 |
| High Rock and the River Severn from High Town 20 November 2021 |
Hightown Writer’s Workshop Meeting
Tuesday 23rd November 2021 at 7.30pm in the
Spirit Room at Peepo
Present: Paul, Adam, Sue, Liz, Jennie, Marie, Stuart and
Martin
Apologies: Andy, Kath
We welcomed Stuart to our happy band of writers and look forward to him taking us back in time with his stories set in the Iron Age. We also welcomed back Marie now her work schedule has eased.
 |
| photo: Adenike Knudsen |
Hightown Writer’s Workshop Meeting
Tuesday 26th October 2021 at 7.30pm in the Spirit
Room at Peepo
Present: Paul, Liv, Martin, Adam, Sue, Liz, Jennie
Apologies: Marie, Andy, Kath
We moved back to our roots this meeting. Hightown Writers started
in 2014, in Peepo, led by Jim Brettell and Julia Buckley following a creative
writing course they had both attended in Wolverhampton. Now we enjoyed being
back in the wonderfully restored ‘upstairs’ – now the Spirit Room - where we
enjoyed comfort, quietness for writing and excellent company.
We have had several enquiries about the group following our return to Peepo and we were delighted to welcome two new members Paul, from Telford, and Liv, recently returned to Bridgnorth after living in France. Paul’s focus is on writing for performance gigs and Liv is a published writer with a focus on maternal mental health.
 |
| Christmas Meal 2015 at Peepo's |
 |
| Equinox Sunset over Bridgnorth by Jennie Hart |
Tuesday 26 September 2021 at 7.30pm at The Shakespeare Inn
Apologies: Sue,
Martin, Marie, Jennie and ‘Zoom’ hitches prevented Kath and Andy from
joining in.
Liz and Adam held the HTW fort on a VERY rainy evening. It was our first return to public meeting places and despite some advertising and a few people showing interest there were no new faces, just old guard survivors! Still we soldiered on.
Tuesday 24th August 2021 at 7.30pm
We enjoyed a lively evening in Kath’s fascinating garden. The garden descends precariously to the Daddle Brook and to Kath and Andy’s very own bridge. There is a magnificent ash tree along side the brook, the biggest I have ever seen. I am sure it will never succumb to the Emerald Ash Borer!
 |
| On the Road - Staycations Summer 2021 |
Writing Theme: Smoke
E.mail HTW for address / or request to Zoom in
Apologies – Marie
Zoom – Kay, Kath,
Martin, Sue
Present – Liz Adam Jennie
We remembered Geoff and several of us registered with Kay that we will be attending his September memorial at The Shakespeare.
Our writing theme for July had been ‘A Murder Mystery’.
HTW meeting is this Tuesday 27th July,
7.0pm start if you can make it (or as soon as you can)
Jennie's Courtyard
Writing theme: A Murder Mystery
Wednesday 9th June 2021 – 7.45pm
Present: Jennie, Liz and Martin (in Jennie’s garden) and Kay (via Zoom)
Apologies: Kath, Andy, Sue and Marie
It was a delight to meet up with Martin for the first time after so many months of getting to know him on-line. Welcome to our merry band of writers!!🤗 We told him a bit about ourselves and our 2014 origins and then subjected him to our ‘go-to’ warm up activity of a word maze on the theme of summer. Our words were: shimmer, rainbow, insects, cloudless, hedge, heat-haze, songbirds, sunburst. Beautiful pieces evocative of our lovely countryside in June (Martin’s ‘happy month’) were written by Martin who focussed on his lifetime of daily walking beloved collie dogs; Kay who drew upon her new environment: walking Offa’s Dyke, the River Teme in the early morning haze and the characters she meets like an elderly lady who speaks to the hedgerows, and Jennie whose poetic description traced the theme of a summer’s day being like a sunburst. Liz wrote about a heatwave she remembered whilst visiting Washington Cathedral one hot August afternoon in 1973.
 |
| May Storms over Clee Hill |
Present: Kath – Chair;
Andy; Kay; Marie; Jennie; Adam.
Apologies: Liz, Sue and Martin.
The activity was to use up to four of the five senses – Touch, taste,
hearing, smell but not sight, to describe a scenario.
Marie wrote about being in a cinema with
the noise from crinkly wrapped sweets, smell of coffee and noisy children and
searching for her bag of sweets. Hearing, smell and touch.
Jennie wrote about walking through a forest,
but used sight, blackbird’s tune (sound) and resting on a log (touch).
Kay wrote about a descriptive walk along
the Teme Valley, using sight and birds singing (hearing).
Adam wrote about waking through a forest
using smell, hearing, taste.
Adam also wrote about hearing a woman
screaming and footsteps (sound), tasting ashes in his mouth (taste),
burning fingers on the candle that had blown out (smell and touch), lightening
(sight). A bit spooky!
