All the right funny voices

Ridiculous Witches - Sarah Shafi
Headingley Library - 11am Saturday 22 March

It was just the right size of audience for a reading of the latest in the Ridiculous Witches series by local children's author Sarah Shafi, thirty people including parents. The children showed great interest and enthusiasm as the author adopted all the right funny voices for The Odd-legged Crashing Witch of Leeds and showed the startlingly brilliant illustrations by Tony Husband, though you would have needed brilliant eyesight to see them from afar. No matter, most of the audience seems to have become equipped with a personal copy at the end of the session.

Stories from the War Hospital - the play

Stories from the War Hospital - the play
Friday 21 March, 7.30 pm New Headingley Club

An intimate and moving evocation of the suffering and courage

                            Charlotte Blackburn, Richard Wilcocks, Katharina Arnold, Hannah Robinson                 Photo: Lloyd Spencer

Gail Alvarez writes:

I was frankly amazed that they managed to hold the seventy-strong audience spellbound for sixty minutes during a very imaginative, innovative performance which brought the personal (and true) stories to life. It was indeed a very special experience.  

These are just three of the many outstanding comments on the presentation accompanying the launch of Stories from the War Hospital researched by Richard Wilcocks, Secretary of Headingley LitFest, with the support of funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, over the past year and a half.

Nurses and volunteers, Royal Army Medical Corps, bereaved parents, casualty clearing station staff, soldiers wounded by shot, shell and gas, stretcher bearers, maids and uniform makers … we had them all on stage by turns in an imaginative production that used effective, minimal props but maximum talent for an intimate and moving evocation of the suffering and courage.  The book gives many more stories and much more detail, including the Vedettes on p145. 

Three very talented young performers from LeedsMet – The Vedettes - supported the dramatic representation of just three of the many local stories that Richard has brought to life in script, show and book.  

Katharina Arnold, from Vienna, whose first language is German, was perfectly cast as Dorothy Wilkinson, the musical daughter of a German mother and an English father. 

Charlotte Blackburn was the impressively strict Matron Euphemia Innes and Nurse Margaret Anna Newbould as well as the seamstress Ada who marries Private Robert Bass, a lucky recipient of pioneering maxillofacial surgery. 

Hannah Robinson movingly played the lucky Robert as well as the less-fortunate Captain Clifford Pickles.  

Richard himself, like the Vedettes, skilfully took on a number of roles - Lt Col Harry Littlewood, a vicar, the musician Charles Wilkinson, a maxillofacial surgeon - that kept the pace and the stories flowing.  

Conrad Beck writes:

I have never before seen the concert room of the New Headingley Club so well set up for a performance, with a wooden apron stage erected in the middle of one of the long sides, backed by hessian-draped flats, and a really professional lighting rig. Richard Wilcocks, who wrote the book which was being launched, provided us with a kind of entertaining prologue in which he outlined the research which has taken place over the period of about eighteen months, and read for us one of the briefer articles - Help! Help, it's cold! - which was taken from a 1916 issue of the British Journal of Nursing. This made people laugh and put them in a good mood for the show, which began soon afterwords with guitar music from Katharina Arnold with a hint of melancholy in it.

The hour-long play which followed gripped the audience throughout. The action in it takes place at the Second Northern General Hospital at Beckett Park, at the Boston Spa home of Dorothy Wilkinson, at a suffragette rally, at a musical evening in Leeds, at the Second Battle of Ypres, at various Casualty Clearing Stations, in St Chad's Church, Headingley, on the Hospital Ship Formosa and at the Battle of Arras. We got all that, very convincingly, in just over an hour of performance. 

All the actors were strong: Katharina Arnold had a powerful stage presence as Dorothy Wilkinson, the suffragette daughter of a musician, Hannah Robinson was particularly effective when she played the spectre of the dead, shell-shocked Captain Pickles and Charlotte Blackburn was the perfect matron: I was really moved when she told us about the tragic cases she had helped to treat after the Gallipoli battles. Richard Wilcocks, the author on stage, was obviously born to be a lieutenant-colonel in the RAMC.

