Hello, and thank you for visiting my site. I hope that you'll return often and always find something of interest about my world and what inspires me to pick up a pen. (This is a figure of speech, unfortunately. My handwriting is terrible!) Here's what I've been up to recently...
The Stray Ferret
The Stray Ferret isn’t, as some people believe on first sight, an animal charity. It’s an excellent media outlet for local news – local being Harrogate (hence the Stray) and district. With Ripon situated only eleven miles from Harrogate, we get a good amount of exposure and our local correspondent, Tim Flanagan, has done me proud this time.
19 April, 2022 - Make the first comment on this story
A very happy Easter to all my readers!
Tulips from Amsterdam? Well, not exactly, but the Delft vase they’re standing in was bought over 50 years ago for my mother. She loved it and so do I, as it’s very much associated with my memories of happy times spent in the Netherlands.
By coincidence, my latest published story also features flowers. Inspired by news stories of individuals and groups taking it upon themselves to beautify neglected areas, I wrote about two doughty retired gentlemen’s transformation of a derelict ginnel/alley/snicket (or whatever you call it in your part of the world) for the benefit of their community.
Baffled by the accompanying illustration? Well, so was I, but that is none of my doing. Once a story is sold, how it is presented is up to the editorial team.
17 April, 2022 - Make the first comment on this story
Write-On-Ripon! Unleashed 2
The second open mic evening in the Curzon Cinema’s ‘Cavern of Creativity’ went very well. Most of the people who came along were keen to read and – in the case of The Wandering Man – sing what they had been working on. A large glass of rosé inspired me to read a poem about the failures of Care in the Community as well as perform a comic number about an unfortunate encounter between an unpleasant young tourist and the Ripon Hornblower. (‘Gary and the Horn’ was written many years ago by the late David Andrews, a past member of Ripon Writers’ Group.)
I also took the opportunity to mention that, for the foreseeable future, any royalties from my ‘Had We But World Enough’ collection will be donated to a charity helping Ukrainians displaced from their homes. It can be downloaded from Amazon for considerably less than the price of a takeaway coffee.
6 April, 2022 - Make the first comment on this story
Memories of Ukraine
4 March, 2022 - There is one comment on this story
A new opportunity for Ripon writers!
UPDATE
Delighted to say that the evening advertised below went very well, with about 30 people in attendance. Everyone who wished to read had the opportunity, some a couple of times, and there was a good variety of genres and themes. A similar event is now scheduled for Monday, 4th April.
Towards the end of last year I joined Write-On Ripon, a group that meets on Tuesday afternoons in the Hive café and this will be its first major event.
As the current Chair of Ripon Writers’ Group, I should like to stress that the groups are not in any way in competition with each other. The Open Mic night has been planned so as not to clash with the regular RWG meeting and anyone and everyone is welcome to take part.
5 February, 2022 - Make the first comment on this story
Morocco Bound!
It’s strange how your past can catch up with you when you least expect it. Browsing the internet in an idle moment, I came across a blog about the short-lived Safari holiday company with which I travelled to Morocco in the dim and distant past. Memories of those few weeks have never left me and now I know that others feel exactly the same. Blog creator Bob Friendship has been kind enough to let me have my own page and you can see the whole thing by following this link: Safari Village, Asilah, near Tangier 1971: Maggie Cobbetts Page
What a time we had, bouncing along desert roads in specially adapted Bedford trucks, riding camels on the beach, bartering for all kinds of things in the teeming markets of Fez and Marrakech, taking tea with Berber tribesmen up in the Rif mountains… I don’t know why I’ve never written a novel about my adventures in Morocco. Maybe now would be a good time to make a start!
8 January, 2022 - There is one comment on this story
Happy New Year!
Despite almost two years of this vile pandemic, I’m determined to face 2022 with some degree of optimism. The scientists have worked wonders and I feel much safer with three doses of vaccine inside me than I did last year at this time. That’s not to say that I shan’t continue to be cautious, of course, and wear a face mask where required. However, the Omicron variant, although very contagious, seems less likely than its predecessor to finish me off, should I catch it. Life is very precious and I intend to make the most of however many years I may have left.
