'Biking with Che' in Café Lento

Sean Hayes writes:

MESTISA - Beautiful songs from South America

Taking refuge from the surprisingly crisp winds of an early spring evening in the warm confines of the Café Lento was a perfect prelude to the sun-scorched journey of one Ernesto Guevara, (later to re-moniker himself 'Che', which he adopted because it was an Argentinian colloquialism for 'hey you' and used as a general term in other areas of South America to address Argentinians) from Argentina to Florida, taking in much of the continent along the way. 

Our introduction into the world of the young Che began with the specially decorated Café Lento, which featured pictures and illustrations of Guevara (yes, including that one) and as the centre-piece a large-scale map of South America, with the course of Ernesto and Alberto charted via illustration. Mestisa, the band made up of Barbara, Ana Luisa, Mike and Tenley, were setting out their assortment of weird and wonderful authentic instruments as the audience arrived. Amongst their inventory, as they explained during the course of the performance, was a quijada - the jawbones of a donkey played using the teeth, a charango - a small lute-like instrument which traditionally would have been made from the shell of an armadillo and a cajón - a box-shaped instrument developed by slaves whose other instruments had been taken away. To complement the music, wine and food prepared by Jose Gonzalez was served to complete the authentic atmosphere.  From there, we were introduced to an evening immersed in all things Che, as a narration of the biking trip, concisely scripted and read by Richard Wilcocks, based on and featuring extracts from Guevara's own Notas de Viaje (Motorcycle Diaries) provided a combination of irreverent insight and deep historical context to the life of one of the most iconic figures in modern history. 

Our story began with the son of a wealthy property developer. During his days as a medical student at the University of Buenos Aires, Ernesto met Alberto Granada, who was in charge of the distribution of medical supplies in a nearby leper colony. In 1952, after deciding to take a year off from his studies, Ernesto joined Alberto on a trip which had long been their shared ambition: an odyssey across Latin America on a motorcycle, namely their occasionally unreliable 1939 500cc Norton, which was christened La Poderosa - The Mighty One. What followed was a surprisingly funny series of mis-adventures, as Ernesto doggedly journeyed on, not at all resembling the noble freedom fighter that the colossally famous portrait would later depict. Instead, he and Alberto were mangueros motorizados - motorised scroungers - and amongst other exploits they accidentally shot one of their hosts' beloved German Shepherd dog, passed themselves off as expert researchers of leprosy and suffered through an unfortunate vomiting incident while stowed away on a cargo ship. 

This was far from a simple tale of gap-year shenanigans, however. Over the course of Ernesto's journey we saw the origins of his revolutionary leanings, as he encountered the harsh callousness which poverty can bring about in the form of an elderly, dying servant whose chronic asthma was met with apathy from her burdened family. Later, as Ernesto and Alberto's journey took them through a Chile on the brink of a massive presidential election, they encountered a stranded miner and his wife - outcast after being held in prison for his allegiance to the Chilean Communist Party - on their way to seek work in the terrible conditions of a sulphur mine deep in the Chilean mountains. The encounter led Ernesto to describe the couple as “tragic” and “a live representation of the proletariat of any part of the world”. 

Inserted into the narration was one of the poems (in English translation) by Pablo Neruda which Ernesto probably read on his travels, perhaps while dreaming of Chichina, the girl he left behind in Buenos Aires and who dropped him - 'Poem 20', which begins:

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, "The night is starry

and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance"

...

The music beautifully and powerfully represented Ernesto's feelings in this section of his journey, expressing not just his sadness with the mourning vocals but also using a rhythmic pounding to represent his rising anger and revolutionary spirit.  The music expressed perfectly the emotion of Ernesto's journey, as well as giving an authentic flavour, the songs being interspersed not only with the narration but with traditional Colombian dancing. Participation from the audience lent a sense of distinct camaraderie to the evening. Indeed, 'Biking With Che' was a witty and occasionally wry insight into the early days of an iconic legend, which gave us a powerful impression of the man behind the T-shirts and student posters. 

Sally Bavage adds:

The audience feedback, the delicious food and the atmosphere were fantastic.  Well done yet again to Café Lento, host Richard Lindley, and narrator Richard Wilcocks, for another splendid LitFest event which attracted a wide age range!  Interesting, too, that the importance of having time to read poetry was emphasised as Ernesto developed the foundations for Che.  

To book Mestisa contact Ana Luisa Muñoz  mestisauk@gmail.com  

Ravishing sounds of the Oud in Mint Café

Jacqui Agate writes:

As hordes of people took refuge from the snow to enjoy an authentic Arabian night in Mint Café, the first thing they were greeted with was a colourful array of Lebanese food.  The venue was absolutely full to the brim, with the attendees spread across two rooms. 

With walls adorned with pictures and an assortment of retro items available for purchase, the venue itself provided plenty to look at. The atmosphere was lively as we waited in anticipation of authentic music and beautiful Arabic poetry. Needless to say the entertainment did not disappoint.

