Jane Wenham-Jones's Blog, page 18

Overly excited and thrilled

Am suitably delighted to report that Prime Time has been shortlisted for the Romantic Comedy category of the RoNas today.

This is a massive honour  of course – especially when you see the wonderful writers I am listed with – and means that I am going to have to follow my own tips with renewed vigour before the awards ceremony on 26th Feb (I do feel a new frock is called for) (and possibly shoes).

To celebrate, my publishers have drastically reduced the price of Prime Time on Kindle – if you want to grab it for the price of a tin of beans, now is the time.

Off tomorrow to Chez Castillon. Enjoying the competition entries to-date. If you haven’t sent yours in yet, see 100 Ways to Fight the Flab Competition.

More when back…

Filed under: books, competitions, eBooks, events, non-fiction, novels, RNA, romance, writing Tagged: author, blogging, books, characters, Chez Castillon, creative writing, ebooks, fight the flab, healthy eating, Jane Wenham-Jones, journalist, Kent, literature, non-fiction, novelist, novels, Plain Jane, speaker, story author, story authors, Thanet, Wannabe, WordPress, writing, writing magazines

Plain Jane. Isle of Thanet Gazette. Friday 18th January 2013

Eat crisps to beat the flab

The problem with having written a weight-control book (one can hardly talk “diet” when tips involves chocolate) is that the world expects you to be thin. When you’ve written it in a mad deadline-chasing frenzy, involving sitting on your backside for ten days straight, your only exercise the flapping of your typing fingers and the occasional stretch for a biscuit, this is less likely than usual. And when your birthday falls only two weeks after Christmas and this year’s must-haves all seem to involve 70% cocoa and invitations for pizza, it is nigh on impossible.

I have looked in envy over the years, at the best-selling authors of best-selling diet books with their super-twig frames on the cover and thought how great it must be to hit both the big and small time (as it were) simultaneously. I realise now that their problems were just beginning.

I remember hearing of a well-known name, who, having shed four stone for her UK publication, had put it all back on again by the time she was offered the USA tour. There she was sat on breakfast show sofas looking like her BEFORE instead of her AFTER (out there they probably didn’t notice), trying to extol the virtues of living on beetroot (or whatever it was) and wondering why sales were slow. And I have since sat opposite a minor celeb who would only suck a lettuce leaf for dinner because the publicity shots for her miracle eating plan were due and it was six months (and half a stone) since she’d written it.

I am not, of course, in quite the same boat. Not only am I unlikely to be required to hold forth on TV (fortunate since the very act of appearing before camera puts ten pounds on before you start) but I took the precaution of having the promotional shots of my derriere taken long before the festive season (leading my esteemed colleague Mike-don’t-believe-a-word-of-it-Pearce, upon viewing these, if you want to brace yourself – to make the, frankly defamatory, suggestion that I had hired a bottom double or had my rear reduced by photo-shop).

In any case, my new work, nattily entitled 100 Ways to Fight the Flab, is not so much designed to make you thin but to suggest methods by which you can drink wine and eat as many crisps as I do and not become clinically obese. This does not stop the eyes of anyone I tell about it, dropping straight to my stomach. “It’s supposed to be a light-hearted read,” I trill, as I suck in my offending middle (a feat made easier by following tips 7 and 92), “although all the ways work…” I then offer up my (normal) BMI and hip to waist ratio, breathe in a bit harder, and announce how many chocolates I ate the day before. This seldom fails to impress. “And just the one airline seat”, I finish cheerily. I still see the surreptitious glances at my thighs.

The answer, I’ve decided, is to stick to radio. I’ll be on BBC Radio Kent with Pat Marsh this afternoon at 2.45pm if you’d like to hear more. I may have a fat voice but I’m slimmer than that really…

100 Ways to Fight the Flab – the Wannabe Guide to a Better Bottom is available as an ebook and on Kindle at £1.99. For a review see the 100 Ways to Fight the Flab book page.

For a chance to write your own diet or fitness tip and win a writing course with Jane at Chez Castillon in the Dordogne, click HERE.


