ILLUSTRATING MY MEMOIR & SEARCHING THROUGH MY PERSONAL IMAGE FILES

There comes a time when writers enjoy taking a look back at some of their own features which have been published in magazines and newspapers, not to mention the illustrations included in their earlier books. 

I've been fortunate in meeting many interesting people over the years. When I worked for women's magazines, I was directed towards  popular singers and entertainers who invariably seemed happy to chat and be photographed, such as Cliff Richard and the late Adam Faith, Lulu, Joan Collins and others who were  among my favourites. 

Currently, I'm enjoying this pastime, checking diary notes against photographs, particularly those snapped over the last twenty years. Actors were generally fun to meet; so much homework was prepared before meeting the beautiful Helena Bonham-Carter with her mum where I snapped them at the Chelsea Flower Show some years back.  We shared tea and a chat and, as you can see, I gave them a copy of our SWWJ history in which their family members are published. A little bit of serendipity!

EXCITING NEWS ABOUT OUR PLATINUM JUBILEE VIRTUAL FUN WALK COMING UP THIS JUNE

Registration Opens for Platinum Jubilee Fun Walk 

Our organisers are inviting local charities and community groups to register for this year’s virtual fun walk that will take place during June. Supporters can walk individually or organisations can host an event on any date during June, to raise money for their project or good cause. 

This event is free to enter and registrants receive a free kit with everything they need to run the event, including posters, finisher’s certificates and sponsorship forms.

The BONUS POT is a unique feature of the event, with funds donated by local businesses and individuals and then distributed to participating organisations on a pro rata basis in addition to the monies they themselves raise in sponsorship. 

This year’s sponsors include Greater Anglia, Anisha Grange Care Home, Tunnelcraft, Butyl Products, Mr Barrie Stone and others. John Baron MP, Chair of The Fun Walk Trustees, said “Last year’s event raised over £90,000 for local charities and good causes and with help from local businesses we hope to do even better with our Platinum Jubilee Fun Walk. This year’s sponsors so far include Greater Anglia, Anisha Grange Care Home, Tunnelcraft, Butyl Products, Mr Barrie Stone and others.” “Entering a team is a fantastic way for groups to have fun outside, whilst raising money for a good cause.” Organisations are encouraged to register at www.thefunwalktrust.co.uk

John Baron MP, Chair of The Fun Walk Trustees, said:

“Last year’s event raised over £90,000 for local charities and good causes and with help from local businesses we hope to do even better with our Platinum Jubilee Fun Walk. This year’s sponsors so far include Greater Anglia, Anisha Grange Care Home, Tunnelcraft, Butyl Products, Mr Barrie Stone and others. Entering a team is a fantastic way for groups to have fun outside, whilst raising money for a good cause.”

Mr Baron and his team started the annual Fun Walk in 2002 to commemorate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, when it raised £6,000 for six charities and projects. The amount raised in 2021 brings the total to date to £1,362,000. This year, to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, it’s being called the Platinum Jubilee Fun Walk.

REMEMBERING DAME VERA LYNN AND OUR OLD TOWN - BARKING & DAGENHAM FROM OLD PHOTOGRAPHS

Yesterday's memorial service at Westminster Abbey for Dame Vera Lynn brought back recollections of this lovely lady's kindness to me when I was researching my book Barking & Dagenham from Old Photographs in 2013. 

I needed more photographs to illustrate the page I had saved to outline her life and work and this busy lady wrote to me allowing me to use some of her personal stories and photographs.  Not only did she take time to send these to me, but also phoned to make sure her package had arrived safely. I will always remember her. 

VERY PROUD OF ALL WRITERS WHO ARE HELPING OUR FRIENDS IN UKRAINE

Many of our friends in Essex  who happen to be published writers are using their ingenuity to raise funds in aid of the Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal. Some are donating their speaking fees and others are using their skills to swell the funds for the folk in this benighted country who need so much care and prayers.  Your interest and help are so very much appreciated.  

This book  21 Stories for Ukraine: An entertaining mix of short stories in aid of the Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal

by Linda Barrett, Rob Nisbet et al 17 March 2022 is available on Amazon tomorrow.

