Thirtieth Anniversary

Thirty years ago this summer, the American wife of a visiting academic living nearby decided to form a book group of ladies in the neighbourhood, and I was asked to join. There were eight of us, all with young children at school and delighted to put our brains into gear discussing a book chosen every month by anyone in the group.

Although, she has long gone back to America as has a Canadian member, we enrolled two more women to bring the number back to eight, and so we stayed, until the untimely death of one of our group almost two years ago. We are now seven.

The small children have become parents themselves and we are the grandparents to about thirty children varying in age from 18 years to 4 months, but we still limit our family chat to the tea and cake part of the proceedings after the discussion.

Our group is a microcosm of life in general, and we have been hit by deaths, divorces and life threatening illnesses, but we have stayed intact as a group throughout, giving support and encouragement to each other during the hard times.

The first book we ever read was this one -'My Name is Asher Lev' by Chaim Potok and it made such a deep impression on us that we have elected to read it again for our 30th anniversary meeting.

However tonight we are celebrating by having a potluck party with husbands invited. That is one brave invite. I do hope they all behave themselves.
His Lordship has been well warned.