Filed under: articles, eBooks, non-fiction, Plain Jane Tagged: 100 Ways to Fight the Flab, author, blogging, books, characters, Chez Castillon, competition, creative writing, diet book, ebooks, free competition, healthy eating, Jane Wenham-Jones, journalist, Kent, literature, non-fiction, novelist, novels, Plain Jane, speaker, story author, story authors, Thanet, Wannabe, WordPress, writing, writing magazines, writing retreat

100 Ways to Fight the Flab

I know I’m a bit of a show-off but even I wouldn’t display my bottom without good reason.

These photos were taken as possible cover shots for my new book – 100 Ways to Fight the Flab, currently on Kindle, possibly in print later, written to help writers everywhere combat Writer’s Bottom.

(Ironically my own derriere is a couple of pounds heavier than it is in the pics, from where I sat on it solidly for a week finishing said work. I am now following own tips…).

Even if you are not a writer, but are feeling a little blobby and jaded after the festive season, and still like your wine and crisps, then this is for you too.

If you ARE a writer, or think you might like to be one then there’s an added extra between the pages – a competition to win a week’s course – with me! – at the glorious Chez-Castillon in the Dordogne. Full details HERE.

Mere ordinary mortals will have to buy the book to find the entry code but for you my lovely, loyal blog-readers, here it is anyway WRITERSBOTTOM13. So nothing to lose (except fat!) and a fab holiday to win – worth £875, no less. (If you want to download the book out of sheer gratitude you can click here ).

Extract:

I am probably not thin enough to be writing a diet book….

But on the other hand, I am not morbidly obese.

Which, considering my unhealthy career choice (not for nothing did I coin the term ‘Writer’s Bottom’), vast consumption of wine, crisps and chocolate and somewhat erratic approach to exercise, is a small miracle. Depending on which set of charts I use and how much I fudge my height, I am generally within ‘normal’ parameters.

I have a BMI of 22 ish, a hip to waist ratio that passes muster with the medical profession and there was a day, once, when I was wearing black and the sort of underwear that crushes your internal organs, when I was even described as ‘slim’.

I am at the sort of weight where if you dress cleverly, hold your stomach in and make sure no one snaps you with a wide-angled lens, you can get by without anybody thinking you’re too much of a fat moo (heavy weekend on the peanuts, a badly cut dress and the skinniest friend in tow: different story).

If I need to, I can quickly lose half a stone, and the rest of the time, there are small steps I take to keep that writer’s backside at bay. I am going to share these with you here.

As a disclaimer, I must point out that I am not a nutritionist, or a doctor and if you are truly obese and needing three airline seats there is little I can do except to suggest you don’t wear white leggings.

But if your arse is merely on the large side and you’re feeling a little podgy round the edges, welcome to my world….

***

As mentioned above, ‘The 100 Ways to Fight the Flab – The Wannabe Guide to a Better Bottom’ is available on Kindle from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk…

Filed under: books, competitions, eBooks, events, humour, non-fiction, writing Tagged: 100 Ways to Fight the Flab, author, blogging, books, characters, Chez Castillon, competition, creative writing, diet, dieting, diets, ebooks, exercise, health, Jane Wenham-Jones, journalist, Kent, literature, non-fiction, novelist, novels, Plain Jane, speaker, story author, story authors, Thanet, tip-writing, tips, Wannabe, WordPress, writing, writing magazines

Top Comment-leaver of 2012…

Yes, excitement, drum roll, etc. I am pleased to announce that…

Tony Tibbenham has the doubtful glory of being crowned the most-frequent-commenter on this blog in 2012. (WordPress supply all sorts of fascinating statistics as midnight strikes.)

Congratulations Tony!

I would send you a signed book to celebrate but you’ve told me you’ve got them all. (God bless you)

SO I have just sent you a £1.99 amazon gift token (this woman’s generosity knows no bounds) with which to purchase my new e book “100 WAYS TO FIGHT THE FLAB – The Wannabe Guide to a Better Bottom” which is out SOON. (I put on two pounds being glued to my computer for a fortnight to write it.) Watch this space  for further details….

