Jane Austen, probably involving overnight
stays; and to celebrate Jane’s birthday with
a slap-up lunch in early December. After
several years lunching at the Royal Overseas
League in St James, we switched last year to
The University Women’s Club in Mayfair,
a successful move to a venue that we hope
will prove attractive to members for the
foreseeable future. Our main trip last year
was spread over three days in April from a
base in Royal Leamington Spa. It took in
Stoneleigh Abbey in Warwickshire, visited by
Jane Austen and her mother in 1806, as well
as Kenilworth and Warwick castles.
For our regular meetings, which take
place in the church hall of St Columba’s in
Pont Street, Knightsbridge, the Group tries
to find speakers on the broadest possible
range of subjects connected to Jane Austen.
Last year’s contributors included Dr Joe Bray
of Sheffield University on ‘Language and
tensions in Jane Austen’s novels’; Hazel Jones
on ‘One Does Not Love a Place Any The
Less For Suffering In It’, focusing on Ann
Elliot; Dr Roger Pooley on ‘Lady Susan and
the epistolary novel’; Barbara Calderbank,
one of our committee members, speculating
on whether the playwright Terence Rattigan
was influenced by Jane Austen when he wrote
The Winslow Boy; and Richard Jenkyns,
chairman of the JAS, on ‘Jane Austen and
Modernity’, in which he drew comparisons
between her characters and their lives and
the present day. The old-fashioned pleasure
of hearing Austen’s beautiful prose read
aloud by some of our very skilled speakers
is another perennial delight.
That easily rattled-off list belies the
hard work and dedication required of the
committee to run the annual programme- and of course there are hitches. For one
of our meetings St Columba’s doubled-
booked our room, and kindly offered
to find us alternative accommodation.
We ended up at the Caledonian Club in
Belgravia enjoying a level of luxury to
which members would like to become
accustomed, including white-jacketed
waiters serving coffee and biscuits. Then
there was the occasion when our speaker
was rushed to hospital three days before our
meeting; miraculously we were able to find
a replacement.
A year in the life of the London Group
offers variety, stimulation and, for the
committee, a lot of hard work. But all is so
worthwhile for the continued enjoyment
and study of the great Jane Austen.