Mint owner Marcos with oud-player Yasser Audhali

The master Yasser Audhali entered to a ripple of excitement and, after introducing himself, began to play the Oud. The room was filled with enchanting melodies accompanied by passionate vocals and two drummers, one of which was the owner of Mint, Marcos. Hand-made and decorated with intricate Egyptian designs the Oud is a treat to look at as well as to listen to. The group was clearly captured by the authentic melodies, with much foot-tapping, head-bobbing and eye-closing adding to the spirited, yet intimate, atmosphere within the room.

An added delight was Marcos explanation of the history of the Oud. The legend goes that it was invented by Lamech, the sixth grandson of Adam. Grieving for the death of his son he hung the body upon a tree. The shape of the Oud was inspired by the shape of his son’s bleached skeleton.

The oud (عود)and the lute both descend from a common ancestor 

Moreover, the beautiful music was punctuated by some of the Arabic love poems written by the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani, read by Richard Wilcocks in English.  The first, When I Love You, was an incredibly romantic poem crammed with curious, thought-provoking similes and metaphors such as ‘hours breathe like puppies’ and ‘caravans ride from your breasts carrying Indian herbs.’ The second was Little Things. This sensual poem sees Qabbani take on the voice of a woman,  with the point being to stand up for the rights of women by communicating such things as a female might want to, but not be able to, express.  Finally, we heard the emotive poem Beirut Mistress of the World addressed to a city devastated by the Lebanese civil war:

We now realise that your roots are deep inside us,
We now realise what offence we've perpetrated;
Rise from under the rubble
Like an almond flower in April!

Packed full of rhetorical language and organic imagery this poem was another real treat. The evening ended with a short Q and A session which allowed everyone to gain further insight into the deeper meanings of the poems and the music. All in all, it was an inspiring night with an authentic feel, which truly left my mind stimulated and my spirit relaxed.

Caroline Owens - 'If You Fall, Run On'

Sally Bavage writes:

Caroline Owens

Hosted by Salvo’s in the salumeria and accompanied by a most appropriate supper – for a book launch - of pasta scrolls in sauce, Caroline Owens was able to share with us some anecdotes about her book, titled as above. Written at first as a tribute to her own mother, it also became a personal journey informed by Caroline’s expertise both as a child psychotherapist and a child of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It also celebrates all the other mothers who tried their best to bring up their children to hold fast to their values when chaos sometimes surrounded them. Then, as now. Growing up in 60s Northern Ireland and coping with 21^st century childhood involve challenge and change, difficulties and doubts.  

Caroline was only eight years old when the thirty years of the Troubles began.  She remembers her mother’s maxim of getting out of a tight spot quickly: “If you fall, run on.” She remembers vividly the day her mother challenged the balaclava-wearing armed gunmen who stopped the car in which they were off to school.  They wanted the car to burn in a blockade.  Her mother reached into the car and, picking up her umbrella, pointed it at them in defiance.  “I bet if you took your balaclavas off your mothers would stop you.  Now step aside; my children are going to school.”  And they did. Step aside. Go to school. Normality within the surreality.

Surreal too, she said, to see a memoir you have written in the window of Waterstones, after you have come to terms with the dissent that writing about real people and real events can cause within families. Power strikes after the power stations had been bombed led to evenings sitting by candlelight, the flickering of the turf and coal fire, the eldest children allowed to stay up late going quietly about small hobbies. The tick of the clock, the clatter of knitting needles, the rustle of paper as an origami paper bird was constructed and revised, over and over again.  Lessons in industry and perseverance that served as a metaphor for her life.

Caroline Owens with John Dammone (MD Salvo's)

Hard times in an area where, if you were Catholic, your hopes for employment were slim. Caroline came to Leeds in the late 70s, jobhunting at the age of eighteen, and was attracted by the wonderful Italian music flowing out of Salvo’s to sit outside and listen.  Drawn in by Salvo senior (Salvatore Dammone), and asked if she could work in a restaurant, the only answer had to be “Yes”, though of course in reality all the cafés and restaurants where she had lived had been bombed and closed.  No matter, the warm family atmosphere supported her and gave her a chance to try, to succeed and to move on in her own story.

“Don’t write a book because you want to be famous, write a book because you have a story to tell and a passion for writing.”  Caroline did, she has and we were fortunate to enjoy the genuine warmth and the honesty of her heartwarming and thought-provoking insights.

Buy the book now through the website - www.carolineowens.co.uk

Love changes everything... or does it?

Doug Sandle writes:
House Events have become a well established tradition for the Headingley LitFest – open up your front room and throw in a few poets, writers, musicians and performers and you have a friendly intimate atmosphere for an enjoyable hour or so on a Sunday afternoon. Wordsong, aka Maggie Nash, Lynn Thornton and guests once again provided a well crafted presentation and professionally-enacted medley of poetry, readings and songs around this year’s Litfest theme, Lives and Loves.   


