This is the inaugural year of the Georgina Hawtrey-Woore Award for Independent Authors. As many of you will know by now, Georgina died in 2017. As a senior editor at Arrow, Georgina was determined that her authors should fulfil their potential, and, more, she was also a great supporter of WforW. To commemorate her life, the three grannies who run Words for the Wounded determined that Georgina should be honoured. To this end they renamed the competition and re-jigged its structure. So now we have four categories.
This year, Margaret Graham, Penny Deacon and Jan Speedie are delighted to say that not only are the entry numbers up, so too is the standard. ‘It is heart warming to see so many excellent entries, and a great treat to read them;Georgina would be thrilled. Of course, though, there have to be winners and ultimately our team led by Milly Adams, one of Georgina’s authors, reached unanimous decisions. Unusually for WforW, we have joint 2nd place winners in two of the categories, so close was the standard.’
Frost Magazine featured First Place on 9th June, so now we bring you up to speed on the Joint 2nd Place winners.
Joint 2nd Place (in no particular order) :
a Testament of Grief – Jennifer Wilkin Shaw
A personal memoir exploring the passage of grief by a widowed mother who has lost her fourteen year old daughter.
No, it’s not an out of control reveal, but more a prose poem which explores and narrates the path of grief. On the one hand she talks to her daughter, on the other she compares her grief with that of Mary, mother of Jesus, who also experienced the horror of a lost child.
Judges’ Comments:
a Testament of Grief is written in short paragraphs, just like the fragmented thought line of a person in pain and despair. A painful but beautiful book to read as the author questions herself, her daughter, life. For those who have lost a child, or wish to understand those who have, this is essential reading.
As Jennifer Wilkin Shaw charts her way through the treacherous waters of a bottomless grief, towards a very distant shore, we hope it it might make others feel not quite so alone.
Jennifer says: When my daughter Charlotte died on Dartmoor, it felt like my life was over. Having already lost my husband to suicide I was terrified. But strangely, and without realising it I was slowly becoming fluent in a topic I would never have chosen; grief. In order to move forward I had to accept these metaphorical lemons that life had given me.
It was then I discovered that trauma is like compost. New life and creativity can spring from it. I was compelled to write about the grief in a new and surprising way. This gave rise to a book that doesn’t leave anything out: the truth about grief, warts and all, and I mean all!
From this – others who were suffering would have a companion and be spared the shame and aloneness of something we find so hard to talk about.
Born to a sunny Sri Lankan secretary and a Canadian musician in a two room London flat, Jennifer attended one of the capital’s finest schools. A risk taker, she has owned/ run successful restaurants in Norwich, London and Devon and has worked for Devon’s Health Service co-ordinating Smoking Cessation services, creating breakfast clubs and reducing inequalities.
Winner of the Temull cup for English, Jennifer, a History of Art graduate understands suffering. Her constant smile belies her husband’s suicide and the sudden death of her only child Charlotte, on Dartmoor, which made international news. She wrote about the grief and ‘A Testament of Grief’ was born. Among the online reviews is the word ‘Masterpiece’.
Having staged her own musical, Jennifer has now finished writing a talk on Spider-Man, trauma and creativity. Her third play- about domestic violence, the protagonist, a 90 year old demented female killer, will have its second read shortly. She is also working on her second book.
Jennifer lives in Frithelstockstone, Devon which you can’t say after 10 Gins to a taxi driver. Luckily she survives on tap water and drives an old rust bucket. She often writes in coffee shops with a sharp pencil and a macchiato.
a Testament of Grief by Jennifer Wilkin Shaw pub Simone Bluestock Publishing
Available as e-book or paperback from Amazon.co.uk.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Testament-Grief-Mothers-Story-Survival/dp/0995594902
https://www.facebook.com/jennifer.wilkinshaw
Joint 2nd Place: Odd Man Out – A Motiveless Murder? By Denise Beddows
The Words for the Wounded judging team could not separate a Testament of Grief and Odd Man Out so, as mentioned, they’ve created a joint 2nd place.
Odd Man Out is an extraordinarily well researched and, the judging team felt, empathetic sensitive exploration of a murder.
In post war Rawtenstall, a Lancashire mill town, an elderly woman, Nancy Chadwick, was brutally murdered 70 years ago. A transgendered conductress, Margaret ‘Bill’ Allen was arrested, and convicted for this apparently motiveless crime, though she barely knew Nancy Chadwick. Margaret was duly hanged.
So what do we know about Nancy? She was an elderly woman, described by her own family as abnormal and was found beaten to death. Five days later a suspect, also deemed ‘abnormal’ was arrested. So was this a case of an easy ‘fix’ based on prejudice and ignorance? Or was it a correct conviction?
Judges’ Comments:
70 years on, Denise Beddows painstakingly explores the event, but never loses accessibility or immediacy. The wealth of research material never becomes heavy, just intriguing as Beddows reveals detailed information which gives body to the crime. Is that an unfortunate use of words? Perhaps, but it becomes clear that information was suppressed, so was this conviction in 1948, during a bitter winter and when Britain was still recovering from the war, a miscarriage of justice?
Did the wrong person hang? Read it and decide. Beddows has produced a cracking real life ‘whodunit’.
Denise shared with Frost Magazine her reasons for writing Odd Man Out. which as titles go, is a cracker.
A couple of years ago, I stumbled across mention of a 1948 murder which had taken place in a law-abiding community in Lancashire. Former wartime bus conductress, the transgendered Margaret ‘Bill’ Allen, had brutally slain a 68 year-old woman whom she barely knew. Surprisingly, perhaps, it was the first murder ever recorded in the town. Even more surprising was the fact that my mother, an avid fan of tabloid murder reports who had also worked on the buses in wartime Lancashire, had never once mentioned the execution of one of her fellow ‘clippies’. Press reports on the case were few and mostly inaccurate, so I felt I had to learn more. On scrutinising the police and criminal files, medical and prison records etc., I was shocked to discover that critical witness testimony had been suppressed by the police and vital lines of enquiry not followed up. Described by the trial judge as a ‘senseless and motiveless killing’, the case had sunk without trace into the dusty annals of crime. With the seventieth anniversary of the murder approaching, however, I felt it was time to take another look at this allegedly ‘motiveless murder’.
Chalfont St Peter based author Denise Beddows has lived, worked and played in 20 countries across several continents but has maintained a home base in Buckinghamshire since 1982. With a background in research, investigation and intelligence analysis, Denise nowadays writes biographical fiction, local history, true crime and screenplays, both under her own name and as DJ Kelly. A member of the Society of Women Writers & Journalists and of the Society of Authors, she has had over 100 articles published in local, national and international press and journals and she reviews books, films and plays for journals, societies and publishers.
A volunteer researcher for several history and heritage groups, she regularly gives talks to a variety of community groups. She is married with one grown-up daughter.
Denise, who also writes under the name of D J Kelly, has also written the well received Buckinghamshire Spies & Subversives, The Famous and Infamous of The Chalfonts and Gerrards Cross, Chalfont St Peter and Gerrards Cross at War, A Wistful Eye – The Tragedy of a Titanic Shipwright, Running with Crows – The Life and Death of a Black and Tan, Homes for Heroes – Life in a 1940s Prefab (ghost written with Joan Brant).