In the meantime, a Happy New Year to you and ALL my lovely blog-readers.

Thank you for all of your comments and emails and just being there.

Love yer and look forward to talking more in 2013.

Have a good one.
janexx


Filed under: books, competitions, eBooks, events, humour, non-fiction, writing Tagged: author, blogging, books, characters, creative writing, ebooks, fight the flab, Jane Wenham-Jones, Kent, literature, non-fiction, novelist, novels, Plain Jane, story author, story authors, Thanet, Tony Tibbenham, Wannabe, WordPress, writing

My-Mate-Mike in the Isle of Thanet Gazette 28th December

Remember my excellent advice on coping when the old man is suddenly at home ALL BLOODY DAY?

My esteemed fellow columnist on the Gazette, Mike Bah-Humbug Pearce, has waded in with his own rantings on the matter. Still, keeps him busy, love him. He is retired, you know…

The perils of retired life by Mike Pearce 

SO WHERE were we before we were so rudely interrupted by Christmas?

Ah! yes, my columnist chum Jane Wenham-Jones was offering advice to a wimpy woman wanting to know how could she cope now her husband is retiring, which is like asking a flower how it’s going to cope now that the refreshing rain is on its way. All chaps know it is the MAN who will need help.

So agony aunt Jane and your new pal, please go off and have a natter while I reveal what he needs to know.

Dear Jim. Make sure you invest in a sat-nav.

You are now an on-demand chauffeur and your navigating spouse will invent a new compass point – There.

Whenever you ask “Where do we go?”, she will reply “Over there”. One lady told me, when we stopped at a T-junction, that we should go straight on.

Be prepared for preposterous assertions, the most popular being “You don’t want another drink” after you have just announced that it’s exactly what you would like.

Don’t announce your plans in advance, because you will be headed off at the pass with previously unthought-of things that can be done only on the day you plan to play golf.

Women used to have sinus trouble – “Sign us a cheque for this, sign us a cheque for that.” In the electronic age, leave your credit card at home if you are ever forced to join a shopping expedition.

Buy a second television. Your beloved will sit like a trappist through hours of soaps, then gabble like a goose as soon as anything remotely interesting comes on screen.

And yes, you can afford to have Sky Sports, if she can afford to buy glossy “style” magazines. And if you can’t afford both, get her interested in football. Tell her the centre-forward’s having an affair with someone from Eastenders, which she will find interesting and will probably be true anyway.

Treat yourself to an ipod and a set of earphones. Enjoy records you haven’t played for years, while at the same time blocking out the hour-long phone calls to the friend she had lunch with just hours earlier.

Accept that your suit-and-tie days are over. Casual clothes always look rumpled on an ageing frame, so don’t be ashamed to wear them for days or to leave them lying around the bedroom, the bathroom, the dining room and the hall. She will pick them up eventually, if only to allow the door to close.

Be careful how you react to her cooking. Be over-enthusiastic and you will get the same dish over and over. And when you point out that liver and bacon three times a week might be excessive, expect the: “I thought you liked it. What’s wrong with it?” sulks.

Say you’re not that keen and you’ve taken a short cut to the “What’s wrong with it?” stage.

Be prepared for sighs, an irritating affectation exclusive to women.

You spill your coffee, they go “Tch-huhhhhhhhhhh”. You forget (along with an increasing number of things) to put out the dustbin – “Tch-huhhhhhhhhhh”.

Be prepared for daft questions. When your phone rang at work, nobody would chirp up “Who’s that?”, as if you were Claude the Clairvoyant. Now you’ll get it all the time. Same if there’s a knock on the door. You might try answering “The neighbour I’m having an affair with”, or “The bailiffs”, but it’s a high-risk strategy.

And remember Jim, if this all sounds too daunting, B&Q are always keen to take on older workers.

