Paddington Writers Group meets twice a month, on the 2nd and 4th Thursday, from 7.00pm - 9.00pm at Paddington Library, Porchester Rd, London W2 5DU. Nearby tube stations are Royal Oak, Bayswater and Queensway and buses are 7, 18, 23, 27 and 36.

 

Everyone is welcome regardless of experience or ability. The main requirement is that you write.

We have total beginners, and we have seasoned, published writers.

Paddington Writers' Group meetings are run as a workshop, which includes readings from the floor, discussion, tips for improving your work and timed writing exercises. Most importantly, you can meet other writers.

Think of us as a forum, where you can come for feedback on your writing, and get support.

You can also submit short pieces of your writing that you want to be considered for publication on this site.

Submit them and any other queries to 'paddingtonwriters@hotmail.com' and we'll get back to you.

See you at the next meeting.

 

 

*Switch off your mobile phone / pager before the meeting.

 

*Arrive on time. If you are ever late, come in quietly without interrupting the meeting in any way.

 

*Listen carefully when someone else is talking or reading out their work.

 

*Try not to interrupt . Your turn to speak will come.

 

*Give your positive and constructive feedback comments after another member has read their work. Your views are valuable to that person to help improve their writing. Keep your comments brief and to the point.

 

*When you bring writing you want to read out to the group, make sure your name goes onto the Reading Rota for that meeting.

 

*Individual readings from the floor will usually be under ten minutes each. Longer pieces must be booked in for the following meeting.

 

*No Prima-Donna behaviour ! Respect and sensitivity to other members at all times .

 

*Don’t bring alcohol or any ‘alco-pop’ type drinks to meetings.

This complies with Westminster Libraries policies.

 

'A 21st Century Hamlet'

Hamlet comes on stage in modern attire. Once centre stage, he pauses and begins:

'To be or not to be...'

'Cut' shouts the director.

'What's the matter ?' says the actor.

'Come on. It makes no sense - a man just walking along chatting to himself... We're gonna have to update it. We're in the 21st century now.'

Dressed as before, Hamlet walks on to centre stage, then pauses, takes a mobile phone from his pocket and puts it to his ear.

'Hello, Horatio,' says Hamlet , 'I'm on the battlements. To be or not to be, that is the f-----g question : whether it is nobler in the mind to blah-de-blah-de-blah or take arms against a sea of fortunes and, by opposing, end them. D'you know what I'm sayin'? To die - to sleep - no more, and by a sleep to say we blah-de-blah-de-blah. 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. D'you know what I'm sayin' ? Bye, Horatio. See ya.'

 

 

Below are two quintessentially English poems submitted to to the website from Jenny Kingsley.

STAY IN TOUCH
>> The handsome couple by the teashop window,
>> Sip from flower painted cups.
>> He watches cricketers on the Green,
>> She stares at watercolours on the wall.
>> Both exquisitely groomed and  tailored,
>> Carefully aged and revered.
>>
>> By the old oak clock we settle,
>> Hot, hungry and thirsty,
>> Muddied and not so perfectly trussed.
>> Sore from the steep hill ramble.
>> We giggle about the bull, losing our way.
>> Eager to share, forging a future.
>>
>> Always stay in touch, my mother said,
>> Just before the big day.
>> Or else you become strangers,
>> Sitting opposite in a railway carriage;
>> Like the spectating man,
>> And the watery eyed woman?
>>
>> Jenny Kingsley
>>
>>
>> TO A YOUNG CAPTAIN
>> My dearest William,
>> As the hot, sticky summer draws to an end,
>> And so begins the season of swollen blackberries as rich as cream,
>> And crisp leaves whispering underfoot,
>> I sit by the fire, thanking you
>> For introducing me to the thinking and reading man’s game.
>> A library of prose and poetry, a new language.
>>
>> Remember the matches, when, by the Green,
>> I sat cross-legged under the mulberry tree,
>> “The Times” firmly in hand, hoping no one would notice?
>> I was stumped by googly, gozunder and kato,
>> The mutterings of nightwatchmen, rabbits and all-rounders.
>>
>> But then one hazy June day,
>> Bowled over by your schoolboy enthusiasm,
>> I laid my paper to rest,
>> And, for some unfathomable reason,
>> Clapped for Atkinson’s half century.
>> I was caught
>>
>> In a world of spin, shots, strokes,
>> Steeped in history and anecdote,
>> For the sake of which, at a snail’s pace, I unravelled.
>> An enigma of common and invented words, puzzling phrases,
>> The obsolete as relevant as the new:
>> Reflections of the changing nature of the terrain, pitch and players.
>>
>> Blushing, I bought a dictionary of cricket
>> To peruse while sipping caffe latte
>> And you were in the schoolroom
>> Considering conjugation and declension.
>> The rules of play I learned
>> And silently argued with the umpires.
>>
>> I wonder: would the gentlemen of Hambledon,
>> Decked elegantly in white,
>> Still praise bat and wicket
>> If held and claimed by a mother or two?
>> While we await judgement,
>> please teach me to flip and float, slice and smother, and be silly.
>>
>> The fire wants kindling. I await your reply. ‘Bye for now.
>>
>> Yours forever,
>>
>> Mummy
>>

Automatic writing over 5 minutes.

