EDGEWISE

The work the Bridgnorth Writers Group have completed as part of the 'Out Here' project is to be presented in two ways:

• An anthology of short prose and poetry
• A performance of new writing and songs about the local area.
  
  7.30 pm Saturday Nov 14th
  Cinnamon Café, Bridgnorth
  
  7.30pm Saturday Dec 5th
  Priory Hall, Much Wenlock
  
  £3.00 (£2.00 under 18s) –
  includes free copy of our new
  collection of writing.

Our Hard Working Editorial Team

The work Bridgnorth Writers have produced for the 'Out Here' project has now been submitted and our hard working editorial team ( Nadia, Nick and Dave ) are busy selecting and editing work and organising the anthology.
This should be available for sale at the performance at the Cinnamon Bar on Saturday, November 14th.

'Underground' by Paul Francis

Under Ground

You’d never guess. Beneath the contoured slopes,
green folds descending to the valley floor,
a catacomb of filth. Two shafts drove down,

one each side of the river, then across
below the bed. A tunnel bridged the gap
from Highley here to Alveley, the two

bolted together by a subterranean link.
A hundred years of grubbing, chipping, graft
are covered over by oblivious clay.

The railway which had started off a boom
is cloaked in cobwebs, dusted off, revived
at weekends, puffing out nostalgic steam.

Five years after the final pit lamp died
a girl at home was kidnapped from her bed
and driven off, to sixty miles away.

Not any girl. ‘Heiress’ the paper said.
Her dad’s coach business going well,
so when he died she got the legacy.

You’d never guess. An ordinary bloke
who’d had a go at building, doing odd jobs.
His name – you’ll like this bit – was Nappey.

Read it, once. But then imagine, count
how many times the kids at school would laugh.
When his daughter’s born he has it changed.

So it’s Neilson that reads the article.
How Lesley Whittle, seventeen, is worth
eighty-two thousand quid. He waits three years.

How does that work? What surface reasoning
can sift the ore, or analyse the mix
of grievance with entitlement?

He plans, he moves, he drives her in the dark.
Her brother gets the note, prepares to trade:
just fifty thousand for his sister’s life.

He’s late. “Look for a flashing torch” it said.
There’s not a glimmer. It looks desolate.
A hoax maybe, the police announce.

There’s door to door, there’s sniffer dogs.
Enquiries proceed in fog for weeks
until they find her, hanging in a drain.

Two hundred yards away, she is, from where
her brother came to ransom her. Just why
they’ve not searched there is anybody’s guess.

Detectives deal in hunches. Not a science
- but it’s still possible to get it wrong.
Later, the Chief is put back on the beat.

Neilson’s caught by chance. Just questioning,
a sawn-off shotgun, then a hi-jacked car.
Locals dive in. He’s lucky to survive.

At intervals, Home Secretaries confirm
he won’t come out. Motor Neurone disease
will intervene to settle any doubts.

He goes to the High Court, aged 72.
His hands and legs are useless, so he asks
to have his term cut down to thirty years.

But terror stalks us all. Judges don’t see
a frail old man. BLACK PANTHER, still, in bold,
in capitals, stalking their memories.

Any day now, discreetly, with a spade,
we’ll put him where the pit is, out of mind,
where she is buried in oblivious clay.