Filed under: articles, humour, Plain Jane, writing Tagged: advice, articles, fiction, humour, isle of thanet, Isle of Thanet Gazette, Jane Wenham-Jones, Mike Pearce, non-fiction, Plain Jane, retirement, writing

Plain Jane. Isle of Thanet Gazette. Friday December 21st 2012

This might not make entire sense to those not blessed with living on the Isle of Thanet but perhaps you would would wish for similar for your town too…

Happy Christmas anyway!

jxxx

***

What would make a perfect gift for Isle?

THE GAZETTE’s regular columnists Jane Wenham-Jones and Mike Pearce have been set a Christmas challenge by editor Rebecca Smith.

It’s better to give than receive, we are told, so what could glass-half-full Jane and glass-half-empty Mike come up with as the perfect gifts for Thanet?

WHO’S BEEN GOOD? A bumper parcel for Jane and socks again for Mike (photo by Bill Harris)

​JANE: What would I give Thanet this Christmas? Some positive vibes! Thanet has its problems but it’s got a whole heap of potential too. So I’d like to see less negativity from the disaffected quarters and no scaremongering. I wish the Isle further art galleries and creative ventures (to quote Ms Emin: where art comes, regeneration follows); a few more restaurants you can sit outside; and bars that face the sun.

I want the new micro pubs to do well, the older pubs to survive, the High Streets to hang in there and huge success for Manston Airport, (yes, yes, during the day! Don’t start that again).

I’d like to see certain councillors stepping down and others stepping up. I’d like derelict properties restored and landlords held to account and bad housing sorted.

Had I a magic Christmas wand, I would of course bring more employment and prosperity, fewer punch-ups and help for smaller shops and businesses. I’d say no to superstores and give a fat grant to anyone opening up an empty retail space and making jobs.

I’d have an open police station in each town, no more ridiculous “traffic-calming” and put Richborough Towers back where it was. I’d see the theatres full, the churches unvandalised and the loos unlocked. But in the sad absence of my fairy wings, I’ll just send a group hug. Have a good one!

And for my dear colleague Mike? I would give him a season ticket to Turner Contemporary events, a hot night out with Iris Johnston (his favourite!), a night flight from Manston and a signed, life-size photograph of Tracey Emin. Happy Christmas mate!

MIKE: AS A child, I would plead for expensive toys and receive a gift-wrapped box containing a battery and a message saying “Toy not included”. I offer my presents for Thanet, but remember – Santa is an anagram of Satan.

For Margate: A new road behind Dreamland, allowing a pedestrianised seafront paradise with a cafe culture in its true sense. Not just a few late-night boozers, but coffee bars, eateries and a tip of the hat to the glory days, with ice cream parlours, candy floss and family-friendly amusement arcades.

For Broadstairs: A large field, miles from anywhere, where morris men can beat each other with sticks, and lank-haired minstrels of indeterminate sex can whine about Strawberry Fair, Widdecombe Fair and Betfair for all I care, without providing an excuse for every yob this side of Tilbury to converge on the town centre and cause mayhem.

For Ramsgate: A fairy godmother to sprinkle stardust on the precious Ramsgate Sands site, shoo off would-be developers and turn back the clock to when it was a tourist magnet – or at least a car park.

For Thanet: A spaceship to descend and take away this hapless council. And then (oh Santa, if only) for 56 good men strong and true to come forward – people who will spend more time discussing agendas and less time discussing genders; people with intelligence and enthusiasm; people less concerned with causes and more concerned with the common good.

For the High Streets: An end to hand-wringing, silver-tongued soothsayers offering false dawns.

For the Turner Centre: A ticket machine, so they can finally admit there’s no such thing as a free Munch.

And following Margate’s inclusion in the Rough Travel Guide as the world’s seventh best tourist destination, an early copy of next year’s, showing Cliftonville has the world’s best forests, Manston the most successful airport and Westwood Cross the most efficient traffic system.

For Plain Jane?: A film company to buy up one of her novels. And an address book with the page for D torn out, so she avoids the duckies and divas and darlings who turn her pretty little head!

