Off I went to my
second AGM ready to volunteer to be Folio Editor. Was I in for a surprise. Roy
Plumb, then President, announced he was moving to West Wales. Gladys and Harold
had given up coming to meetings, due to ill health. Ken Travis no longer wanted
to be Secretary. Instead of coping with the wayward folio I suddenly had the
responsibility of the entire Circle handed to me.
Membership was dwindling. The old
members were dying. I started the idea of planting a tree in memory of each
one. There must be a sizeable wood somewhere. The Circle wasn’t attracting any
new members. Once the last of the Old brigade had gone, I was left with five. Drastic
action was called for. I scrapped the secret ballot together with the clock and
most of the antiquated rules and started dragging the group into the second
half of the 20th century. I advertised in Libraries, newspapers, bookshops. I
devised a printed programme, organised speakers and story competitions in which
the local winners all got a year’s free membership, whether they wanted it or
not. That’s how John Mayall (Rik’s Dad) arrived. That was a good day. Another
was when Angela Lanyon turned up to see what we were like because the local
Arts Council had told her we were useless but she wanted to decide for herself.
Slowly we grew, we got stronger. We did bigger things. A Golden Jubilee
anthology, short story competitions and bi-annual conferences.
I’ve forgotten many of the hundreds
of writers and would-be writers who attended meetings over the twenty years of
me being secretary. They came and went but we had a good ‘core’ membership –
people I could rely on.
I’ll
never forget The Old Brigade but, of course, there were others too.
There was Ken Kewn who wrote his
Western, Massingham, in the cellar
because it was the only place he could get away from the wife. Or Val who, when
she read, always made me want to sit back and put my feet up because we all
knew we were in for a treat, or David, the roofing specialist who wrote about insulation
and paint for a trade magazine and gave one piece the title of Coat On A Hot Tin Roof. He also happened
to be our only member ever published in Potato
Monthly.
I’ll never forget sharing a few
bottles of bubbly with the group when my first book came out, or the friends
who turned up at Waterstones, for the book signing of my second, when I didn’t
do the signing because I was the ghost-writer, and we nearly got thrown out of
the Crocodile Cafe afterwards because we were being so lively.
I learned so much, made a lot of
friends, had a lot of fun and, hopefully, passed on lessons to new members, but
the time was right to leave. The group needed new ideas and, after two decades
of leading them, it really was time to go.
