Severn Valley Authors were in bumptious mood when they
convened for the second meeting of November. There was much ribbing and
ribaldry before we shared our respective news. Tony makes it into print this
month having written the introduction to the republished version
of Man With Three Fingers (A Lone Pine Adventure) by Malcolm Saville. Being a
Shropshire lad, Tony feels a strong nostalgic attachment to the Lone Piners and
we're all thrilled that his name is now irrevocably linked with Malcolm Saville's.
Back in the 21st Century, Izzie's e-book is now available –
it's called The World According to Izzie and is a collection of her very
popular blogs.
Annie is researching her next children's book, Rob has
clocked up another rejection and another talk and Chris has been chasing the dragon.
(I may have misheard this one but in the week that Nigella Lawson has been
outed - allegedly - as a cokehead of the top order anything is possible.) Linda
has been playing house with a boa constrictor and in her work-time mucks out
the meerkats and teases the tarantulas. You couldn't make this stuff up.
Which links in nicely to a story that Linda did make up. (Ba-dum-tsh!)
It's called The Day We Went to Bangor and we loved it. It told the tale of a
child in care who absconds from her home in the company of two likely lads who
TWOC a car and drive to Bangor. And she has a luvverly time until the police
come along and spoil it all.
 | ||
| The beach at Llanfairfechanpenmaenmaur |
Perhaps the most crucial constructive criticism came from
Tony who knew, having been a student in Bangor, that the town does not boast
the beach that Linda described in the story. Tony offered the name of a town
near Bangor called Llanfairfechanpenmaenmaur that fitted her description but
there just aren't enough vowels in a keyboard to make it worth the
effort to get these things right. And let's face it, The Day We Went to Llanfairfechanpenmaenmaur doesn't have the same ring.
We all agreed that the strength of Linda's story lay in its attention to empathetic detail and its combination of fun and poignancy.
After a short discussion regarding the acceptable anomaly in the
sentence, 'Arsenal is the best football team in London whereas Tottenham are
crap' we agreed to meet at Izzie's on 10th December when Tony will submit
something to read.(See, Chris, whoever controls the record controls history.)
Actually, Rob, while the Welsh are admittedly famous for their long place names, there is no such place as Llanfairfechanpenmaenmaur. As I recall, there are two places near to Bangor, one called Llanfairfechan and the other called Penmaenmawr. I think something got lost in translation.
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