Filed under: articles, books, events, novels, Plain Jane, writing Tagged: article, Bill Harris, Broadstairs, candy floss, challenge, Christmas, Cliftonville, editor, family-friendly amusement arcades, glass-half-empty, glass-half-full, ice cream parlours, Iris Johnston, Jane Wenham-Jones, Manston, Margate, Mike Pearce, novel, Plain Jane, Ramsgate, Ramsgate Sands, Rebecca Smith, regular columnists, Rough Travel Guide, socks, Strawberry Fair, The Isle of Thanet, The Isle of Thanet Gazette, Tracey Emin, Turner Contemporary events, Westwood Cross, Widdecombe Fair

Plain Jane 14th December 2012: Coping with (his) retirement

As some of you may know, I write a fortnightly column – alternating with My-Mate-Mike (he who hovers just to the right of Genghis Khan and is considered a suitable antidote for what he views as my ‘dangerously-pink” tendencies) – in the Isle of Thanet Gazette. In theory this appears online on http://www.thisiskent.co.uk. In practice it frequently doesn’t. If it does, you need a degree in orienteering to find it and then, when you get there, it doesn’t bear my name.

Plain Jane. Isle of Thanet Gazette. Friday December 14th 2012

A missive from one Hilda Rarebit of Ramsgate (real name supplied). She doesn’t want her husband to know she is writing, as she is seeking my guidance on coping with retirement. His! Mr Rarebit is due to hang up his working shoes come Christmas.

“Have you,” Hilda enquires, “got any tips on how I am going to hack it  when he’s under my feet all day?”

Well, strange you should ask. I am not sure whether the good Mrs Rarebit, who describes herself as “an avid Gazette reader”, recalls that my own spouse is some two decades my senior and put down his own tools of the trade (a phone and corkscrew) longer ago than I care to remember. Or if she has heard that my enduring ambition is to be an agony aunt (a reincarnation I am hoping to slide past the editor at the Christmas Drinks, leaving Mike-things-aren’t-wot-they-used-to-be-Pearce to moan about the council and gripe about Turner Contemporary, while I solve the Isle’s dilemmas). But I am ready to meet the challenge. My advice, dear Hilda, is as follows:

If he lives for the 18th hole, count your blessings!  You may have railed against being a golf widow for all the years he disappeared for hours whenever the kids needed collecting or your mother was coming to stay, or be used to muttering darkly about his train-spotting, fishing and time in the pub. But a good, solid, time-consuming sport or hobby partaken outside the home, will now be your saviour. Forget socks and hankies and present him on Tuesday week with a new notebook and bobble hat, tankard or gross of maggots.
Discourage any interest in cooking. It may sound good to have all the food prepared but it won’t end there. There is a definite syndrome displayed by Men Who Are At Home Too Much and it is encapsulated by the word “system”.  As in “I have a system when I do that” whenever he watches you chop an onion or wash the kitchen floor.  And he may be watching a lot! My friend Anna was driven to distraction by  her newly-retired husband  delivering  lectures on the correct way to both stack and empty the dishwasher until she was forced to threaten him with one of the saucepans he’d re-positioned. He’ll also use every utensil you own and expect you to wash up.
Give him other things to be in charge of (if these happen to be based at the end of the garden, so much the better). In our house it is the Composting and Recycling System. This has involved our son receiving in-depth training on The Correct Way to Flatten a Cardboard Box. And regular interrogations over whose transgression had led to a tin being found among the newspapers. But it gets him into the driveway.
Be creative when his birthday comes along. Buy him membership to the gym, evening classes or a new shed with running water and its own kitchen.
Get a shed of your own.
Leave articles lying around claiming older men are sexier if they spend several hours a day in the fresh air. Or possibly a week…
And those who do voluntary work live longer.
Encourage him to join things. Flattery can work well here. That committee/theatre group/local choir really needs someone like YOU. And  they’re crying out for aid workers in Africa…
Make a space of your own. Take over the spare room as your crafts or sewing room. You don’t actually have to do either. Just leave lots of material and coloured card all over the floor then, shut the door,  put your feet up and  read the paper.
Book yourself on a long cruise.





