'Searching for the Sixties' (Another Highly Enjoyable Seminar)
- Andrew Gregory
- Apr 2, 2023
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 3, 2023
Posted on behalf of David Lewis - Author and seminar Chair With some strong musical links, our Saturday seminar series on 1 April 2023 was, as always, highly enjoyable and well received by the redoubtable souls who attended. We will not highlight the various maladies overcome by several of the members to be there, but medals to you all for not letting A. and E., D. and V., and C. and S., stand in the way (‘coughs and sneezes’: you can probably work the others out!)
Guest speaker Richard Mahoney led the day with a talk on ‘Ghost-writing’ having recently written the ‘autobiography’ of The Searchers lead, Mike Pender. Although slightly missing the brief about pitfalls and the writing issues involved in ghost writing, the talk was still a highly interesting behind the scenes look at the 1960s ‘Merseybeat’ sound and led to various revelations later about the Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers and
other 60’s icons.
Richard is very willing to speak with anyone interested in ghost writing so, if you are, please mail in on the site and we will forward your details.
His talk appears on the site below as a podcast:
Eleni then delivered a wonderful writing exercise on ‘descriptions’ where the requirement was to covertly write a description of one of the other attendees but without being too obvious who the subject was. Using the ‘show, not tell’ technique is a key writing skill and this exercise really helped to ‘show’ how effective this can be. Having read out their pieces, the group were asked to identify the person through the description. There were some fascinating results. Thank you, Eleni, for a very stimulating, useful, and enjoyable session.
Ann and Sean’s chapters in the ongoing chain story were delivered and the story has now become far more interesting and very atmospheric; who will take it on next? Please join us on the next three Wednesdays; 5, 12 and 19 April to find out! The selected word for the next meeting is ‘Serendipity’ so a few lines each please for reading on Wednesday.
Over lunch the writing exercise was to write three lines about a memory of the 1960s. This gave another fascinating insight into biographical memoir writing, the results of which will appear in the April 2023 edition of our ‘Writes’ magazine along with other great pieces of our writing. (If you still have unpublished pieces please submit or resubmit to the editor without delay as we wish to restore the magazine this year on a regular basis after a long suspension: (you would not believe how long it takes to edit!!: davidlewis@brynstowe.co.uk .)
Rushing back bravely from an emergency trip to the local hospital (successfully addressed thank goodness), Ann stretched our writer’s knowledge through the ‘Big Bill Petherick Memorial Quiz’ of 20 literary questions, won convincingly by Helena with 15 points which Bill himself would have been thrilled to see. Thank you, Ann, for continuing Bill’s great innovation to our seminars. David then wrapped up the day with a teaching slot on ’House Style, Common Errors and Tips and Trends’ which can be viewed on the site here.
David's Teach-in Video and accompanying slides are shown below if you wish to download either:
It was another great day! Do join us for the next events including a poetry workshop coming soon!
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