Writing group takes up arms
April’s meeting of the U3A writers’ group took on a distinctly didactic flavour. The theme was ‘an angry letter’; and if you had thought that U3A members were much too well-bred to pen such a missive you would have been wrong. Among our number were some real experts. Paula brought two examples, to demonstrate difference in style and appearance of a letter letting off steam and one which aimed to obtain a result. She used cross-heads, paragraphing, caps and bold font to convey emphatic tone of voice in the latter. Tim also brought different style letters: short and peremptory (failure to supply goods); longer and more conciliatory (identified speeding by community vigilantes). His car, Tim told us, was some 20 miles distant from said ‘community’ at the time, suggesting mistaken identity. Tessa’s letter (one of the ‘letting off steam’ variety) was a wail of misery from a misused rail traveller; John’s diatribe took meaningless healthcare language to task, especially the overused verb ‘to pop’. Gaye addressed the government – no hope of obtaining redress in that department, and Philippa’s was a muted moan to thoughtless relatives clustered round the bedhead her sick husband. Gill’s was the most imaginative, if fictional: a dog’s litany of human abuse to the RSPCA. The discussion, always an interesting part of the writers’ meetings, discussed practical steps for those wishing to ‘obtain results’. These included recruiting the support of your credit card, collecting evidence, particularly photographic, and copying in letters to the offending department to the company press office or chief executive – people likely to be most sensitive to bad publicity.