Minutes of the meeting at La Rosa Hotel on the above date.
Present: Adele, Gill, Harry, Ian, Jan, Jill, Laura, Magda, Michele.
Apologies: Jenny, John, Jonathan, Kaz, Pip, Suzanne.
Topic: Members’ work-in-progress.
NB: Names and phrases formatted like this stand-in for web-links, or are awaiting the information to be linked. See the section: Links at bottom of this page for the actual links. If you are cautious about following inline web-links (and perhaps we should all be…!) then you can either accept this site’s assurance that the link is exactly as shown – and click it; or else type the text of the link yourself into the address bar of a fresh page in the good-old-fashioned way.
Matters Arising
Ian presented apologies for absent members and said Suzanne had asked him to announce that on 28 February (11-5) she would be giving a talk to promote her book Dancing in Heaven at the inaugural occasion of the Jupiter Cloud Festival in York.
Ian also informed the meeting that Jonathan was in Whitby Hospital with a broken hip and arm. Ian circulated a get-well card for attendees to sign.
The meeting also made fallback suggestions in case our venue was unable to host us at short notice. The preferences were, in descending order:
- Royal Hotel
- Library
- The Common Room, Skinner Street (newly opened)
Members’ Readings
Harry — handed out copies and read aloud Chapter 4: No Dog Scratched, from his memoir in-progress: A Last Swing of the Lamp.
It is 2 January, 1961. The Marwarri is anchored off Suez Town at the northern end of the Red Sea. A coalition of Britain, France and Israel attempting to reopen the Suez Canal by force has just been thwarted by President Eisenhower. To the Marwarri this meant a month’s diversion round the Cape of Good Hope to reach Bengal.
The scrap merchant is closely engaged with the 4th engineer in negotiations to buy the ship’s scrap metal. The latter doesn’t notice that the merchant’s underlings have purloined the scrap awaiting negotiations and loaded it aboard their bumboat. The merchant feigns injured innocence when this is discovered.
Michele — Dr Fryer has a new private patient: the six year-old consumptive daughter of Mrs Pringle, a society lady he met at one of the Governor’s dinners. When Mrs Pringle discovers the army surgeon is forbidden to accept payment, it is clear that Fryer will be receiving many more invitations to dinner: a good thing for his young patient, who will need keeping an eye on.
Magda — continued with her researches into the history and practice of dowsing. She examined the spectacular career of spoon-bender extraordinary: Uri Geller, and his collisions with the rich and famous.
Adele — read an essay entitled Freedom – a spirited condemnation of an occupational bully of her acquaintance, whose unmerited successes were brought to an end by his marriage to an equally manipulative woman who helped drive him to suicide.
Jan — is ghostwriting – or is it co-authoring? – the biography of a woman brought up in a hippy family that lived off-grid in northern California. All the children attempted, with varying success, to flee the lifestyle and re-integrate with mainstream society, each discovering their upbringing has equipped them with little to offer the world they hoped to re-enter. Jan’s subject does indeed make a successful career in dentistry: she marries an Irish-American, and they emigrate to Ireland, and thence to England, where her skills are much in demand.
Jill — has reached the end of her prologue describing the experiences of Roxanne, a wartime evacuee to a Welsh farming family. Her protagonist now becomes Roxanne’s daughter, who unexpectedly inherits the cottage of Matt, the “strange” father she never knew. She now faces having to meet the suspicious neighbours.
The meeting closed at 1:00 PM.
Links (in accession order)…
Contact https://whitbywriters.com/contact/
La Rosa Hotel www.whitbywriters.com/venue
Ian www.whitbywriters.com/ian-clark
Suzanne https://whitbywriters.com/suzanne-elvidge/
Dancing In Heaven https://whitbywriters.com/2025/11/14/dancing-in-heaven-scarborough-launch/
Jupiter Cloud Festival https://jupitercloudbooks.co.uk/jupiter-cloud-book-festival
Jonathan https://whitbywriters.com/jonathan-atkinson/
Harry www.whitbywriters.com/harry-nicholson
Michele www.whitbywriters.com/michele-randle
Uri Geller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Geller
Whitby Writers Group 