How independent is Ireland? - Bernard Purcell in the New Headingley Club

Audience Comments

I thought some people found it hard to get their questions in! It provoked thought – and maybe controversy? Great! “Ye cannae eat a flag” I loved that! More of such speakers please!

Very interesting talk about close links between Ireland and Uk – analysis and examples. Could have been longer!

An informative and, at times, witty overview of the history of Ireland – and Irish in Britain!

Very interesting talk on the people and culture of Ireland. I also thought it was very nice to have people playing Irish music before the event began as people were arriving.

I found it really interesting. Much of what was said reflected my experience of being a 2^nd generation Irish in England.

Wonderful! I learnt a lot – a great speaker – eloquent, knowledgeable and enthusiastic.

Enjoyable, informative, wish it was longer

This event was excellent, informative and very enlightening.

Excellent. Very interesting.

Interesting and positive.

A stimulating and informative talk on a subject little discussed!

Greatly informative speaker.

A very interesting topic but sadly it was too difficult to hear the speaker as the acoustics in the New Headingley Club are so poor and, as the audience was seated in a semi circle, the soft voice could not carry. A microphone would have helped – also if the speaker has slowed down his delivery. A text book example of how not to give an otherwise fascinating talk.

I found the lecture very interesting, and one of real significance for the Irish in Leeds, as well as a general audience.  I thought it was rather short, however and that was disappointing (20 minutes) as the speaker was clearly very knowledgeable.  But I just discovered that there was a problem with trains

Very interesting, especially liked the GAA anecdote and the Terry Wogan ref and the list of people of Irish extraction. Also would like more discussion about … ??

House Event - Sankakei - On An Eastern Breeze

Richard Wilcocks writes:

Oz Hardwick and Michael Graham

Our house this afternoon became the setting for a beautiful dream journey very soon after Sankakei began: Michael Graham sat in the middle, hands dancing over the strings on a pair of kotos, while Oz Hardwick and Amina Alyal stood on either side as poetic punctuators. The palaces and gardens of Old Japan floated above, cranes lifted off from their own reflections in sacred lakes and saffron-robed Zen monks meditated in mountain retreats. It was an intimate experience, with the captivated audience just a few feet from the performers, practically 'on stage' with them. Michael was a centre of attention after the three quarters of an hour set, answering questions about Japan, where he lived for seven years, and on his rare and wonderful instruments: he must be the north of England's number one expert on them, describing the samisen (or shamisen) as "a kind of banjo" played with an enormous equivalent of a plectrum, and the koto as a descendant of a Chinese instrument (the guzheng) which was first played no less than two thousand five hundred years ago. "It's a kind of zither," he told us. Some zither! The carefully chosen and composed poetry fitted well into a performance which spanned more than two millennia of oriental culture.

It had been advertised that there would be an appeal for money at the (free) event, and Sandra Derler, who has just returned from meeting and helping refugee children on the flimsy boats arriving on Lesvos, brought a laptop with a looped slideshow of recent photographs taken there. I read from a Facebook account of a young volunteer on the island, followed by People Run by Michael Rosen. The collecting bowl was on the table next to the cake and the baklava. The eighty pounds in it at the end of the afternoon will be for NGOs on the actual beaches.

There was poetry in the second session: Hannah Stone read poems which included some from her recently-launched collection, I read a new one by myself entitled In Nunhead Cemetery and Becky Cherriman read a selection from her new pamphlet Echolocation.


Audience Comments

What a lovely intimate event, that gave evidence of a lively literary community. The other readers were outstanding (Oz Hardwick)

Nice intimate atmosphere and range of performances

Samisen and Koto   Photos by Richard Wilcocks

The most interesting musical instruments I have ever seen or heard. A fascinating afternoon!

My first ever HOME EVENT. It was very homely and everybody was talking to each other, it wasn't formal at all. The music was good and interesting, there were some good poems. Very Good.

Particularly enjoyed the poetry readings in the second half. I also loved the idea that donations were given for refugees. Lovely informal event.

The mixture of poetry + music was wonderful, harmonic. I loved the looping words and musical themes and the two voices. So rich in imagery!

Lovely afternoon! Poetry and music were wonderful. Also enjoyed tea and cake.

Intriguing programme, beguiling performance.

Quite interesting poetry along with the playing of quite unusual musical instruments. I particularly enjoyed listening to the music and thought that the poetry fitted in nicely. I liked the other poetry readings as well.

Friendly hospitable setting - an interesting mix - oriental and western - original and creative work of a high standard. Amazing Japanese instruments (that I can't spell or pronounce). Excellent!

It was like a performance in an art gallery - perfect - I loved it.

