Monday 8 October 2018

Writers writing

Well, one writer thinking about writing ... we visited Gladstone's Library, at Hawarden near Chester, last weekend. Joyce runs a writing course for Vale Royal Writers there, twice a year. The Library is unique; Mr Gladstone, 4 times Prime Minister, left his collection of books for anyone to read. The library was built to accommodate the books and 28 bedrooms, a restaurant, and a chapel for the readers. The library is silent but the rest of the house rings to laughter and chatter. It's a good place to be. I managed to add a couple of thousand words to 'Jodie Two' the second book in the story of Jodie Sonko, orphan, para-athlete and politician. Girl on Wheels is the story of youth, Jodie Two sees her into a troubled middle age, and all money from the sale of these, and all the 'Malinding Village' books, goes to the Gambia to support students, mothers, old people, in schools and clinics. The most recent donations bought sacks of rice to be shared among the poor of a small village; the next will fill the medicine cupboard of a hard working village clinic.

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