Presented in 5 sections  (Waiting for Love –Looking for Love?, Difficulties of Love, Make Up or, Break Up and finally  Sustaining a Relationship) we were provided  an engaging  narrative around both the dreams and realities of  falling in love with all its foibles, ironies, humour, delight and inevitably at times disappointments and difficulties. Aptly punctuating the sections Maggie and Lynn, accompanied expertly by John Holt on the piano, sung us well known songs that fitted nicely with the theme and the ‘drawing room’ atmosphere, including My Funny Valentine, Makin Whoopee and appropriately to end the proceedings, Let There be Love.

There were readings from many established and well known poets and writers such as Adrian Henri, John Betjeman, Joyce Grenfell, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Philip Larkin as well as contemporary poets such as Wendy Cope and Carol Ann Duffy. Local writers were also featured such as James Nash and in person Linda Marshall and Bill Fitzsimons, both members of Lucht Focail (People of the Word), who read us their own work, which was particularly appreciated and very well received. 

The audience  were also treated  by  two delightful little dramatic cameos, one from Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford and one from a Ian Fleming James Bond short story, Quantum of Solace, the latter surely producing an Oscar winning performance by Maggie as James Bond!  Mention should also be made of the contributions of David Robertson and Bob Holt to what was an event to warm the heart on a particularly cold Sunday afternoon.

Remember that next Sunday 17  March there will be another free Litfest House Event featuring Leeds playwright, writer and raconteur Ray Brown who will informally chat about and read from his award winning story Maria’s House and an assortment of ‘flash fiction’, some of which is set in Headingley. For details of location and to book a place ring 0775 252 1257 

Chartist poetry and song in HEART Café

Sheila Chapman writes:

The Voice of the People 9 March, Heart Café

We were all Chartists on Saturday night. We listened to a talk about their movement, their beliefs and their values, we listened to their poetry/lyrics, we discussed their ideals amongst ourselves during the break, we sang their 'hymns' and we endorsed their six-point charter demanding suffrage for the working man with three rousing cheers.

Jeff Beaumont, Ian Parks, Richard Wilcocks, John Hutton

Ian Parks, drawing on research for his new anthology of Chartist poetry The Voice of the People, evoked not only the history and intellectual core of the Chartists but also their humanity and their love of poetry. The Chartists were the voice of the people but their poetry cannot be found in anthologies of English verse - it was poetry by the people for the people and it is largely ignored. 

For the Chartists, poetry was not an inaccessible 'highbrow' activity but an essential part of their movement. The movement grew out of unrest about the conditions of the working classes, the restriction of suffrage to the middle and upper classes and various oppressive measures such as the Poor Law of 1834. 

They spread their message in a number of ways: through mass meetings e.g. the Kennington Common meeting of 1848 (the first crowd photograph ever was taken of this meeting); through smaller local meetings; through discussion groups and through newspapers - now more widely available because of reduced taxation. Poetry was an important of the message. It was published in their newspapers, it was written in response to important events and it formed the lyrics for their songs. Song was a binding force in the movement and it was underpinned by poetry.

Ian's talk was accompanied by sung poems. These songs (vocalist Richard Wilcocks, with Jeff Beaumont, mandolin, and John Hutton, guitar) were set to the tunes actually used by the Chartists and where these were unavailable alternative appropriate tunes had been sourced. The songs roused us today as they would have roused the Chartists of the mid nineteenth century. As one member of the audience said, they made sense of the Chartist poems. One such song was called The Steam King by Edward P Mead sung to the tune of We Plough the Fields and Scatter. It contains memorable lines such as:

There is a King, and a ruthless King;

Not a King of the poet's dream:

But a tyrant fell, white slaves know well,

And that ruthless King is Steam.

...

Like the ancient Moloch grim, his sire

In Himmon's vale that stood,

His bowels are of living fire,

And children are his food.

We listened to these songs as Ian unfolded the history of the Chartists. There were two tendencies within the movement. William Lovett espoused the 'moral force' tendency arguing that working men would get the vote through self improvement, temperance and hard work while Feargus O'Connor was more revolutionary and supported the 'physical force' tendency calling for direct action and armed insurrection. The activities of the Chartists reflected these two tendencies ranging from: peaceful mass demonstrations and petitions to parliament, to the Newport rising in November 1839, in which 22 Chartists were shot dead by soldiers. The poetry also reflected these tendencies some of it being 'quietist' and some more revolutionary.

The poetry appeared in Chartist newspapers and notably in The Northern Star newspaper edited out of Leeds and owned by Feargus O'Connor. Every edition of this eight page newspaper carried a page of poetry.

The Chartist movement culminated in its final petition, with six million signatures (although a number of these were later found to be fake), presented to Parliament on 10th April 1848 after the huge meeting on Kennington Common.