Andy wrote about walking through a forest
using sound (rain and birds) dripping (touch) sun beams (warm
– touch). This was a national park in Costa Rica.
Kath wrote about a walk - damp skin (touch), shutters being
lifted (sound), cooking and burning (smell and taste). There was
a toilet on Adam’s Peak (Sri Pada) in Sri Lanka. Kath described the stench
(smell).
May's writing theme was Discovery
Adam described the space shuttle Discovery, orbiting
satellites and astronauts.
Jennie read a poem about a recent fall down
the stairs at 3.30 am. Descriptive and frightening.
Kay read The Gift about discovering a
pebble from the shore in a pair of jeans, reminding her about paddling with her
dog at the beach on holiday.
Kath about Covid stopping us travelling
and eating foods out so we can’t discover new experiences.
Other writing:
Jennie read a ghost story called Mistaken
Identity about a pub The Gardener’s Arms near when she lived that had a cellar.
A weeping woman with long garments passing someone in the cellar causing him to
fall and crushing his leg. He had gone back in time. Just before his leg was
amputated he awoke to find it was a dream, having fallen down the cellar steps
but coming around after an operation in the current times.
Kay read part of a memoir about her
mother’s story. This extract is Hats Off to Mother, an amusing memory. Mother
always wore a hat and put a hat on from the hat-stand in the hall if someone
came to call, as she rarely was without a hat, however, if she didn’t want to
talk to the caller she would pretend she was on her way out. Sounds a real
character.
Kath read Day One of a blog she started
last year about The Baltic States. The tour started in Estonia. A town with
cobbled streets, cats, sheep and birds. An evil spirit was thought to reside in
a well.
Adam read a piece called Silent about
walking in a quiet street, which is normally busy. Traffic had been replaced by
bird song and some wild animals that had moved into an urban area. This was
during a Covid lockdown.
The writing theme for the next meeting is COINCIDENCES.
Date provisionally agreed to be Wednesday 9th June at 7.30. It may be in a garden. If by ZOOM then it will be restricted to 40 minutes and to connect back again. Method/venue to be arranged.
HTW meeting is next Wednesday 19th May, not Tuesday.
Check email from Marie for Zoom link.
Marie to chair.
Writing theme: DISCOVERY
Present: Adam – Chair; Marie – Scribe; + Kay; Jennie; Sue; Kath; Liz.
Apologies: Martin; John; Andy.
Kay went to a writers’ poetry workshop
last night with Simon Fletcher and Cherry Doyle else who ran the workshop In
The Sticks writing about nature in the West Midlands area to produce an
anthology. Go to info@offaspress.co.uk
Kay reported that the Mary Webb Society was still interested in us giving a reading of 'The House in Dormer Forest' at their 2022 anniversary. We provisionally agreed dependent on further details being forthcoming.
Adam set us an exercise giving us eleven words relating to archaeology
HTW meeting is next Wednesday 28th April, not Tuesday.
Check email from Marie for Zoom link.
Writing theme: FREEDOM
A year ago
we launched Hightown Writers Workshop Blogspot as a way of keeping going
through the pandemic and lockdowns.
Appropriately
it was Geoff who submitted the first article for publication. He was keen on
the idea and kept meaning to send some more of his work for posting for
posterity.
As we got into our stride we have settled to publishing three times a week – Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. If we have more material we can publish something every weekday and sometimes at weekends too as we did when we started off.
To date we have made 235 posts and our audience has grown – but not substantially.
As at 9am today, Tuesday 23rd March 2021 there have been 4,502 visits (2,310 last July)to our blogspot and 158 comments (70 last July) have been left.
 |
| Sign of the Times ... March 2021, Hightown. |
Attendees: Marie – Scribe; Jennie - Chair, Liz, Martin, Adam, Sue, John
Apologies from Kath and Andy - both tied up in interviews. Good Luck! See you in April.
The meeting started with a memory of Geoffrey Speechly
who died last week and was writing to the end. He will be missed.
Jenny read a poem which Geoffrey had written London Spring.
Liz - Chair, Kath, Jennie, Martin, Sue, John, Kay, Marie and a
contribution from Adam read by Liz.
It was lovely to see Kay and John return to our group, and we hope they
will both attend as many future meetings as possible.
Liz set us an exercise – our life story in five sentences. This was surprisingly challenging.
Theme: Environment
Kath read an alarming piece, from an informed
perspective: Is Water Too Cheap a
Commodity? Without water there would be no life. Severn Trent supplies 75m
litres of water every hour. Over 3 billion litres of water is lost to leakage
daily, but some of this is caused by leaking pipes belonging to customers, on
their premises. 72% of people wrongly believe we have enough water to meet our
needs however population growth etc means England faces a water shortage within
20 years.
Adam read a poem called The Ecosia Search Engine. Ecosia.org.
After every 45 searches on the site, a new tree is planted through sponsorship.
Jennie read a work in progress called This Promised Land. It is the young who understand there is a better way.