RECENT GREAT 'TWITTER ' TUTORIAL FROM SWWJ CHAIRMAN REBECCA HARDING

One of the benefits of belonging to our international Society of Women Writers and Journalists, is learning more about the often vexed aspects of using social media and the web. However, I enjoy blogging and suspect there are not that many folk who have had a continuous blog site for almost seventeen years. 

Rebecca Harding's recent on-line tutorial concentrating on the value of using twitter, was interesting.  Problem in my case is time, but I promised to provide more information to my twitter, facebook,  and numerous other app followers whom I've neglected over the years (since I hit that twitter button way back in September 2009). 

SWWJ MEMBER BERYL P BROWN'S LATEST NOVEL - MAY'S STONY ROAD

 New! May’s Stony Road

The weather is only the beginning…

Devoted mother, foster mother and farmer, May Sheppard, can’t stop taking on everyone else’s problems.

Life is hard eighteen months after VE Day. And then the worst winter of the century sets in. Struggling to cope, May is knocked sideways by a further threat to her world, but she is determined to resolve the problem alone.

Her adopted son, Cliff, discovers his future could take a direction away from the farm, but the opportunity stirs old memories and jeopardises May’s happiness.

How many secrets can one woman keep? How many battles can she fight alone? If she loses, the family loses everything.

Reviews for May’s Stony Road  May’s Stony Road are available in print from Amazon, or order from your favourite bookshop. 

Beryl's debut novel May's Boys was published two years ago. Pictured at her launch in Essex with her family, this writer has received some excellent reviews on Amazon.  I certainly enjoyed reading her first novel and look forward to catching up with her new publication.  More details can be found on her website: ThreeBeesPublishing@gmail.com 

RADIO INTERVIEW

Michelle Ward talks to Beryl Phoenix 98fm   Being interviewed on Michelle’s Eat My Brunch show on Phoenix 98fm was a daunting prospect, but Michelle made the experience easy with her chatty approach and pertinent questions. The interview took place via the telephone, a reflection of Covid 19 precautions, so I had no journey to the studio and could speak from my desk. The event was arranged by Sylvia Kent, fellow Brentwood Writers’ Circle member, prolific writer and blogger. 

MORE NEWS ON OUR UPCOMING ESSEX BOOK FESTIVAL - PROUD TO BE A PATRON!

 

Announcing ...

We are thrilled to announce that preparations for this year's Essex Book Festival are well underway.

We will be launching on 1st June and running through until 30th June, our venues including everywhere from Layer Marney Tower and Firstsite, through to Harwich Foot Ferry, Royal Opera House's High House Production Park (Purfleet-on-Thames), Cressing Temple Barns, and Hylands House and Gardens. Plans are also afoot to launch ourselves into Space in June. More of that later.

The full programme will be revealed on 4th April when our Box Office opens for business. However, just to get the juices going,we can't resist sharing some of the tasty treats on the menu. These include appearances by award-winning Patrick Gale who will be talking about his new book Mother's Boy at Chelmsford Library on 22nd June, and novelist Samuel Fisher who fittingly will be talking about his debut novel Wivenhoe at Wivenhoe Library on 8th June. Meanwhile The Guardian's brilliantly acerbic columnist John Crace will sharing tips on how to survive the 'New Normal' in Westminster at Anglia Ruskin University (Chelmsford) on 30th June.

Tickets are already on sale for our very special partnership event with EA Festival, which will be taking place at Hedingham Castle on 11th and 12th June. Festival favourite and national treasure artist Maggi Hambling will be talking to art historian and academic  James Cahill, whose debut novel Tiepolo Blue due for publication in June has already been receiving rave reviews from the likes of Stephen Fry. We suggest you get in quick for this one. Rumour has it tickets are selling quickly: ea-festival/maggi-hambling-in-conversation-with-james-cahill

CELEBRATING NEW BOOKS FROM THREE BRENTWOOD AUTHORS

Last Saturday's gathering of Brentwood Writers' Circle at Bardswell Social Club brought us details of new book titles published by three of our members. Congratulations to them all. 

