Headingley LitFest: A Pair of Sandles Plus

Monday, 1 February 2016

A Pair of Sandles Plus

This event, hosted by Doug Sandle and organised in partnership with Beck Arts, took place in the Meanwood Institute, Green road, Meanwood on the afternoon of Sunday 31 February. Songs were sung, poems and extracts from novels were read and cakes were consumed.

Audience comments:

Dear folks – thank you so much for your singing, poetry and beautiful guitar music – it was very moving and also lots of fun + the wonderful tea and cakes.
Great variety of song and words. A thoroughly entertaining afternoon with a mix of humour and sadness. Really memorable stuff! Please hold more events like this.
A real treat for Sunday afternoon (wet outside but ‘warm’ inside with interesting people). Enjoyed the variety and different talents. Perhaps a little too long - but wouldn’t know who to cut time with!
Very enjoyable, casual atmosphere with plenty of talent for a wet Sunday afternoon.
A lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon. A wonderful mix of songs, poetry and socializing. Tea and
cakes in the interval – a perfect addition.
A wonderful assortment of song ’n’ rhyme with a jovial chorus at the end to make it a fitting finale.
Time to go with a smile ...
A nice pleasant and warm Sunday afternoon for community and friends with music, poetry and
lovely tea and cakes. Cheerful indeed. Thanks.
Very good mix of poetry and music, wonderful cake and refreshments. An enjoyable Sunday
afternoon.
Funny, moving, talented, generous, friendly, heartfelt ... a thoroughly great event.
An excellent way to spend a wet Sunday afternoon. Such good local talent and a fine audience.
Very good event thoroughly enjoyable.
Enhanced by the music. A couple of ‘acts’ went on too long. On balance – great!
An eclectic mix of poetry and song. A very pleasant afternoon. I really enjoyed it. Thank you.
A splendidly eclectic mixture of poetry, song and story. An excellent, entertaining performance.
A great way to spend Sunday. Thank you for the wonderful entertainment.
Really excellent. Lovely combination of poetry and song.
Loved the singing and the poetry.
Wonderful to hear all this local talent.
That was great today -thank you-brilliant as usual
I really enjoyed that afternoon. Good mix of entertainment and I thought the final singalong was great

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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.