MEMBERS attending the Airedale Writers’ Circle meeting of March 8 read passages from, and then discussed, books ranking among their personal favourites.

The wide variety of works selected was clearly proof of members’ wide-ranging interests.

Mervyn Peak’s Titus Groan, published in 1946, is the first in the series of the Gormenghast series of ‘Gothic fantasy’ novels.

Centred on the castle of Gormenghast with its ancient, decaying towers and ivy-filled quadrangles, the novel recounts the impact on this crumbling world of a newly-born heir to Gormenghast’s ruler and the arrival of a scheming young servant, Steerpike.

Whilst the novel might be seen as a precursor of Harry Potter it remains in a class of its own, with its labyrinthine world and its powerful, evocative language.

Chamberlain And The Lost Peace, by John Charmley, is a spirited defence of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, long unhappily regarded as the leading light of ‘appeasement’ in the years leading up to the outbreak of war in 1939.

Charmley argues that Chamberlain, appalled as he was at the idea of a second World War hard on the heels of the first, was justified in pursuing to the very last the ideal of a European peace.

Anyone reading the book will find a sympathetic portrait of a long-maligned politician.

A reading from Catholics In Keighley 1835–2010 provided a timely reminder of how the town owes a debt to at least one principled churchman.

Members learned how, in 1908, the newly-elected Mayor Clough derided Keighley’s Catholic poor in an after-dinner speech, suggesting their parish priest might teach them something of cleanliness and godliness.

Unfortunately for the mayor, he picked the wrong opponent in the young Father Russell, who failed to share the mayor’s view that poverty was the fault of the poor, and told him as much in less than honeyed words.

The spat between the two men – with the young priest getting by far the better of it – was extensively reported in the local press. It is not surprising, all in all, that the mayor’s political career didn’t last.

George Orwell remains an ever-popular writer, and an extract from Animal Farm brought back happy memories of everyone being equal but some being more equal than others (Orwell would surely have thrived in a Britain of “business-critical”, “multi-tasking” and “gender-specific”).

It seems a pity that publishers so often fight shy of short but pithy works, and perhaps even more of a pity that the materialism of our age hasn’t found a writer of Orwell’s stature to rubbish it.

Members went on to discuss Anthony Burgess’ 1985, a series of essays inspired by Orwell’s work.

The next meeting of the Airedale Writers’ Circle will be held on Tuesday, April 12 at Sight Airedale, Scott Street, Keighley (behind the library).

Anyone interested is invited to come along – please contact Peter Morrison on 01535 601943 or via e-mail at p634morrison@btinternet.com for further information.

• To see previous Write On articles by Airedale Writers Circle members, visit keighleynews.co.uk, click on What’s On then Out & About.