The demands of the Chartists were

1. A vote for every man over the age of 21;

2. A secret ballot;

3. No property qualification for members of Parliament;

4. Payment for MPs (so poor men could serve);

5. Constituencies of equal size;

6. Annual elections for Parliament.

None of these demands were granted during the lifetimes of most Chartists, and Chartism gradually faded away, or was absorbed into other movements, but all of us now take the first five of their demands for granted. 

We ended the night singing (to the tune of Auld Lang Syne) the chorus of All Hail Fraternal Democrats written in 1846 by John Arnott, who was General Secretary of the National Charter Association, and a noted singer:

That mitres, thrones, misrule and wrong, 

Shall from this earth be hurled, 

And peace, goodwill, and brotherhood, 

Extend throughout the world. 

All in all this was a moving, educational and uplifting evening! Thankyou to Ian, Richard, Jeff and John.

Dwellers on the Threshold: Dr Sean Campbell at HEART

Síle Moriarty writes:

Dwellers on the Threshold: Second-Generation Irish Musicians in England

On the ninth of March I met a lady who had attended this talk. She is married to an Irishman and she told me how the insights given by Dr. Sean Campbell had helped her understand her husband’s experience of life in this country more closely ‘because he would never talk about it himself’. Such was the impact of this humorous and knowledgeable speaker,  who started the evening with a roll call of second generation Irish musicians in popular music – Lonnie Donegan, Lennon and McCartney, Dusty Springfield (aka Mary O’Brien), John Lydon, Elvis Costello, Boy George, Oasis, the Smiths were some of the names mentioned. These people, the sons and daughters of Irish migrants, did not just perform popular music - they also had a huge influence on its shape and direction.

But Dr. Campbell, himself second generation Irish, wanted to look below the surface of pop success and explore how the complexities of being ‘second generation’ were expressed through music and in doing so he gave us a fresh insight into the challenges and opportunities faced by the second generation (of whatever nationality).

He chose three bands of the 1980’s (Dexys Midnight Runners, The Pogues and The Smiths) and through interviews with individuals in the bands - Keith Rowland (Dexys),Shane MacGowan and Cait O'Riordan (the Pogues) and Johnny Marr (The Smiths) - and wider research he showed us how these second generation Irish musicians used the duality of their cultural heritage as a creative driving force.

He chose 1980’s bands because, for him, this was the time when the children of the Irish immigrants of the 50’s and 60’s came of age. It was also a time when relationships between the UK and Ireland were strained because of the ‘troubles’ and it was the era of the ‘thick Paddy’ jokes.

These jokes rankled with many Irish people and Keith Rowland (Dexys Midnight Runners) hit back at them in Dance Stance where the chorus references great Irish writers: Oscar Wilde, Brendan Beehan, Sean O’Casey, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, Gene O’Neil, Edna O’Brien, Laurence Stern. Rowland said ‘Irish jokes make me sick’, I wanted ‘to show the other side of being Irish’ and to ‘correct the misunderstanding’. He wanted to address the British fans and said that it gave him great pleasure when he heard a young English student singing the chorus of Dance Stance to herself while walking through campus.

In another song, The Waltz, Rowland is more direct with the final line ‘Here is a protest’ being repeated. This song was originally called Elizabeth Wimpole and Katherine Ní Houlihan to point up the English v Irish nature of its subject matter but was renamed The Waltz because Rowlands was afraid of the reception the original would get – although whether this was from the English or Irish community was not clear.

In a sense Rowlands tried to mediate between cultures whereas The Pogues, in contrast, tried to evoke the experience of being London Irish. ‘The Pogues were the first people who helped define what you could be as a second generation Irish person in this country’ (Martin Mc Donagh). Their songs were very different from the songs of sentimental longing favoured by the first generation. They evoke the excitement of being here a sort of ‘love for the oppressor’ (Philip Chevron, guitarist with the Pogues) although Shane McGownan would deny this – he has moved from accepting the label London-Irish to calling himself Irish. However this love of London and rejection of sentimentality is demonstrated in Transmetropolitan which starts with a gentle traditional-music style introduction and then breaks into a fast aggressive, tour of London. The Pogues’ imagination was focussed on London, not Ireland and their musical style reconciled punk with traditional Irish music.

The Smiths launched in Manchester at the same time as the Pogues in London. Their experience of being second generation is encapsulated in the following quotes: ‘I’m one of us on both sides’ Morrisey, ‘I’m Mancunian-Irish’ Johnny Marr. Marr spoke to Dr. Campbell of the schizophrenic experience of having parents who were excited to be in England (the land of opportunity) but who ran a home immersed in Irishness where you sleep and swim in Irish life. Marr is repulsed by ‘...bullshit Irish romanticism’ – ‘The Smiths wanted to evoke the feeling but not the sound of the Irish in 1960s Manchester.

