The Farmer's Wife

We used to have about twenty writers and would-be writers on the Creative Writing Course held at Abergavenny; most had not been published, some had, most wanted to be. Except one: a middle-aged lady, "wife of a farmer", she said. She said she had never written anything and was there just to observe and listen. Good, that didn't worry us; if people on the course wanted to write then they could do so, if they didn't want to then fair enough - we, the tutors, didn't push them to do anything except urge them to enjoy their time with us.
We started off with a session where we tutors spoke about our specialities, mine being writing short stories. The farmer's wife sat there listening then and later when other sessions were held. She never spoke, nor took notes, but just listened.
Later I asked her if she was getting anything worthwhile from the course, didn't she want to ask us anything? She said she was thoroughly enjoying herself just listening to us talk.
We were not great talkers, not intellectuals, not academics, not particularly highly successful writers - average standard with some works published. But though the talk was not high-fallooting stuff we did our best to be articulate and, we hoped, helpful to budding writers.
The last day, as usual, everyone on the course read something of theirs - they might have written it that weekend or before, it didn't matter. We did not expect anything from our farmer's wife. But she did have something to read, she said.
And she read a short piece about her young life on a farm.
It was astonishing. Everyone was spellbound. There was applause, which was rare.
We said we hoped we'd see her next time, a few months hence. She said nothing and left.
And we never saw her again.