I would love to see this little theatre group again in the future, and I do hope that they will put on Stories from the War Hospital for at least a second time. I am wondering whether they will be performing it in the hospital itself - that is, in the Headingley Campus of Leeds Metropolitan University. I do hope they have been invited.

For a copy of the book: headingleyhospital@gmail.com

For the website: CLICK HERE

Cast: 

Katharina Arnold - Guitarist, vedette, staff nurse, Dorothy Wilkinson, cloud of chlorine, nurse at Casualty Clearing Station and on hospital ship, stretcher-bearer, Emma.

 Charlotte Blackburn - Matron-in-Chief Euphemia Innes, vedette, staff nurse, Gladys Keevil, gassed soldier, nurse at Casualty Clearing Station, stretcher-bearer, Vincent Boy, Margaret Anna Newbould, sergeant, stretcher-bearer, Ada.

 Hannah Robinson - Vedette, maid, suffragette, Captain Clifford Pickles RAMC, Vincent Boy, nurse at Casualty Clearing Station and on hospital ship, Private Robert Bass

Richard Wilcocks - Lt Col Harry Littlewood, vicar, Charles Wilkinson, bereaved parent, officer in trench, maxillofacial surgeon.

Director/Script - Richard Wilcocks

Stage Management/Lighting - Matthew Sykes-Hooban

Poems used:

Schtzngrmm is by the Austrian ‘concrete poet’ (Lautgedichte) Ernst Jandl.

Pluck is by VAD nurse and poet Eva Dobell.

There Will Come Soft Rains is by the American lyric poet Sara Teasdale.

Dedicated to the RAMC is by the ‘Pack Store Party’ and appeared in the Journal of the Leeds Territorial Hospitals in December 1917.

Thanks to Performing Arts at LMU for making rehearsal spaces available. Special thanks to Oliver Bray.

Audience comments:

Spellbinding show that revisits the time of the wounded and nursing services in the Great War.

Excellent presentation, skilled acting and very moving.  Thank you.

A very imaginative, innovative performance which brought the personal stories to life – moving and touching.  Admirable lively acting, beautifully rehearsed and staged.  A very special experience.

I believe that the piece was very good, especially I like the way of representing the stories by various ways and techniques.  Thank you.

Great performances from Leeds Met students.

Often poignant and moving.  Extremely well acted and mostly well articulated.  Not always easy to follow the transitions between people and phases but a very well worthwhile experience.

For just four actors, amateurs at that, to sustain interest in, and convey the many varied emotions involved in telling the complex story of a war hospital, with humour and without any props, was a remarkable challenge but one which they successfully pulled off without noticeable flaw.  I was frankly amazed that they managed to hold the audience spellbound for sixty minutes.

Very moving and interesting personal stories.

I particularly liked the use of a hospital clipboard, which enabled extracts from letters, newspaper clippings and other items to be read out with style.

A great performance and very insightful.  I didn’t know about Beckett Park Hospital and I am so grateful that Richard has worked so hard to research this past that definitely shouldn’t ever be forgotten.

Very well performed play.  A brilliant glimpse of what will be a great read.  Well done Richard!

Thank you for a moving performance with excellent music and songs.

The set - just folds of sacking at the back of the stage and a red-painted chair - looked great before the show even started.

What an amazing amount of detail to remember!  Very powerful drama, told through the eyes of people who did experience WW1.  I had three great uncles who were killed between 1916 and 1917 (one on the Somme) a grandfather who was a patient at Beckett Park and I studied there (1979-83) so found the performance very interesting and informative.

Wonderful!  Very absorbing, moving with a touch of humour

Sterling work!  The ensemble really brought the stories to life and provided a reminder of the work done by so many ordinary staff during the war.  A really enjoyable evening.

A vivid reproduction of three true stories of hospital life in WW1.  A wonderful acting quartet – look forward to seeing them again.

An intimate and moving evocation of the suffering and courage.  Many thanks

Enterprising interpretation of some very interesting material.