This ambivalence of melancholy and vibrancy is reflected in The Smiths songs e.g. Back to the Old House – I want to be here but I long to be there and Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want – originally called The Irish Waltz with the word Erin printed in the run-off groove. Morrisey’s lyrics – ‘When you walk without ease/on these streets where you were raised’ also express this ambivalence and lack of belonging.

Dr. Campbell showed that ambivalence ‘not quite the definite article ... more the floating article’ (Marr?) can be a well-spring of creativity. As McDonagh says ‘... the ambiguities are more interesting than choosing a strict path and following it’

During the lively Q&A session that followed - the discussion ranged from the extremes of nationalism to the policy of the Church in the 1960s/70s to educate second generation Irish children as ‘English Catholics’ - it was clear that Dr. Campbell had touched the sensibilities of his full-house audience many of whom were, like myself, ‘dwellers on the threshold’ in terms of being second (or even third or fourth) generation Irish. 

Dr Sean Campbell is Reader in Media and culture at Anglia Ruskin in Cambridge and author of 'Irish Blood, English Heart': Second-Generation Irish Musicians in England (Cork University Press, 2011).

Interview with Roger McGough

Read Chris Bond's Yorkshire Post interview with our guest, Roger McGough, here - http://bit.ly/Z69Vno

Yarnsmith - bring the kids

Two sonnet sequences on love

Listen to George Szirtes here.

Hear him again in HEART Café on the evening of Friday 15 March.

Kay Mellor at the New Headingley Club

We're all looking forward to Saturday 23 March at 3pm!

This appeared recently in the Bradford Telegraph and Argus:

http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/10210078.New_Kay_Mellor_TV_drama_filmed_in_Bradford/?ref=twtrec

Pablo Neruda's body to be exhumed

A Chilean judge has ordered that the remains of poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda should be exhumed in an investigation into whether he died of cancer as commonly believed or was killed by agents serving Augusto Pinochet. The exhumation was announced by the foundation that manages his literary legacy. The leftist poet, who died twelve days after the 1973 military coup that ousted socialist president Salvador Allende and brought General Augusto Pinochet to power, was long believed to have died of prostate cancer, but officials in 2011 started looking into the possibility he was poisoned by agents of the Pinochet regime, as claimed by Neruda's driver and aide. Neruda is best known for his love poems as well as his Canto General - an epic poem about South America's history and its people. 

This story will no doubt be of great interest for those who were at the special showing of Il Postino at the Cottage Road Cinema almost a year ago, which is about how the poet was forced into exile in Italy. Read the review here: http://headingleylitfest.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=neruda

Wartime Hospital at Beckett's Park

UPDATE - website for published book Stories from the War Hospital is at www.firstworldwarhospital.co.uk

Thanks to all those who have been in touch offering (and requesting) information. We are now realising that a separate website for our project on the 2nd Northern General Hospital at Beckett's Park during the Great War 1914 - 1918 would be a good idea, so one should appear online in the next couple of weeks, if all goes well. The URL will be put on the blog. The original press release  from when we started can be found if you simply scroll down a little.

There are so many names of people who were there, particularly members of the RAMC (Royal Army Medical Corps). We are hoping that there are plenty of searchers trawling the web for information on their ancestor, who might have been a nurse, or a wounded soldier, or...  so if we put plenty of names online, along with a few photos, we'll get results.

In the meantime, here are just a couple of photos which might bring results:

1) The cigarette case. An articial limb race so many years before the Paralympics! Do you know anything about either Douglas Longmate or CQMS (Company Quartermaster Sergeant) G W Browning? Below is a photo of an engraved silver cigarette case sent to us by a retired antiques dealer who wants to give it to any descendants we find:

2) The Irish Nurse. The granddaughter of a Red Cross Nurse who served at Beckett's Park between 7 August 1917 and 31 March 1919 sent us this photo from Ireland. It is of Mary (Polly) Dunne. She had two sisters, Kitty and Josephine, all of whom came from a small rural community and trained in England (St Alban's) as nurses. Do you know anything about nurses from Ireland in the Great War generally?

Contact us by email at headingleyhospital@gmail.com

And thanks for the feature in the Yorkshire Post, Chris Bond - 

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/features/horror-humour-and-humanity-the-untold-stories-of-a-hospital-in-wartime-1-5383600

Congratulations to Sharon Olds

Congratulations to Sharon Olds, who was awarded the £15,000 prize for her collection, Stag's Leap, at the T S Eliot Prize Ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall in London a few days ago. She was shortlisted before - in 2009. Two thousand poetry enthusiasts were in the audience.

 Poet Laureate and Chair of the Judges, Carol Ann Duffy, said: "It was a really strong shortlist, with so much talent and grace, and it was particularly strong in women. We were particularly pleased to have six fantastic books by women." Carcanet is delighted that two of its most long-standing authors were shortlisted among such talented writers. See the Carcanet blog here.

