A wonderful end to the year on Saturday afternoon for our local (usually Menston based) writers’ club, Writing on the Wharfe, ‘performing’ with short stories, songs and poems in the intimate setting of Ilkley library.

In the wonderful setting of Ilkley library, left to right: back row – Bob, me, Ruxandra, David, Catherine, Rich; front row – Alina, Emma, Dan, Becky. Sadly two valued members, Kelly and Marjorie, couldn’t make it.
Unfortunately I do not have the contributions available to post here or links to most though I did post my short story in a post recently and you can hear Emma’s wonderful Christmas song and buy it for £1 on bandcamp (should be No.1 in the charts in my opinion!). She also treated us to ‘In the bleak midwinter’, retaining Harold Darke’s melody but substituting her own lyrics, apart from a short spoken excerpt of Christina Rossetti’s original lyrics in the middle.

Picture of the day? Measuring what?
Click on any picture in the gallery below to see them larger as a slide show. Many thanks to Adam Nabarro-Steel for photo recording the event for us. Many thanks also to our wonderful ‘leader’, Ruxandra Busoiu, a remarkable young Romanian who founded the club and worked very hard to bring off this event and the previous one at Ilkley Playhouse.
Thanks also to the wonderfully supportive staff of Ilkley library who made this event possible. This library and those in my village of Menston and neighbouring village of Burley in Wharfedale had been scheduled for closure by Bradford Council. Against a background of appalling illiteracy in the UK, especially in Bradford, libraries should surely be high on any local authority’s priorities. Thankfully, a lot of people from the local communities are now working to take them over and run them as Community Libraries. Let’s hope they succeed.
December 16, 2016 at 10:37 am
[…] blog, where news about Menston is occasionally published when of interest to a wider audience (eg activities of the writers’ club ‘Writing on the Wharfe’ – see […]
December 16, 2016 at 10:33 am
[…] (usually meets fortnightly on Saturday afternoons at the Menstone club in Farnley Road) had another very successful ‘performance’ of short stories, poems and music in Ilkley library on 10 December, the theme being ‘Winter […]
December 11, 2016 at 5:46 pm
“Can I still believe in you” what a great track, I’m tempted to buy more 🙂
December 11, 2016 at 6:45 pm
Thanks Eddy. She’s just great! I knew you’d appreciate her.
December 11, 2016 at 5:40 pm
A dazzling array of Christmas jumpers! Good to see community events are alive and well and hope that the library is rescued.
December 11, 2016 at 6:48 pm
I’ve got another for Christmas. Petronela, being a little more crazy than me (yes, it’s possible) has one that lights up and plays something. The schoolkids will go wild 😜