Fascinating stories and imaginative lovely performance.  Beautiful singing voices.

Very interesting event.  Acting and singing was a joy.  Mix of humour and tragedy.  Very enjoyable evening.

Very good group effort managing to convey the horror of the war but also moving and humorous at times.   I like the music and movement, well done!

Spirited performance. Hope it will be retold elsewhere after all the work that’s gone into it.

Had heard a little about the hospital and stories before from Richard.  The performance really brought it to life, both the ordinary and the extraordinary and tragic.  Very interesting and well done.

I attended CL&CC 74 to 77 and was aware of the history of the college whilst training as a teacher, hence my interest in coming tonight.  Well researched  rehearsed and performed play – very informative.

Very well acted throughout.  Very moving in parts.

Nurses who 'did their bit' should be fully remembered and not taken for granted. I am a nurse, so I felt really involved in this terrific play! Well done Vedettes!

Everyone has a powerful story to tell

Sharing poetry at City of Leeds

Wednesday 19^th March

Sally Andrews writes:

Michelle and Junior

Such poetry from a lovely group of youngsters!  “As good as we had heard yesterday from the Writing for Survival event held with a mixed group of creative writers from Headingley and Osmondthorpe,” said a member of the audience. True, and so encouraging to find young people prepared to read out their own work: emotional, beautiful, tense, personal.

 “I laugh – and I survive” said S.  A good metaphor for life.  And he spoke of his enthusiasm for writing poems that could be used as the lyrics of a song, encouraged by Junior Willocks, international session musician and producer, working with the likes of Damien Marley and Ellie Goulding.  Junior is a local lad, growing up in the heart of Leeds and attending Harehills dance company, Northern Contemporary Dance school and dancing with the orginal Phoenix dance company.

Survival is not a word used often, but we all find ways to survive” said K, as well as telling us about Elizabeth I – who survived her father, smallpox and the Spanish and French wars.  A young man who integrated his love of history into a third poem about 1945 and the gas ovens.  “I’m next! I’m next!  I’m next!” was a panicky last line – chilling.

L spoke of hardship and the great ambition you need to survive, whilst S’s ‘Born a Survivor’ was a poem of praise for the woman who helps others despite her own difficulties and tragedies. 

One young man told us of his lonely time living in a refuge, not able to attend school for a year and a half. How soul-destroying that is for a young boy? He, almost casually, related his recovery from swine flu, which put him in hospital for a month, and his unsupported mum into a great fright. Poetry has the power to release dark tales.

D had only recently arrived here from Sicily and had written all her poems first in Italian so she could get the words out before translating them into a shortened form of English.  Her beautiful smile lit up when we gave her praise for her English, coming on by leaps and bounds in the way that poetry often releases young people’s restraint or lack of confidence with more formal or lengthy writing. As her teacher said, “Today she has smiled and come out of herself.”

M had said of himself “I can’t write, I can’t write” but the poetry workshops had given him a space to come and enjoy listening.  He got there in the end, writing his own poem and he was so proud of it. 

As regulars at a long-established dance club which clashed with the poetry workshop evenings, two youngsters were nevertheless fired up by Michelle coming into their lessons and igniting the spark. This encouraged them to drop off their poems anyway and come and share them with us.  Dance came second today.

We heard more – the young boy who wipes his mother’s tears from his face in case someone thinks he has been crying.  Or the poem Anne Boleyn wrote to Katherine of Aragon, describing her as “a good enemy” and pleading that her daughter (Elizabeth) “must survive.”  “His smile traps faces”  and “home was the place where he was supposed to feel loved” told a dark tale.   “Surviving the loss of a phone, or your trainers – that’s not surviving.  Surviving is escaping a tragedy, an earthquake, a fire.  That’s real survival.”  An old head on young shoulders.

