(aka Michael Grafton) Chairman 2011-2012
Mike is one of the original members of Canvey Writers’ Group (joining former teaching colleague Doreen Kingsland in 2007), and a well known presenter in meetings of unusual table-top tasks. He has a university degree in English and was a teacher for 34 years during which he wrote (1971-1975) a regular page for the nationwide weekly journal, Teachers’ World, and later a number of dramas for the then new BBC Stereo Radio Channel.
In 1986 he worked for a year in Western Australia, returning, as he says, “with a lot of experience but without an Australian accent.” His book describing this adventure, The Good Ship Ragamuffin, is currently being revised for publication, while its predecessor, The Dragons are Dead, about teaching in the 1980s and 1990s had been rejected by several prestigious publishers.
Among Mike’s most highly regarded authors are: Fiction – John Galsworthy, Terry Pratchett, Jilly Cooper (A 21st Century Jane Austin); Drama – Berthold Brecht, Bernard Shaw, Harold Pinter; Poetry – (He doesn’t care much for any of them; possibly Dylan Thomas a bit); Factual – Hugh Brogan (History of the United States of America).
Apart from walking other people’s dogs, Mike enjoys listening to serious classical music with a few lapses, watching good and really awful films on TV, trying unsuccessfully to rear potted plants and starting but only rarely finishing short stories for the Writers’ Group.
