Kia ora, I’m not a great joiner of groups – but I have been/am a member of three memorable groups. This was the first one…
On my wall there is a framed black and white photograph of a group of women some sitting, some standing beneath a large tree. I am there, standing at the side looking on and smiling. This caught moment reminds me of how important this group was in my life.
This was the Hawke’s Bay branch of the NZ Women Writers’ Society. In the photograph there are 14 of us. We lived in Napier, Hastings, Wairoa, Havelock North, Waipawa and Waipukurau. Once a month for eleven months of the year we travelled to a meeting, once a year, the meeting was held at our place or in our town so we didn’t have to travel that month. There were two of us who lived in Wairoa and when we drove to Waipukurau or to Hastings or Havelock North, it didn’t seem that long because we were so enthusiastic about the group.
To be eligible to join the group I’d had to submit three pieces of published work to the NZ Women Writers Society in Wellington for the National committee to judge whether they were good enough to admit me as a member. The Wellington writers appeared to view the Hawke’s Bay branch as a bunch of out of control country girls who idled their time away writing little bits and pieces in between dagging sheep, riding horses, or making scones but who had no understanding of what real writing was or how real writers wrote. In actual fact some of had university degrees, some of us had left school at 12, others at 14. Most of us had worked at a job but a couple had ‘stayed home to help Dad’. Some had always known comfort and plenty, others knew what it was like to be cold and hungry and carried a load of anger about that.
Some of us wrote Romances (oh dear), and had been (really?) published by British publishers for some years, others wrote for newspapers, magazines (acceptable), but one or two actually wrote plays which were performed by (oh no) the Country Women’s Institute Drama Group or occasionally the (oh my god) the Catholic Women’s League Drama Group. As if this wasn’t bad enough, we tended not to follow the party line. I wonder now if we knew what that was.
In a way they were right. When we came to the capital ostensibly for the Annual General Meeting of the NZ Women Writers Assn we really came to (a) get a break from housework and cooking, (b) get away from the kids (c) have a good time. We were off the hook, on the loose and we revelled in it. We behaved like kids let out of school and it was fabulous. What did it matter to us who got elected onto the National committee, or who didn’t? A Wellington committee member vacuumed around us at the end of the meeting because we were so busy talking to and arguing with each other we hadn’t realised it was time to go.
We were just as judgementa as that Wellington lot we called them because we knew they had no idea what it was like to squeeze time out for writing, to shut one’s eyes to the ironing, the baking, the garden, so we could snatch an hour to write. Except, of course, for the Romance novelists.
The Romance novelists were different. They had a proper set-up. Even if they didn’t have a study they had a table and a typewriter and regular writing times and deadlines. Their families respected them. They earned money, real money – the rest of us could only look on in awe. I still do. Writing romantic novels is hard, many try but few succeed and the ones that do don’t get any credit for it except from their own groups who know how much it takes to succeed in that particular form.
My first published short story came about as a direct result of a group exercise and the feedback froma Romance novelist, who became one of my greatest and best and most loyal of friends who continued to make me cucumber sandwiches and a cup of tea, whenever I called in, whatever I did or whoever else crossed me off their christmas card list. Yes Virginia, some actually did that.
Every time I look at this photograph of women, most of whom are dead now, all of whom achieved a solid lineup of published work, I think how this group of strangers, took in this young eager chip-on–her-shoulder wannabe writer and became a group of good friends who looked after and loved me; the original purpose of the group not forgotten but somehow illuminated by the friendship we all shared and enjoyed. Haere, haere, haere..