Our thanks go to teacher Kathleen Gallagher for enabling this work and to Michelle Scally Clarke, performance poet, who has worked so hard across the school to get these and other young people to believe they can do it. “It’s so important to celebrate young people’s voices, and to develop their skills in presenting themselves working in groups and with audiences. Everyone has a powerful story to tell.  Poetry helps you find the rhythm, see the person”

Note:  Michelle is currently Poet in Residence at  Space 2 in Leeds and Writing Facilitator for First Floor at the West Yorkshire Playhouse as well as the Ilkley Literature Festival. Her biography is published in Tangled Roots, published in 2013 as an anthology which explores six mixed race/Yorkshire heritage artists.  She is working on a new commission for a play/musical. http://www.tangledroots.org.uk/

Michelle Scally Clarke comments:

This year’s slam with City of Leeds moved me in a way the other slams had not.  I think it was the theme ‘Surviving’, for City of Leeds boasts the most dynamic, diverse, smiling, happy survivors, each person a story that has a different taste to the last, all unique.

Most of the pupils I worked alongside were survivors.  There was a young Year 8 girl who rarely came to school, but came in on the day of the poetry workshops because the teacher had said she would like it. She wrote about surviving the fact that her brother is in the army, how he loved and looked after her, and she allowed me to read this, then read it after herself to the class.  The classmate who wrote about her best friend surviving cancer, her best friend sat right next to her, the roar of empathy of love and claps from fellow classmates.

Spoken word has a great impact with the students - it is a great way to begin creative writing and free writing;  it allows you to speak to the page, it allows your voice to be owned and heard, it allows for writing and literature and language to be enjoyed first then learnt. This is very important if English is not your first language - it wasn’t for ninety percent of the students I worked with.  It allows for praise and for people to see the truth of you. These pupils humble and inspire me with their stories, poems and songs,and I have no doubt that all will continue to perform, write and grow.

I would like to say a massive “Thank you” to the Headingley LitFest and funders for enabling this valuable work each year.

Natural, convincing, gripping Alison Taft

Lily Appleyard in Paris – Alison Taft

Wednesday 19 March - Headingley Library

                                                  Photo: Richard Wilcocks

Alison talked about her relationship with publishers – she works successfully with a ‘we really do know what people like’ bunch who are apparently after ‘gritty northern stories’ – and her own father. The father bit was more interesting than the publisher bit. She outlined how her own personal experiences have influenced her writing, which is not that surprising, because vast numbers of poets and novelists, famous, infamous and unknown, have been influenced likewise, but she told her side of things so well, so naturally and convincingly, that the audience was gripped. Alison’s central protagonist, Lily Appleyard, has a father who has disappeared from her life and who refuses to meet her in Our Father, Who Art Out There… Somewhere, and she lives in Accrington. Lily has a fantasy that he will turn up one day. As the blurb on the back of the book says: when Lily’s mother dies and Lily finds her father alive and well but with no intention of ever meeting her, she has a decision to make. Should she forget about him? Or does she have a right to know her own father? Doesn’t he owe her at least one meeting?

Alison, who is originally from Burnley, told us that this almost but not exactly described a part of her own life. She was very definitely using what she knew, and it had crossed her mind that she was taking some kind of revenge in her writing.  Our Father is set in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall was breached, when Alison was living in Germany, though there’s not much about that. The novel, set in Headingley and with plenty of use of the present tense, has a strong sense of immediacy as well as a strong feel of the Zeitgeist. The focus moved from Our Father to its sequel, Shallow Be Thy Grave in which Lily has to navigate Paris while dealing with her dysfunctional family. We heard about where the murder should go in an effective crime novel, which is seven pages in, according to one recommended formula. Alison has her doubts about this kind of thing: she mentioned the tension created between author and publisher when advice is given and not taken. She has been told that there should be a new dramatic incident every few pages, or that one of her male characters was ‘an idealized man’, or that a section was too long, and she has made a few adjustments and is sometimes grateful when something is pointed out, for example a mistranslation of a Latin motto.