Colin Payn's third book in his Park Stories series entitled 'Dot's Secret' and is available now on Amazon.

Rita Mitchell has just published her colourfully illustrated book for children (7-10 years) A Proper Baker

Beryl Brown's second book May's Stony Road is a continuation of her fascinating debut novel entitled May's Boys.  

We look forward to reading all three books. Congratulations to our very talented local novelists.  Keep visiting and you will find more information about one of Essex's best known Writers' Circle based in Brentwood.  

Do keep in touch! 

DESPITE HUGE CURRENT CONCERNS WITH UKRAINE, WE MUST SPARE TIME FOR THIS SPECIAL DAY

 

 

This #InternationalWomensDay, we recognize every woman who continues to pave the way for change by breaking biases at work and in their communities, helping create a more equitable future for generations to come. #BreakTheBias #IWD2022

Although great changes linked to the rights of working women were taking place worldwide, in Victorian England, the pace seems to have been much slower. The London newspaper industry was thriving in the bustling Fleet Street cobbles of the 1880s. Much has been written about this most famous of London thoroughfares, lit at dusk by gas lamps, workers dodging hurrying horse-drawn hansom cabs, and the inevitable smell of printers’ ink amid the incessant thrumming from the huge hot metal typesetting machines – standard technology of the day for mass-market printing. These machines lurked in the basements, churning out hundreds of ‘dailies’, books and magazines created predominantly by male journalists.

Over past centuries, there had existed many talented female writers, but rarely did women acquire the opportunity of seeing their work on the page and performed on the stage. Although Britain had been ruled by a queen for sixty-four years, the status of women writers at the end of her reign was abysmal. Many females whose written work was enjoyed by all social classes, had to fight hard for their work to be recognised and published, but often resorting to adopting male pseudonyms.

However, during Victoria’s last decade, a wealthy influential newspaper proprietor and editor of several newspapers came on the scene. Joseph Snell-Wood was the editor of The Daily Graphic and Bystander; also Queen Victoria’s favourite best-selling weekly journal, The Gentlewoman.  Entrepreneurial skills seem to have been inherently part of this forty-one-year-old publishing magnate’s character. His organising ability was illustrious. He was well-known in royal circles and had been responsible for creating a charity which raised over £10,000 for the Chelsea Hospital in the form of the Chelsea Arts Ball which was held annually thereafter at the Royal Albert Hall until the 1950s. As an employer of several women on his newspaper, Joseph understood their dilemma and promised to help. 

On 1 May 1894, Joseph created the Society of Women Journalists, pledging to launch and fund a specialised organisation purely for women, paying initial set-up costs, providing advice and helping with contacts and introductions. Immediately, more than two hundred women applied to become members, mostly journalists at the start, but later joined by novelists, poets, playwrights and females working in many areas of publishing. In 1951 Joseph’s Victorian brainchild was renamed The Society of Women Writers and Journalists. By then, its reputation had spread and we were welcoming members from many nations around the world. 

SWWJ pioneers have included luminaries such as Lady Sarah Wilson, Lady Violet Astor, Dame Rebecca West, Radclyffe Hall, Dr Marie Stopes, Vera Brittain, Elizabeth, Lady Longford, Shirley, Baroness Williams and in later years, Dame Jacqueline Wilson, Martina Cole, Sandra, Baroness Howard, Joyce Grenfell OBE and a host of other well known writers including Victoria Wood CBE  and currently Floella, Baroness Benjamin, DBE DL, our current President.

In 2019, our SWWJ members celebrated their 125^th anniversary lunch at Stationers’ Hall, the place where, despite Hitler’s blitz bombardment in 1940, members continued meetings.  Nowadays, in the midst of this pandemic, we keep in touch via our website where we regularly enjoy uplifting zoom interviews and webinars by well-known writers and entertainers.

 To learn more about joining SWWJ, please contact us at www.swwj.co.uk where a warm welcome awaits both professional and aspiring writers.

SOCIETY OF WOMEN WRITERS AND JOURNALISTS