Gonna write a classic?

Some songwriters, a big house and an "honesty bar" ...

Main pic, Back row from left: Kenneth Crouch, Michael Fotoohi, Lamont Dozier, "EMI woman", Caroline Lavelle, Richard Drummie, Abenaa Frempong, Peter Cunnah, Henry Priestman, Kirsty, Byron Stingily, Claudio Guidetti, "EMI woman", "EMI man". Front row from left: Ben Barson, Graham Gouldman, Suggs, Chris Difford

Undaunted by the gloomy, wood-panelled, family portrait-festooned grandeur of the neo-Gothic mansion in which he stands, Richard Drummie, ex-Go West bloke, closes his eyes, stretches out his arms and executes a perfect pirouette of bliss. The company gathered around the log fire applauds not so much the Baryshnikov grace as the great news which set him off. It has just been announced that Trading Places, a song co-written by Drummie, has reached Number 1! In Poland! Marvellous. A whole lotta zlotys.

The observers of Drummie's joy are 15 pan-generational song smiths engaged in EMI Publishing's annual Huntsham Writers' Week, among them: Suggs, Kirsty MacColl, Chris Difford, Graham Gouldman (10cc etc) and the Buddha-like Lament Dozier (just the 72 American Topic singles to his name). All are keenly aware that Trading Places had been written at Huntsham the previous year, and all are no doubt reflecting, amid congratulatory effusions, that what Writers' Week did for Drummie...

Afternoon tea break terminates rather abruptly and, in moments, the exploratory poking of pianos and composerly thrumming of guitars resumes in every corner of the building. Huntsham Writers' Week began in 1994, when Difford returned from a similar, ground-breaking event organised by Sting's manager and IRS label boss, Miles Copeland. The Squeezer recommended it to EMI and when they saw his suggested venue they were convinced. Huntsham Court is a 19th Century pile a few miles from Tiverton, Devon. No TVs, no telephones, but an "honesty bar", where you itemise your intake in a ledger- until that becomes intellectually unfeasible.

The week is strictly programmed. After breakfast, the 15 split into groups of three, the line-ups of which are changed daily. The day's new compositions have to be performed in the evening. It sounds like peer-pressure hell, but experience shows that all this creative discipline and cross-pollination sweeps even the most inhibited into what the more gushy call "a religious experience".

For instance, on day one, Kirsty MacColl was eyeing the exits. In recovery from crippling stage fright, she hadn't written a thing for two years. But that night she took lead vocals on I Don't Miss You (co-authors former Christian, Henry Priestman, and unknown tyro, Michael Fotoohi) and it was "pretty damn good" even if she does say so herself. A little later, her team equalled the Huntsham aIl-comers' record with four new songs between breakfast and dinner - written with people she'd never otherwise have met: brilliant black LA classicist and funkster, Kenneth Crouch (Prince, Tom Petty associate) and Claudio Guidetti ("Italian George Michael", Eros Ramazotti's co-writer).

Suggs, who reckons he pulled out a couple of first-day crackers himself with Difford and Gouldman, concedes, "Even for an old cynic like me, that first night was tear-inducing. Just hearing a song that people have written that same day is brilliant and strange. They put you with someone who you think you'll click with and it's all pacing around, fuck-all happening. Then they stick you in with someone bonkers and a banjo player and you've got 19 top hits in an afternoon." Demonstrably, Huntsham delivers -if more, so far, in terms of uplifted spirits than smasheroos. At the end of this, the sixth day, the writers troop from room to room to hear each group's new songs.

Unsigned Ghanaian-American Abenaa Frempong sings All In A Day, a sweet lament aimed at a new Joan of Arc movie soundtrack. MacColl sarcs her way through the satirical Designer Life. In the honesty bar, Suggs reprises one of the week's favourites, Two Bacon Sandwiches, preface to a night of song, talk and the odd daft rock opera that, as usual, sees him last to bed, around 6am.

Doubtless the mutually supportive euphoria is infectious- "lt'll be tongues down throats before we go," warns Gouldman - but the results do seem to be rather good. Which Suggs confirms: 'Yeah, Two Bacon Sandwiches -they should just put Whitney, Mariah and Celine in a cage, throw the demo in and let them fight it out, the last one standing can record it."

"You could say we're all just sitting around getting pissed, slapping each other on the back, saying, Aren't we great?," says MacColl. "But so what? We've made a connection. It's the international music of lurve."

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Gonna write a classic?

Some songwriters, a big house and an "honesty bar" ...

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