Photo by Centre for Ageing Better on Pexels.

Writing inspired by the following Sunday Writers’ Club prompt:

The Golden Oldies


Who are the ‘Golden Oldies’? Why and where do they meet regularly? How
does one become a member of their club, team, or secret society?

The Golden Oldies

by Marianne Thatcher

“Good morning.” Wrinkled, white faced and breathing heavily with a loud outsigh, Mavis heaved herself through the door and onto the nearest chair. She sat several minutes not talking, the effort of her ‘good morning’ and arrival having taken the breath needed for conversation.

“All right there, Mavis?” came Trevor’s voice from across the table. She nodded and bent over her Sainsbury’s shopping bag, pulling out a book with two biros attached to the the top.

“Just catching my breath.” Mavis replied, managing a wan smile.

The roses hanging over the door scratched the windowpane announcing the next arrival to the hut. In its former life the hut had been a garage but had been re-purposed fifteen years earlier to accommodate a writers’ group. Headed by Cynthia, in her late eighties, the group had 12 paid-up members. Cynthia, a retired University lecturer, baked goodies for the group before each weekly session.

Sarah, in her late sixties, a younger member of the group, wrote exquisite poetry, teasing rhyming words out of impossible texts.

Trevor was 76 and wrote spy stories, which always stopped short of the punch line.

Peter wrote stories about his daily life stretching for more than three pages. His own life was quite exciting, as he often looked after his grandchildren. One day he came very late. He had repaired something in his loft and his grandsons had removed the ladder for him to get back down.

Tom was another very talented poet, widely published in the local area, known for weaving decorative words and metaphors into just a few lines.

Janet, late 60s, was a novelist, and all were treated to her musings and adventures in Africa.

Then there was January, another septuagenarian, whose speciality was travelogues, with a twist of humour. Everyone waited in anticipation every time she was away for six weeks for the ensuing reports.

Every session was filled with each member reading, or not, what they had written since the last session. After everyone had read their piece, came the coffee break with the freshly baked biscuits or small cakes. There was a suspicion that those sweet treats were the main attraction for some members, like Mary, a bit overweight, who was sorry she hadn’t managed to write anything that week… or the week before…. or the week before that.

Cynthia, the group leader had a good connection to a museum in a nearby town, so bits of the writers’ efforts would appear hung up in auspicious places on walls, along the stairs, or by the entrance. She would copy the written piece, and it was only noticed by a few that new words and the occasional spelling slip were introduced into the exhibition item. As, however, the majority of viewers were primary aged schoolchildren, it didn’t seem to matter greatly.

It was a convivial group, sometimes resolving problems for each other – during the coffee break of course, Cynthia saw to that.

Like many groups there was some adversity, with one member, whose writing was not so popular in the group, managing to get six novels published.

Membership to the group was by invitation only, which in this case meant one member arranged to bring someone new with Cynthia. Her summer end-of-term-like event in her garden was accompanied by delicious food, and the reading of favourite stories of the year.

These were the “Golden Oldies”.