She particularly admires Lee Child, an author whose books tend to come with ‘noir’ on the cover. In response to the obvious follow-up question, Alison said that her books had been described as ‘chick noir’ as opposed to straight ‘chick lit’, and this caused her to smile, because it does sound like an in-joke. We smiled too. She is fascinated by plenty of the output of Jo Nesbø as well, but finds some aspects of his work upsetting, especially the graphic descriptions of murder scenes. Nesbø  is one of a number of well-known writers given the task of rewriting stories from Shakespeare. He is dealing with Macbeth. Agatha Christie was mentioned as well, but she is a given.

In the audience was a delegation from a student book group at Leeds University, who had obviously heard about the event but who were unaware that it was part of the LitFest. We hope to see you again soon, now that you know. Also in the audience were a couple of Alison’s lecturers from quite a while ago, and she was just a little worried that they might have thought that a boring lecturer in one of her novels could be perceived as one of them. Perish the thought! If the cap fitted, neither of them showed they were wearing it.

Audience comments:

Interesting insight to the background of the books

It was really enjoyable!

Great. Well-structured. Interviewer had good questions and reading/Q & As were well-timed within the evening.

Insight into driving force behind writing process, interesting to hear about process of feedback from agents, publishers, editors.

Brilliant. Loved it.

Great to showcase local talent and to inspire other budding local writers.

Enjoyed hearing how author’s background fed into her books. Very lively and personable author, willing to give of herself.

I don’t know much about the books and haven’t read them yet but it sounds interesting and makes me think I must have lived a very sheltered life a lot more than I thought. I think I should read more female erotica stuff because it needs to stick into my head for me to accept it as a normal part of life and therefore engage in the world appropriately.

Really insightful and interesting. We had read the books in our book club (thanks to Headingley Library for lending them to us) so was great to find out the background behind her writing.

I’ve always thought that books lead to a different world, but never quite found the door. Listening to Mrs/Ms A Taft (since I don’t know if she’s married) I kind of saw that door. I won’t say I hope you do more of these author sessions, because you will either way.

Interesting to get an insight into the author’s life/background. Seemed personal.

Greast to hear from a local author! Also very interesting to hear about the writing process. Never heard a writer speak before.

Very interesting session with an excerpt from her second book, and questions and answers revealing her motivation in writing.

As someone who has never thought of writing a novel, I found Alison’s account of her experiences fascinating. I hope I enjoy the novel.

It’s such a successful format to have the compere ask a series of prompting questions to get the author to open up about their work’s background. Too many authors read too many chunks out of their books. Alison is such an open, honest and entertaining speaker, which comes across in her books.

Very interesting open evening. Good tips on crime writing which is what I’m after.

Really liked the structure of the night with the range of questions posed by the library representative.

Very engaging and well-structured.

Interesting insight into an author’s work and life.

Liked the Q & A format and the chance to ask our own questions.

Very enjoyable event. Good questions. Well structured.

Initiative, courage, compassion - and great powers of endurance

Wounded – Emily Mayhew in Headingley Library

Stretcher Bearers

Tuesday 18 March

Emily Mayhew’s session yesterday evening was highly informative and deeply moving. She spoke to an appreciative audience briskly and clearly, telling us about some of the many true stories she has collected over a period of years, stories of people in the medical services of the First World War who had initiative and courage as well as great powers of endurance and unlimited compassion, people who should be an inspiration to everyone. She obviously filled in a few gaps for some in the audience, who simply did not know much about, for example, the stretcher bearers who were often under fire on the front more frequently than the troops of the line they there to save. They were the ones  who waited until just after the first wave had gone over the top, climbed up after them, and listened for the screaming. The screaming told them where those who had just been shot or mangled were situated. Gas attacks complicated things terribly: wearing masks not only inhibited screaming but made listening for it impossible. They were strong men, and they usually developed ‘bearers’ hands’ after a short while, the result of constantly holding heavy wooden poles in atrocious conditions. Isaac Rosenberg wrote about them in Dead Man’s Dump. You don’t hear much about people like that in most accounts of the war which was supposed to end all wars.