LitFest gets Co-operative support

On Tuesday 15 January, Sheila Chapman, Chair of Headingley LitFest committee, accompanied by Sally Bavage, LitFest Fundraiser, was pleased and proud to accept a cheque from local Co-operative Community Fund representatives Jean and Ken Martin.  The money, which comes from members’ donations of all or part of their share of the profits, has been voted to us to support our first Youth Fringe day, on Saturday 29 June at the Heart Centre in Headingley.

Taking receipt of the cheque at our local friendly Co-op store on Cardigan Road,  Sheila acknowledged the opportunity this will give LitFest to pilot activities for young people in our community, with the programme decided upon by young people themselves.  Watch out for more details of the programme in the coming weeks.

Roger McGough at Headingley LitFest

The Wartime Hospital at Beckett's Park

UPDATE - website for published book - www.firstworldwarhospital.co.uk

Headingley LitFest has been awarded a substantial grant by the Heritage Lottery Fund for a project in 2013/2014 based on the military hospital which was at Beckett’s Park, Headingley, during the First World War.

The project will come to a climax in time for the seventh annual LitFest in March 2014 with the production of an illustrated publication and a dramatic performance based on its contents.

On Your Marks - audience responses

Here's the feedback for the event on 27 November:

Written comments after performance:

I never realised that sport could be so exciting! The young dancers in the section ‘Dancing on Together’ were an explosion of energy that took my breath away.

I also enjoyed the presentation by Palm where poetry and prose was sensitively presented, sometimes giving food for thought with a new take on sporting activity.

Really enjoyed this evening. Quality performances but with a touch of the personal too.

Fantastic. More please.

Excellent  well done everyone.

Great for its sustained intensity!

Very good and impressive performances by the group.

Enjoyed most of it –especially the choreographed movement.

Really, Really Really uplifting - very entertaining!

A great evening’s entertainment!

What an evening! I didn’t think anything sporty could be that entertaining.

Great level of performances and humour.

A grippingly entertaining performance- each different part was well-rehearsed, thoughtful and full of imagination.

Superb.

Very entertaining if a little loud.

A very enjoyable varied programme. Not a dull moment.

Many thanks to all those who have worked for this absolutely wonderful event.  Great work! Keep it up.

An excellent evening - superb performance by all. Can we have more of these events please? Well done to all organisers.

What an entertaining and interesting evening.

Comments by email:

Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed last night’s eclectic and very entertaining programme.                         I think I experienced nearly every emotion: which has to be a good test of an evening’s entertainment.

The Phoenix Dance piece was beautifully choreographed and Leeds Met MA Performance students’ performance was witty and clever.  A great evening.

Really good, high quality performances from all the performers.

Letter in Yorkshire Evening Post  30 November:

  

Dear Sir,

The great thing about Leeds is that it produces quality. Leeds United scored once on Tuesday evening November 27^th at Elland Road but also a second time at St Chad’s Parish Hall in Headingley where nine young dancers from Phoenix Dance Theatre wearing Leeds United shirts gave a performance of ‘Score’ that would have made Neil Warnock proud. Along with their colleagues spirited performance of ‘Dancing with Rhinos’ the evening of sport and art with the title ‘On Your Marks’ got off to a rousing start. From the young to the slightly more mature we were royally entertained by Palm Ensemble, students and staff from the performing arts programme of Leeds Metropolitan University whose mixture of wit, poetry and song and professionalism has been recognised at festivals across Europe. There were also guest singers, John Kilburn, Maria Sandle and Phil Widger a local folk singer whose rendition of his own clever amusing work must surely require wider recognition. St. Chad would have been proud.

 I suspect so was Doug Sandle who had put so much effort not only into this event but also the one day conference on sport in art called Field of Vision at Headingley Carnegie Stadium. Accompanying that event is a splendid exhibition of ceramic sculptures of footballers, rugby players and athletes by Mandy Long displayed in the stadium café until December 6^th. Yorkshire has so much to be proud of in this Olympic Year. I think I will have to pop down to the café to see if I can find an appropriate memento.

Yours sincerely

Jeffrey Sherwin (Dr)

Flamenco in Mint Café

Owner Marcos, who can be held responsible for all the superb food (try the Brazilian coxinhas) in Mint Café, says that drop-in poets will be welcome at the Flamenco Evening on Thursday 22 November. Just see him first if you want to read. It starts at 8.30pm.

Entry is £5, with a further £5 for the buffet. The four strong group is Flamenco Diez - guitarist, box drummer, singer and dancer.

For those new to Headingley, Mint Café is near the end of the row on North Lane, just a few yards further on from the Natural Food Shop.

Mimika - comments from the audience

All of the audience questionnaires collected after the Mimika performances at HEART last Saturday contained positive comments - and several drawings. Here are ten of them, and a penguin by Lizzie.