Travel plans are on hold at the moment, but I shall continue to meet as many friends old and new as possible, albeit in small groups for the present. August holds the promise of a week at the Writers’ Summer School, at which I have been a regular attender since 2006. Devastated when it was cancelled in 2020, I enjoyed every minute of ‘Swanwick’ last year, as you can see in the photo above and if you scroll down to what I wrote about it back then.
As for writing, I’m rarely without inspiration and am currently working on several projects. WATCH THIS SPACE!
2 January, 2022 - Make the first comment on this story
A new venture
My attention having been caught by a post on Facebook and, always keen to meet fellow writers, I’ve just attended the first meeting of a new group. It didn’t hurt that the chosen locale was The Hive, set up as part of the also relatively newly established Halls of Ripon. Excellent coffee, delicious cakes and the prospect of a couple of hours spent with like-minded people. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, the answer to that is absolutely nothing. There were seven of us at the inaugural meeting, only one of whom I’d met before, and we had a thoroughly enjoyable time getting to know each other and discussing what we liked to write. After an ice-breaker, when we were all encouraged by Dion, the creator of the group, to scribble down a few random thoughts, friendship was suggested as the main theme.
This fledgling group is planning to meet every Tuesday afternoon from one o’clock to three, the theme for next week being ‘Moving/Moving On’. I’m looking forward to it already.
9 November, 2021 - Make the first comment on this story
High time at the Ripon Poetry Festival
Reading from the pulpit was something that I hadn’t expected when told that this year’s anthology launch would take place at Allhallowgate Methodist Church. However, contributors and audience were directed into the building through the front door and took seats in the pews or up on the balcony. It was a good evening with poets, including four of my fellow members of Ripon Writers’ Group, ranging in age from well under 11 to – let’s just say – considerably older!
There was a wide range of themes, with many reflecting the ‘looking glass world’ of the last eighteen months. Styles ranged from traditional forms to free verse, with some of the shorter pieces taking less time to read than their creators took to reach the pulpit. My own contribution was ‘Pantoum Promise’, the first and, so far, only pantoum that I have written. If you don’t know what a pantoum is – neither did I until recently – and would like to read it, it’s now available in the Stories & Poetry section of this website.
The following day saw me at four more sessions, this time at Ripon’s historic Thorpe Prebend Hall, just behind the Cathedral.
RWG member Sheila Whitfield launched her first poetry collection
and then joined other members for Ripon Writers’ Group’s own showcase session, introduced by Carol Mayer. Left to right in the photo above are Carol Mayer, Sheila Whitfield, Kate Swann, Christine Summers, Lindsay Trenholme and yours truly. There was time for each of us to contribute three of our own poems
and for Christine, accompanied by her husband Dylan, to sing two of the songs she’d written. In the much regretted but unavoidable absence of Peter Page, Carol and Sheila each read out one of his poems.
I attended Olivia Mulligan’s very entertaining session, which gave plenty of inspiration for unique ways to create a collection. (Extract from the programme above, as I wasn’t able to secure a good vantage point to take my own photo.)
The final session of the day was ‘Poetry and Music’ from Christine and Dylan, in collaboration with other local folk singers Simon Strickland and Dawn Bramley.
In summary, I had a fabulous afternoon, including tea and chocolate cake at the Claro Lounge, which I also managed to fit in!
11 October, 2021 - Make the first comment on this story
A melancholy honour
This week I was invited by her husband Joe to read the eulogy for Daphne Peters, founder of Ripon Writers’ Group and a good friend to us all. We lost Daphne eighteen months ago, just after the first lockdown, and were thus unable to attend the funeral, so this was a long anticipated opportunity to honour her memory. RWG members past and present attended the service in Ripon Cathedral and mingled later on over refreshments to reminisce.
During the course of the service, several of us read poems written by Daphne, who was widely published in anthologies and often asked for permission to broadcast her work. She specialised in writing for children, with animals and her love of the sea as frequently recurring themes. Daphne shared my love of cats and, out of all her poems, my favourite is ‘Friday Night in Finkle Street’. It tells of a group of cats hanging around a fish and chip shop in the centre of Ripon in the hope of feasting on the customers’ leavings. ‘They lick their lips over fish and chips’ will continue to come to mind and remind me of Daphne whenever I pass that shop.
NB Daphne’s poems can also be found under her maiden name of Lister.
30 September, 2021 - Make the first comment on this story
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