Last year, at an age when most of my contemporaries were retiring from work or at least thinking about it, I decided to join a creative writing class at a local university. The creative writing modules I enrolled in are part of an MA degree course, I haven’t  decided whether I want a degree, but I do know that I love writing.

I have written lots of things, since my first effort at writing a play when I was seven. The play was entitled “The Little White Bull” and was about a small china bull that a little girl saw in a second-hand shop, whilst out shopping with her grandmother.  She saw the bull “move” and although her grandmother didn’t believe her, she let the child think that she did in order to find out what would happen.

 I wrote until I wasn’t sure where to go next. I knew I should end the play but was unsure how to do that.  I couldn’t ask for help as  I had not told anyone and anyway the play was going to be a Christmas surprise for my teacher, Miss Fawcett. The script was put in a drawer in my dressing table while I thought about an ending, and somehow in all the Christmas excitement, I forgot all about it.  It lay undisturbed until we moved house a few years later and it was then thrown away. I had other interests now!

I was apprehensive as I went to my first class. Passing young students on various stairways all laughing and talking together, I became acutely aware that I was old enough to be their grandmother.  What was I doing here? Then one stopped to ask me directions.  He was very polite and friendly and when I had to admit that I too was new here and about to start my first class, he flashed a brilliant smile and said “Good for you, well done.”  I reached my classroom on a cloud of happiness and reassurance. (to be continued on my Writing Page…)