Headingley LitFest: Beckett's Park Hospital

Wednesday, 30 October 2013

Beckett's Park Hospital - the performance

Richard Wilcocks writes:

Five students from the Performing Arts course at Leeds Metropolitan University have now stepped forward to participate in the 'Wartime Hospital' performance, which will take place in March next year. It will be based on the research which has been done into the Beckett's Park Hospital in the First World War, the buildings for which were finished in 1913, just before it was taken over by the army medical services the following year. It is wonderful that Leeds Met students are taking part so enthusiastically in this project, for the simple reason that LMU uses the same site.

Some of the true stories that have been collected from descendants of patients, nurses and members of the RAMC (Royal Army Medical Corps) are extraordinary. They are not all about victims of poison gas, amputations and shell shock, though there's plenty of that of course. This drawing was done by a patient for the VAD nurse in charge of his ward in 1917. It comes from her autograph book.

See www.headingleyhospital.org

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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.