Wantage & Grove

Writing for fun

Group Leader: Jenny James - contact using the email form on the CONTACT page.

We take it in turns to choose a topic to write about - a short piece of writing (no more than 500 words) or a poem to bring with us to the next meeting. Sometimes life gets very busy; if you haven't had time to write anything for a particular meeting, do come along anyway and enjoy our group's friendly atmosphere. We welcome new members giving us a try: you don't need to have ever done any writing before and you don't need to bring any writing with you. The primary aim is to enjoy writing and get the satisfaction of personal achievement.

We meet monthly on the 3rd Friday in the month at 2pm at a member's house. Scroll down for dates of forthcoming meetings and topics.

To see what any particular month's topics are, please click on the following links:

1. Go to the top of the home page and click on Events

2. Then on the right hand side under the heading Links, click on CLICK HERE to see the Calendar of Events

3. Then go to the top left hand side of the Calendar to select a particular month.

4. Then go to the third Friday of that month and click on WRITING FOR FUN. There you should find the topics for that month's group meeting.

SOME EXTRACTS OF OUR WRITING:

*** At 4 pm the house clearance men finally finished, locked the door of 27 Windmill Street and went back to their stores to sift through the items that they had recovered. In most rooms they left behind the usual items of no value, leaving only the lounge as an empty room. In reality, a room is never empty; it is full of memories of times happy, times sad and many emotions only known to the previous occupants. The lounge was one such.

*** Frustrated, lying next to her. Reassuring him, “I’m sure it will come if you just relax, don’t worry”. “How can I relax?” he said, thinking of the other woman. Time was running out, he had to make a decision; he had to have 1000 words to his tutor by morning.

*** I turned to see my wife standing in the doorway to my lover’s bedroom.

*** It was a fine sunny afternoon when we drove into the village. Not a significant observation one might record but fine sunny days were a rarity in my lovely ugly village, 1400 feet up in the foothills of the Brecon Beacons, with 70 inches annual rainfall and a regular chill wind most days. I call it ugly because it does not conform to the images of villages I came to know in Hampshire and Oxfordshire. It came into being because the area is rich in limestone, in demand originally to feed the great ironworks of the past and nowadays to meet the needs of road builders. The village grew at speed in its early days, giving it a muddled mix of properties of all shapes and sizes. But I also call it lovely because it was where I spent my idyllic childhood and youth.

*** "It took us forever to chisel up red quarry tiles on the kitchen floor only to replace them with square green carpet tiles the texture of pan scourers. What were we thinking? Your auntie gave us her old twin tub but that sprang a leak. Every time I did a load of washing, the kitchen floor got flooded and the carpet tiles floated off."

*** "Water, water, everywhere
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink."

These lines from the epic poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge are frequently declared as some of the most regularly misquoted lines in the English language. The poem itself is one of my favourites but I was attracted to it also by the controversy concerning what were the influences which led Coleridge to compose such a fascinating yet disturbing work. Conventional wisdom suggests that he was moved by the ground-breaking voyages of discovery by Captain James Cook, who certainly opened up the far reaches of the planet. But I was attracted by a more outlandish theory – that the Ancient Mariner was one Fletcher Christian, who was the hero or villain of the Mutiny on the Bounty. I was always interested in someone who bore my surname as a first name in a Welsh valley filled with Jones, Thomases, Evanses and so on. I was quite proud to bear a distinctive English name, passed to me by my grandfather. My daughter being the last of the Fletchers was encouraged to give it as a first name to her son!

Dates for your Diary
Fri Apr 19th Location: At members' houses
Members are welcome to write up to 500 words of prose, or write a poem on one or two topics to bring to the next meeting.
New members are always welcome.
Group leader: Jenny James
'Star' or 'Weddings'
More Group Pages
Art Art Appreciation Cribbage Current affairs
Film Club French Conversation Gardeners Genealogy
General Studies Literature Modern Philosophy Issues Music Makers
Play Reading Play Watching Poets and their Poetry Pub Lunches
Pub Quiz (Thurs) Pub Quiz (Tues) Science Scrabble
Visits/Outings Walking A Writing for fun
More Group Pages
Art Art Appreciation
Cribbage Current affairs
Film Club French Conversation
Gardeners Genealogy
General Studies Literature
Modern Philosophy Issues Music Makers
Play Reading Play Watching
Poets and their Poetry Pub Lunches
Pub Quiz (Thurs) Pub Quiz (Tues)
Science Scrabble
Visits/Outings Walking A
Writing for fun