Prompt: “These April Fools…”

These April Fools are stupid. Why do we follow this tradition? Pasta on trees? Tony Blair acting in the Old Vic. Kevin Spacey. Good actor. My fave film is Usual Suspects. Kaiser Soze. Who he? Limp. Picture of line-up with faces staring back, askew mouths. I’m hungry and very thirsty.Mouth is dry and need water. Love drinking waterdon’t drink enough of it. Kids need to drink more. My skin gets better when I drink lots of water. Ouch my wrist hurts. Elbow starting to ache after my fall, wonder if its got broken bone floating around

Clouds float freely in a deep blue sky. Birds sing and the luscious green grass has just been cut. Smell of grass is first sign of life going outside. Winter is so dark and miserable, sunlight too low, squinting.

April 2007

Rosie de la Mare

*Some Group Members' work published on this site may contain strong language.*

 

'Rabbits in the Moonlight'

by Emily Baker  25/01/07

 
Bobtails. I see them. Rabbits.

Skip, jump. Skip, jump. Can a rabbit skip ?

I'd swear they do tonight. That white flash as they scale the bottom rung of Pa's fence.

 

'Bunny!' Lou calls.

'Shsh, you'll scare 'em,' I say.

'Are the bunnies running away from their mommy ? ' she whispers.

 

The moon moves out of the oak tree, a huge cheese of light.

And I hold her chubby hand tight.

We have escaped.
 

The following piece is exactly 100 words. A mini saga.

Snowy Night

by Tony Callaghan 8/02/07

Runny nose, aching arms and legs. Sore throat. Freezing on this tube. That f-----g, obnoxious, blazing announcer on the speakers. Droning on at every stop. Volume turned right up.

' Attchoo! '

Do me a favour, mate. Put your hand over your mouth, for f---k sake! I'm already full of cold.

Bo---cks, then! In a foul mood. It's a horrible time of year, is this. Roll on spring.

Here we are. Hope she's left the heating on. The daft mare turned it right down last night. Just can't get rid of this f-----g cold.

God, I hate winter. Roll on spring !

 

 

 

 

 

Unbidden onlookers at BBC Proms 10^th anniversary

 London 10 September 2006. Celebrating its 10^th anniversary this year, the BBC’s outdoor prom season was held in parks across the country since July 15, and ended on Saturday, 9 September 2006, with the Last Night of BCC Proms  in Hyde Park. The Proms’ grassroots look back at 111 years of history, but still remains true to its original aim: to present the widest possible range of music, performed to the highest standards, to large audiences. This year Radio Presenter Sir Terry Wogan, the Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu and also Lionel Richie, joined by the BBC Concert Orchestra and its conductor Carl Davis, were showcasing in Hyde Park.
Black plastic barriers as high as two men surrounded the 2.5 acres of concert ground. At some spots were tiny gaps and people crowded to sneak a peek at one of two screens. Although there was one big screen to be seen from a broad middle part, people could get the better sound from side chasms. Listening seemed to be tolerated but spying was strictly forbidden. One hot spot was east gate where two younger and one elder female security force were on duty. Two of them positioned themselves on stools in front of the ‘spying gaps’ and lifted their arms to obstruct the view to the outside audience. Just when Lionel Richie appeared on stage, the gate crushers got more insistent, as a young girl came out of the enclosed area and shouted at the onlookers:”Go away, go away”, and moved fast towards one woman. Then she vanished behind the black barrier as fast as she appeared. That event encouraged other outsiders to express their opinions in no uncertain terms. A volunteer woman of Liberty Drivers said, she has already argued with them. “We do that job every year and on many other occasions, but it’s never happened before that security staff refused to let in a heavy wheelchair. But today these security people have advised me to get the wheelchairdrivers to the designated gate for wheelchairs.” A truck driver nodded his head: “I had difficulties to get in with my vehicle and it was my job to deliver the equipment”.When Lionel Richie left the stage and the Italian Balladeer Vittorio Grigolo began singing, the tense situation returned to normal. Before the grand finale, BBC Concert Orchestra conductor Carl Davis took the microphone. Apart from formal words of thanks to the organisers, the musicans and the paying audiences, he pointed out that they – the BBC as Proms promoter had made this event affordable for everybody. “25 Pound”, repeated a middle-aged man from Crowborough in East Sussex, and looked at his son – a sales assistant of a Supermarket chain, “we couldn’t do it”!Finally the huge black gate was opened from inside by the same female security from earlier and the onlookers had been allowed to view for free, even 110 yards were quite a distance to the stage.The final countdown started and the BBC Orchestra blared out a variety of Irish, Scottish and British Hymns as ‘Rule Britannia’ “… Britain shall never be slaved…” eventually ending in the National Anthem whilst as many as 2000 paying audience waved the St Georges flag and the Union Jack. Then both groups watched a diverting firework display. ‘All their attempts to bend thee down. Will but arouse thy generous flame’.  Gabriele Nioduschewski