I liked it wen the monkey tried to steel the egg. Elsie

Wonderful! Really creative & moving. Loved the sound, the landscapes, the puppets and really special show Spellbinding Beautiful puppets.  Barba

Terrific show. It contained all the elements of theatre – magic, puppetry, a sense of wonder. Great stuff. Bill

A truly wonderful show bound to entertain & educate. As a model maker in another field I can truly appreciate the use of easily obtainable and inexpensive materials to make things. The thought that must have gone to put on this show, demonstrates  two very talented people Graham

Great we enjoyed it very much. My 2½ daughter liked the toucan best. “And the monkey and the snow falling down. ” “And the snake.” Ted

I liked the animals and the big tent especially the flamingo. Ella

Thankyou  for making this accessible to a local audience. It is stunning! Bravo Jenny & Bill. Wonderful light, movement, sound. Simply amazing Maggie

Please do have them again they are wonderful and great for any ages! Shirley

A magical show! Really absorbing for children and adults. Lovely. Helen

It was fantastic Erin age 8

Spellbound by Mimika Children's Theatre

Sally Bavage writes:

Son et lumière in a tent erected in the HEART Centre, Headingley

Speechless!  Not just the mixed audience of adults and young children but the show itself.  A puppet show like no other, Mimika Theatre is a locally-based group that takes its audience on a worldwide trip from the desert to the rainforest to the South Pole. Not bad in an hour. The welcoming reassurance of Bill and Jenny, who have crafted a fabulous set of animals to accompany us on our travels, created a rising sense of anticipation before we set off - into the tent with mood music and lighting to help young and old alike suspend disbelief.  And this was after showing the younger members of the audience the scary snake fashioned from a vacuum cleaner hose and the snapping crocodile model head to allay any fears.

We set off to the desert to see a baby bird hatch, menaced by a swooping raptor over the audience. Looking up with rapt faces, open mouths, the children – and the adults – were completely absorbed.  Laughter at the antics of the meerkats, alarm at the scorpion, edgy absorption in the creatures that slithered, bit and met their fate before us.

‘Caws’ and effect – the scene and the soundtrack gave way to bird calls amongst the reflections from a tropical rainforest.  How delightful to see children interested in tweeting, not Tweeting.  We listened to howls and growls, buzzing and snarling, with music and monkey business helping to create the story in each of our heads. 

We then dived underwater to observe anemones wave and fish twirl to a Japanese-style soundtrack that bubbled along.  A jellyfish swam by and clownfish came out to play over our heads, along with seahorses, sea snakes and a turtle.  The audience was completely immersed itself in this watery world.

Within thirty seconds the scene iced up, snow was falling and we were watching as a penguin hatched its tiny baby from a carefully nestled egg, to oohs and aahs of sympathy and delight.  There was then a seal of approval for the audience from the watching mammal which popped up.  The End was nigh, but not quite yet.

Next came a puppet show – and tell.  Bill and Jenny allowed the audience members to choose their favourite puppets and showed how they are made and work. Lollipops and marbles, colanders and string have never looked so inventive, even on Blue Peter.  Especially the meerkats – simples!

Entitled ‘Spellbound in a tent’ -  it WAS magic!  Young people watching and enjoying an older form of artistic entertainment, taken on a journey before and behind their eyes.

I wonder how many of them will be thinking up stories about the puppets and their journeys over the coming days?

After the performance, members of the audience were invited to write down their thoughts on the LitFest's assessment forms.

Geoffrey Hill returns to Leeds University

Stringent and Astringent

Richard Wilcocks writes:

Sir Geoffrey Hill, who was elected Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford in June 2010, returned to the University of Leeds, where he taught from 1954 to 1980 on Tuesday 16 October, to read from the work of himself and others. Organised by the University Poetry Centre, it marked two important occasions – his eightieth birthday and the Library’s acquisition of his archive. It was, as promised, a very special event.

Various people from the LitFest committee were there (Sir Geoffrey used to live in Headingley), along with most of the university English Department, undergraduates, postgraduates, poets, family and many others, to listen to a man who, according to one published anecdote, once strode backwards and forwards in front of students in this same Rupert Beckett Lecture Theatre, dressed in black and sweating. He told us that, as he sat there, sweating slightly. I remember him from my time as the only tutor who wore jeans, and his habit of savouring with attendant long pauses particular words from our contributions.

This is not a full account, but a series of glimpses and snatches: it seemed inappropriate to scribble more than a page of notes, and few did so, because this was not a lecture, and not just a poetry reading. After an elegantly concise introduction from Professor John Whale, Head of the School of English, he began with his own anecdotes, about how he had arrived in Leeds as a callow youth (“I was pretty awful”), and about Bonamy Dobrée, who was the Professor of English Literature for a year after his arrival. Dobrée liked to keep a balance in the department, which at that time contained both the Marxist Arnold Kettle and Wilson Knight with his “idiosyncratic mysticism”. He talked about his friendships with the poets Tony Harrison and Ken Smith, when they were students.

