In Our Own Write – October/November 2026
Five of us met to share our latest literary masterpieces, all with the title “Looking back”.
- Some experiences you never forget and one member shared the horror of being followed as a fourteen year old by a man. To this day she can remember looking back to find that he was gaining on her and her sprinting to escape him. Who knows what would have happened if her screams hadn’t been heard by a school caretaker who came out to investigate the noise scaring away the man.
- A woman looking back on her progress as an ice skater from being taken by her father as a young child to learn how to skate, to participating in ice dancing competitions. She and her partner seemed destined for greatness until a skating accident finished her career. Her skating partner did however become her husband and the father of their six month old baby.
- A disillusioned doctor was returning home from work in a severe winter storm, reflecting on how life was grinding him down. He spotted a lone figure huddled against a tree visibly upset and stopped the car to give him a lift. The young man reluctantly accepted and the doctor who was a psychiatrist realised that he had seen an older version of the boy recently.
It transpired that the boy’ s father had lost his job and had suffered a breakdown , ending the boy’s hopes of training to become a doctor as the family could no longer afford to support him. The doctor decided that he would retire and utilise a pot of money that he had inherited from various patients over the years and fund the boy’s medical training. - This piece was about looking back on what childhood was like for those of us who won’t see 70 again. Remembering the joys of playing conkers and hula hoops and the freedom to roam. The memory of the tiny bottles of school milk often sour in the summer and the fact that in rain or snow schools stayed open.
Houses had single glazed windows with frost on the inside in winter and clothes were hung out on the washing line often freezing like cardboard.
What will the children of today remember when they look back on their childhood? A disposable society; worries about global warming or AI or whether the world will be destroyed by war or virus? - A lonely widow is contacted on Facebook by a widowed doctor who lived in America and they began to exchange messages. He told her that as he was volunteering at a remote hospital and was unable to get a phone connection although could email.
Watching Scam Interceptors on TV Nick Stapleton was talking about Romance Scams being on the increase and out of curiosity she followed his instructions as to how to do a reverse image search. It turned out that the photo of “her” doctor belonged to a married doctor in Swindon who warned in his profile that scammers kept using his photo.
Looking back, she realised that her doctor was gradually trying to reel her in and was probably sitting in a call centre in Nigeria waiting for the right moment to rid her of her savings. He was in for a surprise!
Our next meeting is on the 9th November when the topic will be “The panic in his face”.
Travina