'You Must Remember This' by Tom Wentworth

“Geoff,” said Margery, wiping her hands on a dishcloth. “Do you think I’m losing my memory?”
“What’s brought this on?” said Geoff, peering over his copy of The Guardian. It was typical of Margery to find something to worry about, especially since the children had left home, but he hoped that there was nothing wrong.
“Well...” She sat down, laying the dishcloth on the table in front of her. “I went shopping, and then I got talking to Irene yesterday in the High Street… and even though it was on my list I still came back without any biscuits… the one’s you like.”
“Oh. Well…” said Geoff, feeling suddenly relieved. “We all do that; go upstairs and find we didn’t bring down the thing that we went up for.” Geoff tried not to let his face betray his disappointment. It was coffee time and he reflected that a buscuit would have slipped down very nicely with a cup of that new richly blended coffee that Margery liked to buy from Sainsbury’s.
Margery set Geoff’s mug on the table and sat down, but he had already started getting up. “It’s alright, I’ll take mine into the other room.”
Margery watched him go, knowing that she’d get no peace now, as Geoff would be wanting to come in to show her things from one of their many photograph albums. It was his current interest and while she didn’t mind, it was nice, occasionally, to have some peace and quiet. The children had filled there lives for so many years…
“Love,” Geoff pondered as he re-entered the kitchen. “You know when we first met…? I was just looking at that photograph. “
“Yes,” she said. “Outside the Town Hall. After seeing a production of.… oh, you know, one of those Gibert and Sullivan operas.”
“Trial By Jury” supplied Geoff.
“That’s right. Never my favourite.”
“It was such a special evening. The start of something…” Geoff’s eyes were alight all off a sudden and Margery thought how well he looked.
“As we walked out into the town, I thought this is where I want to spend the rest of my life and on my arm is the woman that I want to share it with.
Margery was sure that she could feel herself blush but said nothing. Then Geoff continued, “…and then I said that you were a very pretty girl.” Geoff was in full flow, lost in the moment but suddenly Margery couldn’t hear him.
“No you didn’t.” She looked straight into Geoff’s eyes with sudden accusation in her own. “You said I was the most beautiful girl in the world.”
They looked at one another.
“Did I?” Geoff said with a surprised smile.
“Oh yes,” said Margery with a smile. “Now, I do remember that.”

'The Case of the Teddy Bear Killers' by Tom Bryson ( an extract from a proposed book for older children )

‘Run, run, they’re back,’ the frightened Snadger’s cry rang out down Lincoln Hill in Coalbrookdale.
Cadgermolewagger swept from his secret crevice deep in the limestone cave. He cried in fury as he saw the approaching Diggermen. He quickly rounded up his followers and they fled into the burrowed limestone rock.
It was the year 1789 when Snadgers fought to bury their thin forms deep in the limestone caverns of Coalbrookdale. It was not easy to hide from the Diggermen - miners who wielded their pickaxes with fury, sweat dripping from their chalk-white faces, coughing as their lungs accumulated the deadly dust. Primitive organisms, as the Snadgers were, they knew that if they didn’t escape the shovels that scooped the limestone into iron bogies, they were doomed. The laden bogies, and the trapped Snadgers would be hauled down the iron tracks to the Ironworks; where The Furnace waited.
But despite the never ending excavations all the way down Lincoln Hill, despite the flailing arms of the limestone miners, despite the inexorable attrition in their numbers as the gouged valley deepened – some Snadgers survived. They slunk away into the recesses of the woods, hid in the shelter of the great Atlas Cedar tree, clung to each other as the Coalbrookdale company workers passed along on their Sabbath Walks. In their clean shirts and tall hats they looked respectable God-fearing citizens on a Sunday outing; to the Snadgers they were those Monday to Saturday devils in disguise.
One such Snadger was Cadgermolewagger. As thin as a pencil but blessed with the magic skills of the shape-changer, he was able to escape their toiling hands by expanding, contracting, wriggling, twisting, hopping and flying; at times he became as a speck of dust, at others an unbreakable rock of limestone as hard as granite. But Cadgermolewagger was an exception – a once in a generation born Snadger. He was also a Leader.
‘Follow me,’ he cried. ‘We must organise, we can fight back, we can stop the Diggermen, the Fireburners and the Iron Horses.’ As one, the rest of the Snadgers moved in line behind Cadgermolewagger ;a column of white stick-like ants they moved up the steep hill. Some cowered in fear, others held their slender forms erect, unwilling to show how scared they were; some slumped, fell by the wayside, gave up the battle. But Cadgermolewagger pressed on until they came to a place of safety.
It is recorded in the Ledgers of Snadger history that it was in this day in 1790, in the woods alongside what is today known as the Lodge Field, a great Council of the Snadgers was held. Cadgermolewagger addressed the community of Snadgers and laid down the ‘Three Principles’ that were to be their watchword henceforth.
‘One – Ours is the Natural World. The Diggermen, Fireburners, and Iron Horses will one day be driven from the land that we will once again possess – we Snadgers are of Nature and Nature will always out.
‘Two – We must fight the Diggermen, Fireburners and Iron Horses - we Snadgers will use our great gift bestowed by the law of nature – flesh-burning.
‘Three – the followers and descendants of the Diggermen, Fireburners, and Iron Horses must be sought out and destroyed.’
Throughout the limestone caves of Coalbrookdale a great shout rang out, that hammered down the Severn Gorge, drowned the clanging hammers and roaring furnaces of the Iron Works, was heard as far away as Coalport. The Snadgers hailed Cadgermolewagger, joined forces and vowed to the God of Nature to defeat the usurpers who would tear them from the earth itself, destroy them in the Great Furnace.
Cadgermolewagger held high an effigy of the Fireburners, a figure made of straw, leaves and twigs bound with the bark of the Acer tree. He held it aloft and his shape changed, his body swelled to the size of a Fireburner, a face as pale as death sprouted up from his frame, bared teeth flashed and with a roar of roar of rage Cadgermolewagger bit off the head of the effigy.

