Apologies were received from: Clive, Carolyn, Cathy,
Les, Martin, Mairéad, Barry, Tom, Caz and Beryl.
In Attendance:
Suzy, Richard, Liliane, Derek, Dick, Tony, Jane, Dave and Steve who came
along for the first time.
Circumstances
often affect meetings like ours and tonight was another exception to our
generally healthy rule. Obviously everyone has reasons for not attending and
tonight was no exception. Let’s send our thoughts to Les for a full recovery
after his operation, also to Caz whose aunt passed away in the afternoon. Of
course there are those who are unwell and our thoughts should go to them too
whilst others have various commitments, holidays and travel plans to contend
with.
Then
of course our meeting was a little late starting mainly due to those travelling
into Felixstowe along the notorious A14 who were delayed by an accident. I have
been travelling to the Scribblers for many years and this was the first time I
had been affected in this way – fortunately I was able to weave my way through
Kirton and the Trimleys to arrive in fairly good time.
On
the brighter side it was nice to welcome Steve along to his first meeting.
Having heard about the Scribblers at the Book Festival he later attended an
author talk in the Library and decided to come and find out whether our group
would be a benefit to his own writing. Let’s hope some of the feedback he
received from the extract from his novel and the response to his questions were
useful.
Next
I must thank Mairéad for donating Phil Rickman’s novel ‘Night After Night’ for
the Scribblers. A draw was held and I was the lucky recipient although
circumstances meant I was unable to receive the book until today. A ghost
story, it looks to be a real chiller. Thank you Mairéad. I look forward to
reading it.
Thanks
also to Caz for donating a tin of biscuits for our Scribblers coffee break.
Much appreciated!
Further
thanks to Liliane for regularly collecting the Library key. She will miss our
final meeting of the year as she will be flying out to Australia for a well
deserved holiday with her family.
We
heard from Martin who explains that his work schedule is such that he has
stopped writing for the time but hopes to be able to return sometime in the New
Year. We really hope so and he is one of our most talented writers.
The
homework assignment on ‘Absent Friends’:
Suzy: Absent Friends: Anna planned the special dinner to
celebrate Phil and Wendy’s imminent baby, Simon’s engagement, Claire passing
her driving test and Will landing the job of his dreams. She prepared the table
ornately, laid out with all the places set, and even employed a butler for the
evening. He was Kris from Denmark. Then the phone rang. Phil’s wife Wendy had
gone into labour. Two places removed from the table. Next the police rang. Will
had been in an accident. Kris removed another place setting. Then she saw
Simon’s text that he’d run out of petrol on the motorway. Kris removed yet
another setting. Finally Claire phoned, having gone down with a sod of a cold.
So Kris joined Anna for dinner. After he had left she lay on the sofa and
murmured, ‘To absent friends.’
Steve: Three Degrees of
Freedom: An excerpt from his book: The
scene in Chapter One was set against the sun and sea in a South Coast hamlet.
He was on a break, seeking all the excitement of scuba diving during the summer
of 2011. He stayed in the Fisherman’s Cottage where a map of the wreck site was
spread out on a table. As he checked over it, he recalled the wreck had been
torpedoed in WW1 and was laying there on the bottom waiting for him and the
other divers to explore the mysteries of the sunken vessel. There were six of
them, three men and three girls. The opening chapter was discussed in length,
in fact the whole novel had been re-written twice.
Richard: Oh Yes I
Remember: When I
reached sixty I sought out old friends that worked well though it took a few
key facts to enter conversation. Not on the list was Barbara, a girl friend
from forty years earlier. She was older than me. I met her at a seminar in the
Harz Mountains and was the reason I moved to Germany. It all ended four years
later. Now, 40 years on I waited with a mutual friend who had invited Barbara
to the Spanish restaurant. Her taxi driver took her Zimmer frame from the boot.
She was old, stooping and slow. Barbara was slow at responding, but we shared
selective reminiscences. Then the truth struck me. I had deluded myself that I
was approaching middle-age but I realise the truth, I am old. The past is a great
place to live but it’s a trap. I remember Barbara’s Zimmer frame.
Dick: From Tragedy to
Friendship, a true story: It
was 1948 when it happened. Dad came home from work and, after I had gone to
bed, he related the story of young Colin who went home from school to find his
mother trying to gas herself and his little sister. He broke in, switched off
the gas and phoned 999. His mother was sectioned and his sister taken into
care. Colin’s dad found it difficult coping so when my Dad asked me if I would
like a brother for about a year I said ‘yes’. I accepted Colin though the first
weeks were difficult but eventually he came out of his shell and we shared
friends and the same school. Eventually he went home again and we kept in touch
with Christmas cards through the years. When his wife passed away I thought it
would be nice to meet him again and so in the summer of 2010 he stepped down
from the bus and the past 62 years just slipped away.
Jane: Read ‘Meeting Point’ by Louis MacNeice which she dedicated to her sister. Here are the first verses of this rather lovely poem:
Time was away and somewhere else,
There were two glasses and two chairs
And two people with the one pulse
(Somebody stopped the moving stairs)
Time was away and somewhere else.
