Headingley LitFest: Wallowing

Wednesday, 9 December 2009

Wallowing

We were hippos rediscovering a muddy pool: Doug Sandle and myself visited the Brotherton Library's special collections department yesterday afternoon to look at magazines (mainly poetry) from the Sixties and Seventies. Neatly filed in cardboard boxes were fountain-penned letters, Underwood-typed poems on yellowing paper, carefully Gestetnered publications and distant but still fresh memories.

Archivist Kathryn Jenner (Geoffrey Hill Archive) showed us some of what she is documenting, and as we talked, we splashed about in comfortable nostalgia. Doug remarked on the quality of MOMA and IKON, I remembered that Dave Birtwhistle used to drink and sing in the back room of the Packhorse with Jake Thackray.

Click HERE for link to Brotherton.

All of this led to the fixing of a date - Thursday 18 March 2010 - for a reading of some of the notable poets of those prolific times.

More programme details to follow soon - jigsaw nearly complete.

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LITERARY HEADINGLEY

Headingley is just the place for it! Don't expect a big circus with marquees, though: we're not at that stage yet. We're all volunteers as well.

Our venues include the HEART Centre on Bennett Road, the New Headingley Club on St Michael's Road, friendly cafés, historic local cinemas, Headingley Library, people's houses and the historic Leeds Library in Commercial Street, city centre.

Headingley's Literary Links

Headingley has strong connections with many writers:

Arthur Ransome was born in Headingley, J R R Tolkien lived at 5 Holly Bank and also at 2 Darnley Road, West Park when he was reader in English Language at the University of Leeds 1920 - 25, Alan Bennett lived over a butcher's shop opposite the Three Horseshoes, now Royale Dry Cleaners.

Lucy Newlyn has published poetry about her early life in Headingley, George Orwell stayed at 21 Estcourt Avenue with his sister Marjorie and her husband Humphrey 'Humpy' Dakin (with whom he visited the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth), T S Eliot used to visit his mother-in-law in Weetwood Lane, William Fryer Harvey was brought up in Spring Bank, Trevor Griffiths lived just off Victoria Road on Winstanley Terrace, Jon Silkin's first office of STAND magazine was his flat at 144 Otley Road, Sir Geoffrey Hill lived in Shire Oak Road, Peter Redgrove lived in Headingley between 1962 and 1965 when he was Gregory Fellow of Poetry at the University of Leeds, and playwright Kay Mellor still lives near The Hollies in Far Headingley.

Wilson Barrett, the charismatic first manager of the Grand Theatre, Leeds (a prolific playwright as well), lived in Beech Grove Terrace, Woodhouse in the 1870s. His house was a meeting place for many writers, artists and visitors to Leeds - such as W. S. Gilbert, George Grossmith and Atkinson Grimshaw.

Headingley LitFest 2020 was the thirteenth. The fourteenth will take place from March 2021 and will be adapted to the rules of the Covid pandemic. We are now a proud part of the annual Leeds Lit Fest.