Officially launched

It was the first major gathering of the LitFest clan at the New Headingley Club, and the emphasis was on poetry, under the amiable eye of compere James Nash, who not only read his own work, but introduced three other main readers - Liz Bertola, Helen Burke and Richard Raftery. In the previous two LitFests, James has been subterranean, performing and compering in the cellar of the Dare Café, and has now emerged into the upper air. He is revealing himself more and more as a master of the sonnet. The audience was most appreciative.


By the door, tombola prizes were displayed - and plenty of scented candles were won, but not the whisky, which will be raffled at the end of the LitFest on a suitable occasion. A huge new screen at the end of the room showed Lawnswood students dancing and reciting at last year's Poetry Slam. There was a sort of long pause before they came up at the end of the evening because the DVD was playing up. Thanks to Mary Francis for sorting the problem.

Glimpses of our past

The meeting room was, what's the word.......august......that's it. Appropriate for the occasion. Lots of oak. It was filled with appreciative people as well, there for Poetry at the Brotherton. I had no idea the room was there when I was a student at Leeds University: the Brotherton was mainly for revision before Finals, directly under the pantheonic dome. Well, here we all were, survivors.

The readings began at 8.30pm after an informative introduction from Chris Sheppard from Special Collections, in which he told us about the illustrious line of Gregory Fellows and the benign influence of Professor Bonamy Dobrée. Most of the names mentioned were from before my time at the university (I first came across Bonamy Dobrée's name on my reading list - Restoration Comedy, I believe) and I looked at my fellow readers - Jon Glover, Doug Sandle and Jeff Wainwright - with a certain measure of smugness, because I was the youngest amongst them. Not often I can say that nowadays.

Congratulations to Doug for doing most of the organising for this successful event - and also to Kathryn Jenner, the guardian lioness of Special Collections.

I read a selection of poems by Geoffrey Hill (English Department staff 1954 - 1981), who was my tutor in 1967 - 1968, beginning at the beginning with Genesis and finishing with Tristia: 1891-1938, A Valediction to Osip Mandelstam. I had to edit out so much from the initial list: I would have loved to have said more about poor Mandelstam, for example, who was killed by Stalin, who had himself been published as a (Georgian nationalist) poet in his early years just after he left the seminary. I had plans at one stage to sing something by John Dowland as well.

Doug Sandle produced more laughter than me, first with his selection of poems by William Price Turner (Gregory Fellow 1960 - 1962) whose University Vignettes were hilarious, then with a selection of poems by Martin Bell and himself. I felt strongly for  Bell in his From the City of Dreadful Something, and particularly remember Doug's poem The Stone Gatherer, which is dedicated to Ken Smith and his son on their first visit to the Isle of Man. Doug tells me that pruning back the first list of choices was difficult, but we couldn't have gone on until midnight.

Jon Glover remembered a sit-in which I had mentioned earlier, which took place in the Parkinson Court in 1968 to protest against the university security men, who had been taking the names of students holding up placards with various messages about the Vietnam War, but his main memory was of the extraordinary Jon Silkin (Gregory Fellow 1958) who had founded Stand magazine in 1952, and whose early career had embraced teaching English as a Foreign Language  and gravedigging. Jon Glover is the current editor, and copies of the latest issue were on sale at the event. He read The Coldness, by Silkin, which is about the pogrom against the Jews of York in 1190 - a poem I remember from many years ago. Poems by Glover included the excellent CERN: Frontiers, Grave-Diggers.

Jeff Wainwright (student 1962 - 1967) reminisced as well, and spoke of Geoffrey Hill, about whom he has written seminal essays. He mentioned his great attention to detail - every word matters, none of them are for the wind, proofreading is inevitably important - and the fact that he was a good and sympathetic tutor to most, leaving his mark on many. I agree. He read a series of short poems by himself, and also by Ken Smith, a poet I had previously (misleadingly) characterised in my mind as 'non-difficult'. Jeff had driven up from Manchester to be with us.

Below - Jeff Wainwright and Jon Glover.

Strange goings-on at Lento

It's a good job there were extra chairs in the Café Lento on Wednesday evening: if anybody else had turned up, they would have had to swing from the chandeliers, which would have been challenging, because there aren't any. It was St Patrick's night, and groups of revellers were walking past the big window during the short story readings wearing those high and hideous I-am-a-little-leprechaun hats with Guinness badges on them, proving that the wearers were not of Irish heritage. They might have been Polish. They like revelling. The first story was set in Ireland. It was by Roddy Doyle, had a Polish protagonist named Halina who was in charge of a pram containing babies, and was read by the man with the coffee machine - Richard Lindley. One item in it was a pretty horrific story with a supernatural tinge, which set the tone for the evening.

Because by coincidence, all the stories that followed had a supernatural tinge - Moira Garland's included a lady from Victorian times, Doug Sandle's was about strange goings on during his childhood on the Isle of Man, mine was entitled I Invented a Ghost and Peter Spafford's was about the otherworldly laughter his mother used to hear.

The audience, according to what was said afterwards, loved everything. They asked us for more soon. Perhaps we'll convene again in the summer.

Congratulations

.....to Headingley resident Kay Mellor, now Kay Mellor OBE!

Are you around, John Comer?

If you're reading this, John Comer, we - Doug Sandle and myself - would like to know where you are. You are a one-time resident of Headingley, and our attention has just been drawn to your recently-published The Old Time. So are you close enough to come to any LitFest events or to join us for a drink in Arcadia, which is very close to where you once lived in Alma Road?

The Old Time - ISBN 142514298-2 Trafford Publishing

Email us at heveliusx1@yahoo.co.uk

Below, John in the 1960s. Photo taken by Dave Williams in Moorland Avenue, LS6

Sunshine

Yes, sunshine! Today!The sky is as blue as a blackbird's egg, and the warmth is so welcome after the dip in temperature last week. It won't be long before we plant the Kiwi fruit, and it's a sure sign that we'll soon be off to a good start. 

Hundreds of people milled around on the lawn in front of the main rose garden at Headingley Farmers' Market this morning, and plenty of them took our programme-leaflet, albeit a little absent-mindedly as they listened to the music which wafted in their direction from the gamelan players. Let's hope they all come to at least one of the events! Tickets are shifting as well, especially for novelist David Peace, normally based in Japan but in Yorkshire at the moment.

Richard Lindley, maître d' at the illustrious Café Lento, revealed today that he will begin the proceedings next Wednesday with a reading of his favourite short story - by Roddy Doyle. As the one-time owner of a historic Norton motorcycle, he has been talking about an event based on the Motorcycle Diaries (Notas de Viaje - Diarios de Motocicleta) of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara , who rode one when he was still a medical student and who has gained Richard's admiration simply for being able to cope with it. Perhaps at some time in the future, some kind of shortened, episodic presentation of the Diaries could be presented along with music from South America, or perhaps a clip from the film directed by Walter Salles could be shown. We shall see. There are several musical groups in West Yorkshire which could fill the bill.

In the picture - sunshine in one of Headingley's forest glades....if you want to find out about Headingley's biodiversity, or its many polytunnels, or future plans, click HERE now.