#Swanwick68: Day 7 (Friday)
The last day of the Writers’ Summer School is always a flurry of activity: early breakfast; goodbye hugs; waving the coach off to the station at 8:30; stripping the beds and leaving the linen in the hallway (at least that was the case until this year – apparently we no longer do that as it’s a trip hazard); handing in keys and badges; and then heading for the road.
This year, with the memory still fresh of the terrible journey from the West Country last weekend, I decided to skip breakfast and head off really early. So, rather than report on it, I can only assume all the above took place as normal back in the Hayes Conference Centre.
Instead, I’m going to round off the week with a few of my particular highlights and awards:
- The prize for understatement of the week goes to James Runcie, who told us: “my father was a vicar.”
- The best jargon of the week came from Jonathan Higgs who, during Procrastination-Free Day, advised us to establish our ‘sticker selection strategy’ at the start of the day.
- The award for best new slang of the week belongs to Sue Moorcroft for teaching us that ‘hanging with my mates’ no longer means what it used to!
- A special joint prize for a great example of coming full circle: at his first ever Writers’ Summer School, our closing night speaker, Brendan Nolan, attended a course run by our opening night speaker, John Lamont, and went away inspired to write his book on Phoenix Park.
And, finally, huge plaudits to Michael, Maria, Pauline, Paul, Cathy, Ian, Katherine and Phil; the 2015/6 committee have done us proud and given us a brilliant week. And good luck to the new committee who, I’m sure, will be aiming to do just as well, if not better.
So, that’s it, folks. See you all same time, same place, next year?
(And to any non-Swanwicker who is wondering about the level of work to fun at the Writers’ Summer School, I promise we did lots of writing too!)
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