CHARACTER

 

As writers, we must know our created characters as if they were real people. We have to know everything about them in order to make them ‘live’ in the world of our fiction. The more real we can make them in our imagination, then the more real they will be on the written page, and so for our readers.

 

• How old are they?
• What is their height/weight?
• Where were they born?
• What was the childhood home like?
• Describe their Parents
• Describe their school building
• Did they like or dislike school
• What is their favourite food/colour/holiday location/song etc (This list is endless)
• What is their medical history?
• Financial status
• Sexual orientation
• Do they have a criminal record?
• What work do they do?
• Do they enjoy/hate their job?
• Any Brothers/Sisters?
• What’s their best friend’s name
• Their first pets name
• Their Partners name
• How long with present partner/how long alone?

 

All of this stuff you simply make a decision on. But, as your decisions increase then your choices will begin to form themselves based on past choices. The character will begin to grow organically. You must step into the shoes of your character to find out what they would do, or how they would react in any given situation.

 

Unless your work is autobiographical, try not to base your characters on yourself or you are in danger of making every character that you create, a self portrait.  However, if you create a character, then your time alone at your typewriter, in the wee small hours, will be more interesting, and as you build your ‘Golem’, you may find that it takes on a sort of life of it’s own, and may well surprise you with what it says and does. SCAREY isn’t it? You have now contacted the inner creative YOU, and your work will flow freely, and easily.

 

You almost certainly will not actually use all of this stuff that you have ‘created’ for your character, but this detail is the ‘bedrock’ on which your character is based.

 

The reader sees the part of the character that we choose to reveal in the context of the story, but you as the writer knows much more.

         

 (work in progress) The dead pigeon lay in the central guttering of the piss stenching alley. The shit strewn cobblestones and Bangladeshi graffiti being further testament to the urban blight that pervaded in this world of stinking skip bins at the back doors of filthy kitchens. Rats scurry through holes in the brickwork as rain now falls on the dead pigeons unseeing white eyes. Even the night holds it’s breath halfway through intake. Nothing changes here. Nothing ever changes in this plague pit, this pocket of poverty, destitution, dereliction and murder.                                        

  “Here comes summer, do dah do dah dah dah dah dahah”A solitary figure. That discarded KFC will come in handy. His movements like that of the scurrying rats.“Yes, the rattsies. I know all about you. I see you. Yes, your there. Nothing to be scared of.”And like the rats he disappears through a whole in the wall.The first part was easy, straight up the broken bricks that jutted out. The next bit a little harder, a bicep climb up the rope to the ledge; now reach over a little to far to the left and grab the bottom rung of the broken fire escape for the final scramble and climb up onto the roof.Now this place is the Guntz: here is a world of magical and mythological beings. Unseen inhabitants of a rooftop architecture. This is where Ethan can be. This unseen place. His place.“Hey chick! How’da like to come back to my pad? A little tricky getting’ there but it’s home.”And home is the central point. From here to the west you can reach the griffins and saintly protection of Spittlefields and to the east the Angels of Whitechaple. Turn and it’s a short jaunt to the Gods and Demons of the city. A good sprint and a few daring leaps Ethan and the others can travel the city faster than a London bus. A secret city within a secret City. FrkhutwbMlhGFEbyHHhhHnLhyTfvNmKLlLKjbbgffvbJtyrefbsmngloyjbmgidfhjdcbnbnbswjjdmmmfjmx zjsm nnb`nxnvjjNNVDVMHGBFnbmsc,l,,nMNGMkx ,kp98 Speaks a Sphinx, presently residing above Bread St. A voice beyond sound, beyond hearing. Ethan responds by twirling and whooping. If only he could just…………. He can’t quite………. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! “………” Build up speed, faster now, don’t think just run, faster, faster and faster, the veins in his neck purple bulging heart pounding and now…….. a giant leap, soaring across shit alley, flying; still; silent;  escorted by Dragons. Aeons pass in a moment and Nike correctly lands on the flat roof of the Kosher butchers and springs off again onto the ledge eighteen inches wide seventy foot down  to certain death don’t look down keep going keep up speed careful of the loose slab not yet must time it right don’t look down look straight ahead not quite yet….and…..NOW, a forward summersault onto the sloping lower roof, slide down to the ridge and up the roof ladder to ‘Chimney acre’. This is the roof top night garden of angels and chimney stacks, smoke and ghosts, pestilence and poverty. Angels will whisper here to a man as he stands here alone in the quietest moments of the cities night in that darkest moment just before the dawn.