Sound Company - Friendly Fire

Richard Wilcocks writes:

Sound Company      Photo by Richard Wilcocks

It was not only a most appropriate and timely reminder of the catastrophe of the First World War and a few of the individual soldiers caught up in it, but also a kind of tribute to the early days of the Theatre in Education movement: Friendly Fire is a pruned-down and tweaked version of a play for secondary school students created by the Coventry TIE Company in 1970 which had the slightly cumbersome title of Killed July 17th 1916. The story of this was fictitious, but based on real researched events. Some members of the Lawnswood School Community Choir decided to tell a cut-down version of this story, making it locally specific, with references to the Leeds Pals, which formed one of the more ill-fated sections of Kitchener's Army fighting on the Somme in 1916. On the first day of the battle - 1 July - when the Pals and their comrades were advancing towards the village of Serre, hundreds getting machine-gunned or blasted to death in the process, it was inevitable that some of them would get confused or lost.

 One of these was Billy Dean, a character who represents a real-life victim of the brutal army disciplinary process of the time: he was condemned to death for desertion, one of three hundred and fifty others similarly condemned before 1918. He was executed by a firing squad of soldiers who knew him well. It was thought to be good for military morale, somehow. As Voltaire wrote, it was "pour encourager les autres".

Sound Company gave the story some of the feel of a requiem, singing a cappella Spring 1919, with its well-known first line 'In Flanders Field the poppies grow' as they entered St Michael's Church Hall. This short piece with its simple counterpoint was placed at the end of the show as well. Unlike all the other short pieces throughout, some of them from Joan Littlewood's Oh What A Lovely War, this one was specially composed after the hostilities. Some had unfamiliar tunes - We are Fred Karno's Army was, for a change, not sung to the hymn tune The Church's One Foundation. All of them became chorale-like in between the dramatic scenes, which had cinematographic brevity.

The company had its audience completely engaged within about five minutes. "You could tell from the faces," a cast member told me afterwards. "At first they were sizing us up. Then they were definitely with us." We were shocked when the platoon sergeant (a frightening Dick Downing) gave the order to "scare the shit out of Fritzi" during bayonet training, adding that "the only good Boche is a dead Boche", and when the hesitating Billy Dean (a truly professional performance from Derek Holt) did not stab the sandbag representing a human body with sufficient viciousness. We were appalled at the way the court martial was rigged against the defendant. We were also impressed by the sheer quality of the singing: none of these choir members had been unwillingly conscripted (of course) into an unusual situation: they were as deeply involved with the issues and the pity of war as the audience, and well-rehearsed.

Some of the issues came out in the discussion which followed, TIE - style. Dick Downing fielded the questions and the statements, and it soon became obvious that we already knew a fair amount about the Great War which changed the world a hundred years ago, which is a good reason for Sound Company to take this play into schools for the benefit of those who know less.

We owe our thanks to St Michael's/Headingley Hall for allowing us to use their venue at short notice and opening up especially for us.

Audience Comments

Very well performed – words and unaccompanied singing, a good mix of each. The end discussion was so good. Some, with grandfathers who had even been soldiers in WW1 had not heard of some of the harrowing detail of what had happened.

A very complete piece that built to a climax with the Dean/Sergeant Major dialogue. The end discussion was valuable too.

Very affecting! Combination of songs and story was very moving, and an important story to be told. Thank you!

This was a very moving and thought-provoking event, with information I didn't know before and it made me THINK. Very good discussion.

Excellent. Beautiful singing.

Fab! Thoroughly enjoyed it. Have seen it before and loved it!

Excellent, the subject matter goes without saying, and the educational importance came up during the discussion. It's a great medium to describe it in. The framing device was also new to me; at first I was sceptical but it was extremely effective.

This was wonderful – introduced me to several aspects of the war that I'd never though about before, and will certainly think about further! The 'script-in-hand' approach worked surprisingly well, and the songs make such a powerful atmosphere.

Very vivid and thought-provoking. I'm so pleased to hear you are taking the performance to Lawnswood School as it is essential that young people hear the raw story.

Really excellent, moving experience. Should be taken into secondary schools.

Very moving and thoughtful i.e thought-provoking. Read the line from Henri Barbuse: “Not two armies fighting each other. It's one huge army committing suicide.” Keep passing on the message!

Thank you - very moving event. Particularly enjoyed the singing – brilliant!

Very moving, especially the songs. Couldn't hear some of the spoken stuff: some performers need to speak more slowly and project. These things need to be done, lest we forget

Very moving and intimate performance. Thank you for putting this on.

Very poignant story of ordinary men in an extraordinary situation. The singing captured the spirit of the time brilliantly.

Very powerful and very moving. Loved the singing. Relevant to events in the world today, sadly.

Good performance, on time, good organisation. Venue just about adequate but not a problem

Becky Cherriman, Ian Harker, Tom Kelly and Tom Weir in Headingley Library

Four Big Splashes

Síle Moriarty writes:

Becky Cherriman, Tom Kelly, Ian Harker and Tom Weir
Photo by Richard Wilcocks

I do love these LitFest events at Headingley Library – the staff are so welcoming and the atmosphere is relaxed and easy with much bantering and teasing and back chat. Also, as Ian Harker pointed out, they happen in the right place i.e. in the children’s section of the library where they are part of a continuum that starts when youngsters learn to love the written word and books and literature.