If YOU have a problem you’d like answering, send it to Dear Plain Jane (address below). And Hilda, don’t mention it…

Plain Jane

Isle of Thanet Gazette

Suite 1

3rd Floor

Mill Lane House

Mill Lane

Margate
Kent CT9 1JU

Editor: Rebecca Smith


Filed under: articles, Plain Jane, writing Tagged: advice, Agony Aunt, Jane Wenham-Jones, Plain Jane, writing

Plain Jane: Playing the Party Season

The following piece appears in the latest edition of the Isle of Thanet Gazette…

So we’re almost at December and the time, I gather, to start thinking festive. No, I don’t know where this year’s gone either, but if one more person tells me they finished their shopping weeks ago I shall slap her with some wet tinsel. It can only be a She. Men don’t get involved with presents at all if they can help it and when finally forced to face the inevitable, hare round on Christmas Eve, panic-buying gift packs. I sometimes wonder if I have male hormones. The joys of wafting around in a pinnie, hand-pressing cranberries and making my own mince meat, have passed me by but at least I have learnt  to keep stress levels low.

The way to approach C Day without fear and dread, is to keep one’s head firmly in a bucket and acknowledge nothing until December 23rd. When you’ve been self-employed as long as I have, with a tendency to let the entire year’s deadlines accumulate, leaving one no option but to be welded to the computer instead of counting down the retail days, the whole build-up can very easily slide past. Especially since nobody has Christmas parties any more. Or if they do, they don’t invite me.

Once upon a time, journalists wrote wearily about mantelpieces stiff with gold-edged cards (be an email these days of course) – too many to possibly ever attend all – while double pages were devoted to how to choose a little black dress and the best way to get through three weeks of champagne and canapés and still fit into it.

Now in these dark hours of austerity and gloom, it’s a buy-your-own down at the local chain pub or a memo urging staff to contribute half a goat for the third world instead. Friends who still have gainful employment with companies that turn a profit (three at the last count), tell me to thank my stars, but it is a small regret to me that never having had what you might call – and my husband does frequently – a “proper job”, I have never attended a traditional office party. I can only imagine the lecherous, bottom-patting general manager and the droopy typist who adores him. The dropped jaws when Doris from the canteen turns up in tight satin and fishnets; the sobbing after too many advocaats, the throwing up in the waste-basket, the passing round of intimate-body-parts-taken-on-photocopier hilarity and  the secretary found in the stationery cupboard doing something inappropriate with Stanley from accounts. I can’t help feeling that at  some fundamental, formative level, I have missed out.

Preparing for a previous Murder Mystery, at the Victorian Tearooms, Broadstairs
Dodgy photo by Matthew Munson

So it was perhaps with me in mind that my dear friend Lisa Payne, of the Perfectly Dreadful Murder Company, set the theme of her next Murder Mystery evening as “1970s Office Christmas Party”. I have been in a few of Lisa’s mysteries before and they are enormous fun. I am invariably cast as a cross between Barbara Windsor in EastEnders and Les Dawson in drag, allowing me to trip about in fishnets myself – with perilous heels and inadvisably short skirt – and Lisa to murmur sweetly: “and all from her own wardrobe too…” If you’re feeling festive already with no invites either, dressed up and no place to go, why not come along? Just remember ignorance is bliss for a little longer and don’t mention the  sh***ing…

Jane will be appearing with the Perfectly Dreadful Murder Company in their 70s style murder mystery on Saturday 8th December at the Sarah Thorne Memorial Theatre at 7.30 pm. Box office 0845 2626263. Prizes for best-dressed and  super-sleuth. Bring your own snacks.

Filed under: articles, events, Plain Jane, writing Tagged: Barbara Windsor, Broadstairs, Christmas, EastEnders, Isle of Thanet Gazette, Jane Wenham-Jones, Les Dawson, Murder Mystery evening, Office Christmas Party, Perfectly Dreadful Murder Company, Plain Jane, Sarah Thorne Memorial Theatre

Thank you Sarah Salway!