This is the roof of THE ROYAL LONDON HOSPITAL, screaming in surgical terror, dark and horrific in the heart of deadly Whitechappel, cutting through the East End, razor sharp. Look down now, look down with the angels to number 259 Whitechapel Rd, now an emporium of exotic robes and Indian sowerys but formerly a place of special entertainment, where one Tom Norman, showman, exhibited here, for the delight of night revelers, in a squalid, shadowy rat infested back room a man with such horrifically unimaginable disfigurement to his skin, bones, face and body, (caused as we now know by neurofibromatosis) that the very sight of him repelled all who paid to see. The man was discovered here cowered and pathetic by  Frederick Treves, a Royal London surgeon. Treves brought the man over to the hospital and placed him in rooms in Bedstead Square. This room is now a walk in freezer, being part of the hospitals kitchens. The mans name was Joseph Merrick who, during his show career, was billed as The Elephant Man.

 Move our eyes and our awareness now to the left, to Vallance Rd, where after after having given birth to twin boys in nearby Hoxton on 17th October 1934, Violet Kray brought her boys, the pride of her life home. Ronald and Reginald Kray became part of the areas fear and folklore. “Leave yer doors open, let the saucepans loose” but remember to doff yer caps  or Ron will not be pleased; and you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry. It was nearby in the Blind Beggar public house one night, where Ron, (taking exception to being called ‘a fat puff’ ) shot through the head at point blank range, one George Cornell, local villain, hard man and ultimate loser. There were over 30 people in the bar that night and no one saw a thing. Some say that Cornell was punished to harshly as he was technically correct in what he said. Ron Kray was overweight, and was indeed by all accounts a practicing homosexual. The merest flight now of the imagination takes us soaring above the rooftops through the London smog and across to Brick Lane and the Brick Lane music hall. Here the Ghostly tones of Marie Lloyd float on the breeze as she sings of a life ‘up west’.

 ‘I live in Trafalgar Square, with four lions to guard me,fountains and statues all over the place,and the Metropole staring me right in the face,I’ll own it’s a trifle draughty,But I looks at it this way you see,If it’s good enough for Nelson,It’s quite good enough for me’. A few rooftops along, and here captured in time, like old forgotten and yellowing photographs found in some attic, is the shop of Mr. Katz, stringseller, a lone remaining testament to the areas Semitic past. Opposite in Princelet Street is the old Synagogue, closed now and empty save for the phantasmagoric presence of David Rodinski, ex caretaker, who one day vanished without trace. Had he really found (as some said) the secrets of cabalistic flight? Not only had he, it seemed, escaped this worldly plane, but he had also escaped all memory. It was some 10 years later that Rodinskis room hidden away on the top floor of the building was discovered, the door being opened for the first time in over a decade. Untouched by time the room shrouded in secrecy remained exactly as Rodinski had left it. The mystery was to occupy the mind of Rachael Litchenstein, a Hoxton artist, whose search for David resulted in a collaboration with urban shaman Ian Sinclair. The book, Rodinski’s room is a work of magick and mystery and is an insight into life in the Jewish East End. One block along and we come to Hanbury St, where on the 8th September 1888, local prostitute Annie Chapman became the second victim of the areas prowling and predatory evil. Having no money to pay for her bed that night, her last words to her landlord were; “Don’t sell my doss, I’ll be back with the money, just look at the pretty new bonnet I got”. Her body was found a short time later in the back yard of number 29, her entrails placed around her neck and her few belongings arranged neatly at her feet; a comb, a handkerchief, a halfpenny, a small hand mirror. The only witnesses to this, and the four other killings in the seriel being the Saints and Angels engrained here within the rooftop architecture. They surely saw everything, and they alone know for certain the true identity of ‘Jack the Ripper’. But even the Angels here keep the east ends code of silence.  

This London then, or this hole in the map of London to the east seems to attract into it certain forces: it is a magnet. Nothing changes. Crime, murder, disappearance, poverty, bloodlust, magic, mystery and danger are all at home here. And always have been. Come now then, stay close together as we delve deeper now into the abyss, and cut off into Old Nicholas Street as Jack himself surely must have done. Now renamed Old ‘Nichol’ street, this ‘resort of thieves’  was in the 1880s at the centre of the most depraved and violent group of streets in London; a rendezvous for street fighting gangs. It was here that Fagin came to visit Bill Sikes in order to recruit the captive Oliver Twist into the profession of burglary. It was either this or something much worse.     

By Rob Goodman 

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