boat of the said island sends the feral family scurrying for clothes.
In the ensuing discussion, Ian queried whether Pip’s term “black hole” should in fact be blue hole (see link below).

Jill — commenced reading her story about Roxanne, cloistered on a Welsh farm which she hates; much preferring to see a familiar city skyline.

The meeting closed at 1:00 PM.
This was the last meeting of 2025. We meet again on Thursday 15 January, 2026. See Calendar below.

Links (in accession order)…

Contact https://whitbywriters.com/contact/

La Rosa Hotel www.whitbywriters.com/venue

Ian www.whitbywriters.com/ian-clark

Chota Sahib https://www.lulu.com/shop/charles-nida/chota-sahib/hardcover/product-m2428w4.html

Undead Tree Publications https://whitbywriters.com/books/

Freedom From Torture https://www.freedomfromtorture.org/our-work/therapy-and-support

The House On Baxtergate, The Farm On The Moor, The House Under The Stars (see Jenny)

Jenny https://whitbywriters.com/jenny-burns/

No Right Turn at Gib https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FXBMFT97