And you don’t hear much about medical officers who go home on leave across the Channel and then come back to the trenches with a cage of ferrets. That’s what Major Alfred Hardwick did when a plague of rats was driving the men mad. When Emily was reading the section which tells how “the only two creatures who enjoyed themselves on the Western Front” eagerly shot out of their cage to kill the rodents, there were smiles all round. She went on to tell the story of the nurse who shocked her parents when she wrote to tell them how she had been the ‘hare’ in a game of hare and hounds in one of her brief periods of relaxation at a casualty clearing station near the front line. Why was she not slogging away all the time? Emily told us about the original of the letter she sent to them and how you could tell from the handwriting that she was fiercely controlling herself in a measured reply. We heard about Nurse Claire Tisdall, who worked for the London Ambulance Column, and how, on the last day of the war in 1918 the wounded were still arriving at Victoria Station. Crowds which a year or two previously had been cheering and clapping the ambulances now ignored them, not making way as they desperately tried to get through the celebrating masses near Trafalgar Square.

When the driver leaned out of his window asking people to move, they took no notice and simply sang louder. The ambulance was now crawling forward at a snail’s pace. It was difficult to see what was in front of them, and many of the faces that pressed against the windows were red and glassy-eyed from drink. Tisdall tied down the canvas flaps tightly so that her patients wouldn’t be frightened, but the vehicle was jostled and bumped from side to side as the crowd pushed against it. She had to hold the stretchers in their racks steady so that they wouldn’t be dislodged as the ambulance rocked on its thin tyres. In Trafalgar Square on the last day of the war, in the middle of the ecstatic celebrations of peace, Tisdall and her patients cowered in the dark of the ambulance, in mute fear, praying the driver would get them through.

Emily talked about her previous, utterly different, career in Fashion (she helped to launch Harvey Nichols in Leeds) and how much she enjoyed being in Yorkshire. We enjoyed being with her!

Audience comments:

Comments

1.  Fascinating and informative background to medical activities in the 1^st World War. Well presented, ‘user friendly’ and wonderful academic rigour. A real treat

2.     Excellent! So interesting as a speaker.  

3.     I learned a lot! And what more could you ask of a talk? Excellent!  

4.     Very well presented, fluid and informative. It took a fresh view point of WWI.

5.     Very interesting and engaging. Nice relaxed atmosphere conducive to discourse.  

6.     A fascinating insight, avoided the clichés, new angles on the subject, I could have listened for hours.  

7.     Brilliant. Arresting. Interesting. Accurate. Moving. One of the best Headingley LiFest events I’ve attended.

8.     Good to learn from an expert researcher about the Western Front. She filled in lots of gaps of my knowledge about field hospitals. Particularly moved by the tales of the stretcher bearers.  

9.     Very detailed and informative.  

10.  Very fluent and confident speaker and compère.  

11.  A very impressive speaker – clear, loud, knows her stuff and brings it alive. Excellent.

12.  History of the Western Front medical humanity brought to life.

13.   Enjoyable and informative.

14.  I knew bits of what was said but the author had a lovely, clear speaking voice which made it so interesting and moving. You could just ‘see yourself there’ – as if you were a nurse, sitting with a wounded soldier. Heart-rending at times. PS medical history is something I love (from 15^th century onwards).

15.  Interesting, informative and engaging – a seriously good evening.

Lovely to see them blossom

Alison Taft                     Photo: Joe Haskey

Writing for Surviving - partnership Event with the WEA - creative writing for all

HEART Centre Shire Oak Room
11.30am - 2.30pm Tuesday 18 March

Session led by Alison Taft, WEA creative and dramatic writing tutor

Sally Bavage writes:

For the fourth year running, and supported by funding for the third time by Jimbo’s Fund, to whom we are really grateful, we were able to invite our writing friends from the Osmondthorpe Resource Centre to join Headingley writers in a shared session exploring what ‘Surviving’ could mean.  We managed to fit in six wheelchairs, a zimmer and some walking sticks as well as the rest of the seventy-strong audience of performers, friends and audience members fortunate enough to know what a treat they had in store.