And they were neither up nor down;
The stream's music did not stop
Flowing through heather, limpid brown,
Although they sat in a coffee shop
And they were neither up nor down.
The bell was silent in the air
Holding its inverted poise -
Between the clang and clang a flower,
A brazen calyx of no noise:
The bell was silent in the air.
Derek: Us Suffolk Boys: Another really powerful work from
Derek. An extract from his Great Uncle’s unpublished book tells of him and his
three mates joining the Suffolk Regiment for the war predicted to be over by
Christmas. I visited the Menin Gate in 1968. Fifty years had not erased the
sounds, the smell, the suffering and futility of the trenches. Young, innocent
and naive when I joined up escaping from the noise and dirt of Ransome’s. Bertie
worked in Philip and Piper, a reputation with the female machinists. Harry
worked on the Docks, hard as nails and always smiling. Charlie was always in overalls,
a mechanic by trade. I saw the ocean of carved names in the Portland Stone and
remembered last seeing Harry on the back of a horse drawn ambulance. He died
two days later. Bertie was never found, his body, or remains from the blast,
lay in reddy brown farmland. Charlie and I played in that Christmas Day
football match when the two enemies met halfway between their lines. Charlie
was killed two days later. I stood, head bowed, The Last Post playing into the
night. Agnes squeezed my hand, tears ran down my cheeks. I remember you
Charlie, and Bertie and Harry, your names liveth forever.
Dave; Absent Friends: A bit of a mystery really. At a business
dinner Monica wanted to know why my wife Claire wasn’t with me. I was reluctant
to tell her even if I really knew her whereabouts. Claire and I had an office
affair resulting in a positive pregnancy test, a quickie wedding at the
Registry Office before my hateful father-in-law paid the deposit on a new semi
miles away from work. I drove home from the function to a cold empty house. The
rancid smell drifted down from the bathroom. I retrieved the final dregs of the
burgundy and, caught in the beam of tractor lights on the adjacent field,
toasted absent friends. ‘Where the hell was she?’
Liliane: A Toast to
Absent Friends: Another
of Liliane’s ongoing stories from the family. This was in letter form, dated
August 1960 from Kitty to Elly. Kitty reports on the Diamond Wedding do for
Grandpa and Grandma. It was a big feast, the children having their meal first
and being sent off to bed so the adults could relax. Old Uncle Everard proposed
a toast to ‘Absent Friends, to all those who cannot be with us because they
have gone before us to that other world that awaits us all.” This one toast
covered scores of people – ‘to Papa may he rest in peace and the three lovely
ladies who shared his life.’ The list seemed endless but was paused whilst
courses were served and enjoyed before old Everard continued the toast to those
who emigrated, ran off with foreign men or women, fell through the ice and died,
Simone who was hit by a V2 and also died...’ all giving the impressions of a
tragic if not dysfunctional family.
Tony: Who’s Who: Here’s a thought provoking story from
Tony. It features Simon Kirby and his wife Julie who went to Immingham to meet
up with an old college friend Alex and wife Michelle. There was uneasiness from
their hosts when Simon recalled that 37 years earlier, they had formed their
band in the drama studio with Cliff, Stuart and Mickey. Silence! Simon recalled
more events about the band and the Rag Week gig which bemused Alex. On their
way home Simon said there was something wrong with Alex’s memory as he recalled
nothing of the band. Meanwhile Alex told his wife Julie they were never in a
band together but admitted joking about being in one with Simon and on their
nights out would boast they were in a band. But the band never existed.
Our next meeting, the last of the
year, will be held on Tuesday 16th December 2014 at 7.30pm in The Room at the
Top in the library. There is no homework this time, instead just bring four
words, each written on a separate small slip of paper for a short Creative
Writing Exercise.
After this we will have our
little Christmas party - please feel free to bring along some ‘goodies’ but the
rule of thumb is to bring along no more than the amount that you would be able
to eat. Otherwise we end up with loads of food and bulging waistlines even
before Christmas!
Look forward to seeing you all
again then.
Meanwhile...
Keep Scribbling!!!
Dave
ps. The following poem was the work I intended to read at
the meeting but didn’t. I read a short story instead. This though would have
fitted well into the homework theme and I produce it here.
THE EMPTY PLACE
Clarity of thought, of memory, of will,
Warms the heart from the wintry chill,
Then set the festive dinner table,
One place, solitary, no label.
For there should sit in the family
group,
The one to complete the genetic loop.
Yet absence from this place again,
The toast, then tears, memory, pain -
Twenty-one years have coldly gone,
Since the seat was last taken on.
So why the need for this pretence?
Prolonging the agonising absence.
Of course, we know, we care, we love,
Our beloved one in His care above.
The loss, the death, so cruelly fated -
Earthly life now celebrated.
© Dave Feakes. Written 08/12/98
in memory of cousin Mandy who
passed, tragically, aged 17 on
22/12/1977.
