SYLVIA KENT'S READING & WRITING FORUM: January 2025

OUR SOCIETY OF WOMEN WRITERS AND JOURNALISTS MOURN THE LOSS OF NOREEN RIOLS

We are so very proud of our friend and overseas member, Noreen Riols who died on 2 January in her Paris home. Noreen was one of the last-surviving veterans of the World War Two Special Operations Executive (SOE) has been remembered following her death at the age of 98.

Noreen was posted to the SOE's school at Beaulieu in the New Forest, where agents were trained to carry out espionage missions behind enemy lines.

One of her roles was to act as a so-called honey trap in Bournemouth hotels to see whether the trainee spies would spill their secrets.

In 1944, at the age of eighteen, Ms Riols applied to join the Women's Royal Naval Service, which she said appealed to her "because the hat looked most seductive". However, she was sent to the SOE's secret headquarters in Baker Street, London, because of her proficiency in French.

Noreen worked "passing on messages", before being posted to the Beaulieu Estate where the SOE conducted final training. Future agents were schooled in one of 11 buildings, each for a different country, and taught to carry out sabotage, assassinations and other missions. She also worked with Colonel Maurice Buckmaster.

WISHING OUR VERY GOOD FRIEND MIKE EDMONDS A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Friends and family around the world joining in to wish Mike a lovely birthday.

A happy Mike in Southend at the start of his own filmed life story

NEW YEAR THOUGHTS AND IDEAS FOR WRITERS

Happy New Year to all my regular viewers and warmest wishes to readers of my features in Essex press. It's lovely to have contact with you. This is my nineteenth blogging year and very soon my two-thousandth feature will be appearing on this particular weblog. More than three/four thousand articles/essays have been published in print magazines and newspapers.

New Year is traditionally the time for resolutions and for many older people to think about the topic of writing one's life story. Of course, many people in the world of entertainment have been using 'ghost writers' - using professionals to carry out the task, but there is nothing so good as reading true personal thoughts about notable personalities and not-so-famous people's life and times, particularly if you have had a connection with the writer or the area in which they lived.

I know I have already mentioned some of the folk whom you have already met within my weblog posts over such a long time. Recently, one such is the super Olympic champion athlete Fatima Whitbread, whose memoir My Bright Shining Star is currently a best-seller. Signed copies can be found in numerous Essex-based Waterstones and WH Smith.

Fatima is included within my current project of meeting some of the world's most illustrious folk. More will be included as 2025 proceeds. Here we are in the late 1990s.