Creative Writing Participants
Barbara Oswald
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Barbara Oswald was born on Holderness Road and has lived in and around the Hull area all her life.
She became passionate about Rugby League from a very early age, intrigued by the sound of cheers and groans coming from the nearby Craven Park. Eventually, she persuaded her father to take her and has been a fan of Hull Kingston Rovers ever since. She went to Malet Lambert School up to the age of 16, then on to Hull College of Commerce to take a secretarial course, which lead to a job at the University of Hull. After two years as a shorthand typist she left to take up a place at Hull College and trained as a teacher of economics and commerce, which included shorthand and typing, enabling her to work at evening classes while raising four daughters.
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In the 1980’s computers took over from manual typewriters in schools and she moved to working with visually handicapped children, taking a degree in Special Needs (Visual Handicap) from Birmingham University and learning braille. In 1995 she took a break from teaching and went back to secretarial work, running an office in a family law firm, finally returning to education as a supply teacher when grandchildren came along so she could provide child-care and look after her ailing mother. She is now a proud grandmother of eight and one of the boys is very keen on becoming a rugby player for Hull Kingston Rovers, of course.
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Throughout her life, Barbara has enjoyed writing and has had a few small items printed in women’s publications as well as stories and articles in the parish newsletter.
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Ian Buffey
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Ian Buffey, from East Hull has supported Hull Kingston Rovers since he was eight becoming a regular from 1974 following relegation to the old second division. Working in engineering for 40 years he saw the creative writing course as an opportunity to learn something new.
Focusing his efforts on sport and history he has based pieces on his home town.
Karen Shepherd
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Karen Shepherd was born and brought up in the city of Kingston upon Hull. With a strong family heritage, she became a Hull Kingston Rovers supporter from a very early age.
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In 1977 she moved away from the city and joined the Women's Royal Army Corps. When posted to Blackdown, Surrey, she met and married Raymond, a soldier. Over the next 13 years they were posted to various bases in the UK and Germany and had two sons.
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She enjoyed telling bedtime stories to her young sons and passed her love of Hull KR and rugby league on to them.
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On leaving the army in 1990 the family settled in East Hull and she worked as a clerical officer in industry before joining the NHS and University of Hull. She spent the majority of 23 years managing clinical trials in Clinical Research before retiring at the end of 2017.
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Able to spend more time with her five young grandchildren, Karen reignited her love of story-telling. She began to write down her stories when encouraged by attending Creative Writing sessions at Hull Kingston Rovers.
Sarah Briggs
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Sarah Briggs came to the Creative Writing course because she’s always loved writing stories through her job as a primary school teacher and has always felt ‘I have a novel in me somewhere’!
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Having a period of time off work after Sarah was diagnosed with terminal cancer in September 2017, the course has given her the confidence to share her work with others and write about some difficult subjects too. Sarah particularly loves writing about travel, also inspired by Bill Bryson.
Sarah finally loves watching sport, especially baseball and football as well as enjoying travel and reading books.