The work from our Osmondthorpe friends was profound in every sense: personal journeys were explored in poetry, story and song, demonstrating how various handicaps can be overcome.  There were echoes, perhaps, of the men and women from a century ago who survived the First World War and then had to cope with personal damage.  Osmondthorpers have the courage of their forebears to overcome the frailties of the body to enjoy the life of the mind.  Some knew their work off by heart - they had taken such ownership of it – and some extemporised if they forgot a line or if nerves took over, or a colleague leapt in to help.  Even some of our able-bodied contributors showed by their shaking papers and quavering voices that the polished performance they gave owed a debt to the determination with which they wanted to share their thoughts and ideas.

Photo: Joe Haskey

Richard Wilcocks, Secretary of Headingley LitFest and the author of the just-released Stories from the War Hospital – the research was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the book is to be launched on Friday 21 March in the New Headingley Club – had inspired some of our writers after he talked with the three groups and gave them some tantalising background information on the stories on which the book is based.  Quite a few pieces alluded to the so-called Great War and its devastating consequences for both sides, all races, each gender and every aspect of life at home or in the trenches. Others looked at life from a different view - holidays, work, photos, daffodils, traffic chaos, poverty – or just Leeds United (Keep on Trying) which made us laugh even as we grimaced about the truths it contained.

After the first half delights, a break for tea and homemade cake was taken, then we regrouped for the dramatic writers to give us another selection of longer pieces that were carefully staged to lift the words off the pages.  Ensemble pieces showed the trust and the confidence the group has developed in working together and in performing to an audience – using props, songs and their oft-not-needed honed scripts to convey their thoughts.  The acting was mesmerising in places, taking our amateur performers quite out of Headingley and into another realm. Nine pieces often used 'The Narrator' to take us further behind the scenes played out in front of our eyes.

Photo: Joe Haskey

Monologues, poems, plays, stories, a specially-written song – we had them all.  Some dialogue was so real we had heard it all before - only we hadn’t.  New work written just for LitFest kept us gripped.  As we said about her LitFest appearance last year, “Kay (Mellor)has a perceptive eye for detail, a keen ear for dialogue and an ability to bring people to life so vividly that we can probably all name someone in our own lives who is just like one of her characters.  As she lives very locally, it could indeed be us!  She confessed that she does use her friends, family, those she meets casually …”  Kay Mellor, watch out, we are growing our own!

Contributors to our first half included:

Lynn Alexander, Howard Benn, Kaz Byrne, Carl Flynn, Michael Freeman,  Sue Heath, Malcolm Henshall,  Mandy Hudson, Rod Jeffries, Jenny & Paul, Hazel Kilner, Janice Maldonado, Jane Moody, Myrna Moore, David Newton, Lee Roley, Richard Sharp, Adrian Simmons, Carol Swift, Michael Patrick Taylor, Robert Thorpe, Winston Whitely, Caroline Wilkinson and Val Wright.

Contributors to our second half included:

Cate Anderson, Lynn Anderson, Howard Benn, Morag Caunt, Francesca Joy, Siobhan Maguire-Broad, Myrna Moore, Jackie Parsons, Tony Scriven, Lynn Thornton, Caroline Wilkinson.

The stars of the show were, respectively, Alison Taft for her fantastic work to support and deliver such wonderful writing, and the homemade cake - which got a round of applause of its own.

Audience Comments:

A very vibrant, varied programme with some amazing pieces, especially to hear the writing from Osmondthorpe.  Cakes were gorgeous.

A wonderful collaborative event, which offers a welcoming audience to some very able and gifted writers but also encourages the less able. 

Lovely to see some of the same performers from previous years again – their work is thought-provoking and lovely to see them blossom.

Excellent event packed with variety and new writing talent.

An excellent range of poetry, prose and dramatic writing.  Some of the Osmondthorpe contributions were remarkable and moving. 

Global, national, local – it’s all here in Headingley.

An enjoyable and inspiring event.  A great variety of interpretations on the theme of survival ranging from strong emotions to humour.  Good to see such an inclusive event.

Excellent – inspirational.  Can we have copies of some of the poems – are you planning to publish – I hope so!  Thank you.