Online Book Club Session 2

For our second Online Book Group session, we stuck to the early Lone Pine books and took a closer look at Seven White Gates.

This second book introduces us to a new (though not far away) area of South Shropshire - the Stiperstones ridge - with the ever looming and mysterious presence of the Devil's Chair. We also meet new character and Club member, Jenny Harman, and discover a lot about the mining past of the Stiperstones and the local landscape and villages.

Peter visits her unfamiliar aunt and uncle on their farm below the Stiperstones and also encounters Romanies Reuben, Miranda and Fenella for the first time. The brooding presence of the Stiperstones seems to have had an effect on Uncle Micah, who resembles an Old Testament prophet, and misses his long lost son, Charles.

Seven White Gates generated lively discussion, with themes including:

• early sparks of women's equality movement;
• dark characters being metaphors for the war's dark days;
• the role of gypsies and "difference ";
• FOOD! fish cakes, chewing gum, hedgehog and Coca Cola;
• annoying characters (the twins) writ large to engage the reader;
• and, finally, how we come to the same book differently as adults and children.

We chose our next book - The Gay Dolphin Adventure, followed in November by the Master of Maryknoll.