Poetry readings, he told us, are not just about the poet who is reading. After mentioning that it would have been better if we could all have seen the words in front of us, or perhaps projected on the screen behind him, he devoted at least the first half to the works of other poets, most of whom are represented in Oscar Williams’s A Little Treasury of Modern Poetry (1946), which he carried in his teenage years. Gerard Hopkins (he omitted the Manley) was first, followed by D.H. Lawrence (Bavarian Gentians, full of flowing lines and repetitions, mesmerizing read Hill’s way), T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound (Pisan Cantos).

"Ezra Pound is incomparable,” he said. “He was the great life-giver to poetry in English in the twentieth century.”  He brought in the composer Arnold Schoenberg as analogous. “He was stringent and astringent… after so much dominance by Wagner, by Brahms, by the German Romantics, he gave us Pierrot Lunaire.” He enlarged on Ezra Pound: “…this man could be so enriching… and yet so vicious in his politics…The Pisan Cantos are a most extraordinary achievement, written when Pound was held in appalling conditions by his fellow Americans… his mind was filled with the healing power of poetry.”

Hill has a way of reading often described as ‘sonorous’, which is not quite the right word. He has a singer’s soul, his style distantly related to Sprechstimme, which was prescribed for Pierrot Lunaire. He is, incidentally, an Honorary Patron of Leeds Festival Chorus.

He read beautifully his translation of Eugenio Montale’s La Bufera, which dates from the middle of the last World War, but he does not describe it as a translation: his version, entitled The Storm, is, in his words, “after Eugenio Montale”. It is, in fact, notably close to the original (better, it has been mooted) and is a homage to an admired poet who has attracted his attention for some years, whose “muted discords” make him a kindred spirit.

He read from his own fairly recent work.  Ars, in memory of Ken Smith, which appears in Without Title, was particularly poignant, partly because several in the audience had known Ken, who was co-editor of Stand magazine, which continues. Improvisation for Jimi Hendrix was not poignant, almost funny. It resulted from an online article in which he thought he was being compared to the guitarist, resulting in his buying a number of CDs, which ended up being flipped to students in an American lecture hall. ‘Lysergic’, we were told, is fake Greek.

“There was a time,” he said in the last five minutes, “when I could wait twenty years for a phrase to find its right place, but I can’t wait that long any more.”

Most of the appreciative and, I am sure, affectionate audience walked across afterwards to Special Collections in the Brotherton Library to drink wine and to chat in an oak-panelled room – to the Master, and to each other.

Comments:

'Hill's work will never be fashionable but it is a corpus of such passionate seriousness and ethical thought, its every phrase written with a consciousness of the weight of history and language, that it is hard to imagine it ever being ignored.' - Robert Potts (Guardian 2002)

'Geoffrey Hill is the central poet-prophet of our augmenting darkness, and inherits the authority of the visionaries from Dante and Blake on to D.H. Lawrence' - critic Harold Bloom 

'Hill embodies his lacerating humour in the person of a sad clown, performer and temporiser, trying to bring together the multiple elements in a dispersed identity: "I'm to show beholden." And parts of speech, too, play many roles, like the German word traurig that recurs. The clown's task is less to juggle words than to catch the one word that his many meanings share.' – Michael Schmidt, reviewing Without Title (Independent 2006)

'But there are good reasons why some intelligent people find little of value in the sentimental consensus of modern poetry; Hill's writing, which speaks to those disputed conditions in which civil and spiritual, as well as personal lives are actually led, offers readers something more rewarding than the usual panaceas.' – Peter McDonald (Guardian 2007)

'Let's take difficulty first. We are difficult. Human beings are difficult. We're difficult to ourselves, we're difficult to each other. And we are mysteries to ourselves, we are mysteries to each other. One encounters in any ordinary day far more real difficulty than one confronts in the most "intellectual" piece of work. Why is it believed that poetry, prose, painting, music should be less than we are?' – Geoffrey Hill (Paris Review 2000)

Inspired by an old cornet

In the run-up to the LitFest in March, members of the local OWLS (Older Wiser Locals) group worked with children from Year 5 at Weetwood Primary School to produce poems inspired by an old cornet. The different generations each brought their own experiences to the project, ably assisted by poet James Nash. Special thanks are due to Year 5 teacher Judith Brockbank and to Lee Ingham and the OWLS.

A booklet of the poems is now up in Headingley Library. These photos are of a display which is currently near the main entrance of the HEART Centre in Bennett Road.

The Cage by Peter Spafford

LitFest veteran and Headingley resident Peter Spafford has based his latest play on a book by Dan Billany and David Dowie - which exists only because of an Italian farmer who looked after the manuscripts (in exercise books) during the Second World War, after an escape from a camp.

As most readers of this blog are unlikely to be able to attend the performance in Goole, there will be another one on Sunday 11 November at 2pm in the Quaker Meeting House on Woodhouse Lane.