Severn Gorge Trip, Sunday, July 26th

We started the day by walking to The Rotunda










where we looked along the Severn Gorge











and over to The Wrekin.










Then we descended into Coalbrookdale












to the Museum of Iron











where we met Abraham Darby the Third













and some shire horses.









We, also, found the furnace which Abaham Darby ( the First )
used to smelt iron with coke ( instead of charcoal ) 300 years ago:
a process which kick-started the Industrial Revolution.

A short walk took us to the Greenwood Centre where we had
lunch and met 'Woody the Hoody' and a nymph rising from a tree.

After our meal we set off towards the River Severn











where we saw the old warehouses and former railway
lines which took goods made in this area to The Wharfage
from where they were transported down the river to Bristol.



























Rain fell as we walked to The Ironbridge but
such a magnificent sight lifted our spirits!!!












The End

'Going, Going, Gone' by Martin White

‘For the last time -is there any advance on twenty eight thousand pounds? Twenty eight thousand for this desirable property, The Rectory, Hodge Bower. Twenty eight thousand.’
The auctioner paused and looked around the small group of people assembled in the dingy assembly room of the Tontine Hotel in the centre of Ironbridge.
'For the last time twenty eight thousand pounds. Going, going gone! Sold to the gentleman in the second row.’
It was 1979 and Martin felt the shock of acquiring a three-storey, semi-derelict house in an overgrown bramble-laced Edwardian garden. He and his wife had noticed the house for sale in the evening newspaper a week before. They visited and found it had been empty for two years after the death of the Rector of the local church , a much loved man in the locality.
Those years had taken their toll with dampness and fungoid growths in the rooms, no central heating , an ancient bathroom and a cramped kitchen. It was not an inviting prospect for their young family. And yet ......
The house stood on the northen slopes of the Ironbridge Gorge looking toward the tree- covered slopes of Benthall Edge on the other side of the river. A network of paths and narrow roads connected them with the heart of the village, the Iron Bridge, the Tontine Hotel and the market square. It was a romantic location. And it was an exciting time; Martin had come to work on the New Town that was rehabilitating the ravages of the worked out East Shropshire coalfield and Ironbridge was just beginning to attract people reckless enough to attempt to colonise and reinvigorate a very derelict town.
Martin and Judy spent a week of frenzied activity , estimating the cost of making the house habitable, arranging a mortgage, agreeing a loan with a very reluctant bank manager. They had hardly any time to consider the life changing implications of what they were taking on. There had not been many bidders at the evening auction. Just them and another couple, surrounded by onlookers curious to see who would be mad enough to buy a property that most probably thought best demolished.
And so the tap of an auctioneer’s gavel signaled a life-defining moment.