Very pleased to be featured on Sarah Salway’s website and thanks Sarah for the plug for Thursday’s event at Canterbury, Waterstones too.

Also thank you Edith for this article discovered by the splendid Morgen on her web travels.

I do like it when people say nice things about me. Would you believe they don’t always….

Filed under: articles, books, events, fiction, humour, interview, novels, writing Tagged: articles, Canterbury, events, In a room of my own, Jane Wenham-Jones, Morgen Bailey, Sarah Salway, Waterstones, writing

Plain Jane column 16 November – public speaking & event with Lesley Cookman

As you may know to your cost, I do a spot of “speaking”. This has taken me to Manchester and Edinburgh, Telford and Torquay and on one best-forgotten occasion, a village hall buried so deeply in rural Wales that it took nine hours to get there (geography has never been my strong point).

But it all started, as so many things have, here in Thanet. When a lovely lady, Rusty Macintyre, invited me to address something called the Beta Ladies. One of them was married to the Hon Sec of the Omega Men (or some such) and they all had friends in the Rotary or Round Table – I never remember which is which.  (One group are youngish and like a drink; the others are oldish, like a drink and then doze off.)

Further bookings followed and I learned on the job. “I generally recommend,” said the President of a Dining Club for Gentlemen of Mature Years, when I enquired how long I should speak for, “that you keep going until half the audience are asleep”. The average age in the room was 86 and one chap had already been snoring for ten minutes when I stood up. I punctuated each anecdote with any large noise I could muster. “And then there was a knock at the door,” I’d cry, slapping the flat of my hand hard down on the table and waiting while the front row jerked awake. “And the woman next to me shrieked…” I’d add, illustrating this with an ear-piercing scream to make sure they didn’t drop off again.  It was apparently the most excitement most of them had had for years – previous speakers had held forth on “The Workings of the Local Authority” and the “History of the Rubber Stamp” (with slides) – and word spread about my ability to bring on a coronary till my oratory career was forged.

I’ve done Probus and the Over 41 Club, Retirees United; the Under 65 Society, Young Wives (they were eighty if they were a day), Old Mothers, Small Businesses and more fundraisers than you can shake a stick at. And whether the audience numbers six or a hundred some things never change. There is always  a woman who glares throughout – even if it transpires she looks like this naturally  – and another who cups her ear and says loudly to the first one “what’s she on about?” There’s a guffawing bloke who calls out “Can I heckle?” (as long as you stay awake, pal, I don’t mind what you do) and when you take questions at the end, someone who wants to tell a long, unrelated story about something that happened in 1976. The more courses they bring out, the more often your glass is filled and the longer they linger over the coffee and mints while reading announcements about the Christmas Coach Trip, the less you feel like standing up and trying to raise a laugh. Which is an inexact science to say the least – the quip that had the Bowls Club in stitches is greeted with stony silence at the Goldfish Appreciation Annual Lunch – and you have no way of knowing if the three people who’ve just left are disgusted by your last anecdote or having a bad reaction to the shellfish starter.

What I do know is that after six months of book promotion involving a more than usually-heavy schedule on the oral front, even I can get tired of the sound of my voice. Relief all round then that at the next gig, Lesley Cookman is coming too. Lesley lives in Whitstable and sets her highly-popular, Libby Sarjeant crime series here in Kent.

She and I are going to be talking about our locally-based books in Waterstones in Canterbury next Friday.

You can glare, you can ask questions, you can heckle. Just don’t fall asleep…

***

Jane and Lesley will be in conversation at Waterstones, St Margaret’s St, Canterbury at 6.30pm Thursday 22nd November. Entry free.

Filed under: articles, books, events, novels, Plain Jane, romance, writing Tagged: Canterbury, Jane Wenham-Jones, Lesley Cookman, Libby Sarjeant, literature, Plain Jane, romance, Rotary Club, Round Table, Rusty Macintyre, St Margaret's Street, Thanet, Waterstones, writing