The Writing Group 13th April 2026

I belong to a local writing group here in The New Forest in the south of England.

There are up to ten of us at any one meeting and we are an eclectic bunch of scribes spanning two if not three generations. Each week we are set a prompt to be completed, read out at the next meeting and to be commented upon.

Last week the prompt was to think of two every day commonplace items that can be found in The New Forest and write a two hundred word story about each one. As the forest is imbued with magic and myth, both as enveloping as a morning mist settling in the shallow valleys, we had to give those items a magical twist, a bit of horror or both at once.

Here are my two offerings:

YARNAGATE AND THE STONE

In all innocence the couple took a rock about the size of a house brick from the conically shaped pile near one of the entrances into North Bentley Enclosure.

“We’ll put it in our rockery back home” the lady said.

As they approached their car they both felt a very slight judder from under their feet.

“Must be doing some sort of geological surveys nearby” the man said.

Their car had a flat tyre which they fixed with the help of a local named “Perkiss”. They both asked Perkiss about the pile of rocks they had just seen.

“Oh that, that’s a tribute to old Yarnagate…’ees the giant what guards the forests round ‘ere. We locals put a rock on the pile every time we go into that enclosure. Sort of a tribute. If we don’t do it he gets terrible revenge and if we take something as well. Terrible” Perkiss replied before heading to the enclosure.

The couple got in their car and drove away.

“M27 should be clear all the way into London” the man said.

Two hours later there was a traffic report on the radio.

“The M27 eastbound near Winchester Services is completely blocked following a serious accident involving one car. It is believed there have been fatalities.”

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HONEYSUCKLE STICKS

My runner beans and sweet peas were a disaster last year.

As I was planting out for this year our neighbour called me over to the fence.

“Ere” he said “you had a bit of a disaster last year. What you want is some of these.”

He handed me a bundle of grey branches about six feet long and ingrained with a barley twist pattern.

“Ere” he said “some says these are special with that twist what’s caused by honeysuckle over the years. I always use them for me frames for the climbers…always get a good crop I do. Some says these magical. I reckons they’re right. Ere, have them.”

I used them to make my own frames and watched my climbers latch themselves on to their barley twisted shapes. I’m not much of one for all those old tales.

In the Autumn the old boy and I went to the local horticultural show to see how we had done. When he saw the results he was just a bit miffed. I had come first in three of the classes for climbers and beat him into second.

I looked at him.

“Just think what you could have done with those sticks you gave me in the spring?” I spoke.

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The objective to preparing these stories is that they will be read at a local event to start the celebrations marking the 800th anniversary of our local town, Ringwood, being granted it market chrter.