For the last five decades, a group of Grahamstown women have been meeting on the third Thursday of every month to read and discuss each others’ essays, which they have taken turns to write.
The Third Thursday club was started 50 years ago by a handful of women, some of whom were new to the city and looking for stimulation and friendship, explained member and former bishop’s secretary Maggy Clarke.
The 20 members, many of whom taught at the city’s schools or were academics at Rhodes University and belonged to the Black Sash, take it in turns to write along chosen annual themes before presenting their pieces at one another’s homes.
“One year’s theme about emigration had us looking at Chinese immigrants in South Africa, children sent to Australia without their parents and the British Raj, among others,” said Clarke.
The venues for Third Thursday meetings rotate between the women’s homes, where they settle in for about an hour of essay presentation.
“Many women come with photos or extracts of music. The photos may be in the form of a slide show, or just photocopies or books passed around for members to look at.
“At the end there are formal questions and then more informal discussions over the traditionally sumptuous tea which follows.”
Founder member Rosemary Smith, who was the regional director of the Black Sash, said at the 50th anniversary celebrations, which were held at the Butcherbird Restaurant in Bedford last Saturday, that about 500 essays had been produced since 1966.
She said Third Thursdays had been inspired by an essay group called Friends in Council that she had belonged to during a sojourn in the United States, which was founded in 1871 and is still going.
The first topic in 1966 was “Islands”, while this year’s theme is “Icons and Iconoclasts”.
A new theme is chosen every year.
The constitution of the essay club was simple. There would be no fees, no committees and every member undertook to write an essay once in two years and in the intervening year to be a host.
“In the dark days towards the end of the apartheid years, a number of deeply committed anti-apartheid campaigners like Rosemary Smith had found in this monthly gathering a place of refuge and a window onto other worlds,” said Clarke, a retired Anglican diocesan newsletter editor.
In order to “escape” the reality of their political activism, the women deliberately set Eurocentric topics, but in recent years have moved on to African themes.
At the group’s 50-year celebrations, members visited the beautiful Maastrom farm garden, before raising their glasses to toast the next 50 years of enthralling essays. — barbarah@dispatch.co.za
Essay club write off 50 years
The Third Thursday club was started 50 years ago by a handful of women, some of whom were new to the city and looking for stimulation and friendship, explained member and former bishop’s secretary Maggy Clarke.
The 20 members, many of whom taught at the city’s schools or were academics at Rhodes University and belonged to the Black Sash, take it in turns to write along chosen annual themes before presenting their pieces at one another’s homes.
“One year’s theme about emigration had us looking at Chinese immigrants in South Africa, children sent to Australia without their parents and the British Raj, among others,” said Clarke.
The venues for Third Thursday meetings rotate between the women’s homes, where they settle in for about an hour of essay presentation.
“Many women come with photos or extracts of music. The photos may be in the form of a slide show, or just photocopies or books passed around for members to look at.
“At the end there are formal questions and then more informal discussions over the traditionally sumptuous tea which follows.”
Founder member Rosemary Smith, who was the regional director of the Black Sash, said at the 50th anniversary celebrations, which were held at the Butcherbird Restaurant in Bedford last Saturday, that about 500 essays had been produced since 1966.
She said Third Thursdays had been inspired by an essay group called Friends in Council that she had belonged to during a sojourn in the United States, which was founded in 1871 and is still going.
The first topic in 1966 was “Islands”, while this year’s theme is “Icons and Iconoclasts”.
A new theme is chosen every year.
The constitution of the essay club was simple. There would be no fees, no committees and every member undertook to write an essay once in two years and in the intervening year to be a host.
“In the dark days towards the end of the apartheid years, a number of deeply committed anti-apartheid campaigners like Rosemary Smith had found in this monthly gathering a place of refuge and a window onto other worlds,” said Clarke, a retired Anglican diocesan newsletter editor.
In order to “escape” the reality of their political activism, the women deliberately set Eurocentric topics, but in recent years have moved on to African themes.
At the group’s 50-year celebrations, members visited the beautiful Maastrom farm garden, before raising their glasses to toast the next 50 years of enthralling essays. — barbarah@dispatch.co.za
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