Our four poets last night were inspiring to listen to; their easy natures and good humour belied the intensity and quality of their work. I enjoyed their different voices and themes and the variety of ways in which they used poetry to express themselves. All four poets read from their latest published books/pamphlets and we also heard newer unpublished poems.

Becky Cherriman took us into the binding passing places of love and motherhood and loss, opening her set with All Princes were Monsters Once in which ‘One day I come home to find the sofa/ is no longer big enough’ and, in the same poem, a child becomes his mother’s ‘first accurate mirror’. I admire the fact that she has the confidence to write in the first person (though not in every poem) about such intimate and fundamental matters but at the same time with immense objectivity.

Ian Harker went on flights of imagination (where do you get your ideas from Ian?) for example in The Lions of Leeds Town Hall where the lions set off up Park Row, their stone claws ‘clack-clacking on flags’. It does have to be said however that some members of the audience assured Ian that this was no flight of fancy as they too had seen the lions going for a stroll on a Friday night and they weren’t at all surprised that later in the poem ‘Nesyamum , three thousand years dead’, might sit up and start ‘tapping against the glass’.

Emma Walker sold the poetry collections
Photos by Richard Wilcocks

Tom Kelly, who didn’t look at all like the photo in the brochure (it was the wrong photo), explored a number of themes but I was particularly taken by his poems that included the natural world -  for example his Sigurd’s Tale in which a finch has three songs - of love, to warn, and for his rival - but which also has a fourth song that has no words  ‘Sung in joy or sorrow,/ this song is for no one save himself/ and the air in his throat.’ I love that song.

Tom Weir didn’t have time to finish his pizza before he had to read but that didn’t put him off. As always I am intrigued by the language of his poems which deploy precise description and imagery. He read Dog Suicide which, as a dog lover, had me in bits - ‘You didn’t struggle just placed your chin on the water and looked at me’. But that look is universal as ‘the current took hold and pulled you back/ towards the bridge, the ice cream shop, /the waterfall none of us knew how to stop.’ Tom read a number of short new poems to finish his set and floated them out to us on single slender sheets of paper that fluttered in his fingers.

Thanks to all of the poets for such a lovely evening.

Natasha Lyons writes:

It seems fitting that, on World Book Day, we are gathered in Headingley Library to listen and enjoy some of the flourishing local poets of today. After engaging performances from Becky Cherriman and Ian Harker, Tom Kelly takes to the floor to read aloud some of his poetry, both old and new. Tom’s poetry draws upon some of his experiences in Leeds, or recognisable areas that he’s particularly taken by, such as the miniatures in the University Parkinson building in his poem, aptly named The Miniatures. His personal anecdotes are also appreciated by the audience and are humorous in his take on the little eccentricities of life. The Theory of The Mark was a particularly witty and interesting poem, inspired by a birthmark on Tom’s grandmother, which, Tom adds, looked exactly like the shape of a rabbit. Tom’s poetry continued in this playful and lively fashion, with the animals being a continual theme. The Surfing Hippos in West Africa was a hilariously comic poem, conjuring up quite an entertaining thought! Even more so, when Tom’s poem went on to put the hippo in a museum, labelled by a dumb curator as ‘The Surfing Seal’. Tom’s collection of poems finishes on a thought provoking note, as Tom explains how the news of Cecil the Lion inspired some of his animal poetry. Tom’s poetry took us all around the world, from the local environs of Leeds all the way to the African jungle with rhinos and hippos to local restaurants in Paris.

The final poet of the evening was Tom Weir, whose poetry was also inspired by personal anecdotes and day-to-day life. Dog Suicide was a saddening, but fascinating poem about Tom’s dog flailing in the water, confused by its need to paddle back to the surface. The Circle Line brought us back to the Capital and meditated on the dark and introspective mind of the daily commuter where we were treated to imaginative lyrics like the ‘train having its own breathe’ and the ‘belly of the gypsy’s accordion on the metro’. I especially enjoyed The Book of British Birds and Vocabulary which brings back memories of learning new and complicated words for the first time, at school. As a teacher, Tom explains how these ‘Tier 3’ words are taught to children in the classroom and it feels apt that we are sitting in the Children’s Book section of the library, where many children, as in Tom’s poem, will discover literature and the fascination of words for the first time. Tom concludes with a few short poems: Tobogganing, We Might As Well Have Been Made of Glass and Visiting Hours. A fun end to a lovely evening of diverse and warming poetry.

LitFest Committee writes: We were really grateful for the support from Leeds University volunteers Natasha Lyons and Francesca Wilson, who helped with all the behind-the-scenes work to make the event successful.  And, of course, huge thanks too to the staff of Headingley Library - Chris Stephenson and Chloe Derrick - who gave their time and efforts to make the library an inviting venue.

Audience Comments
Lovely to read with such considered and accomplished poets. Made to feel welcome.

A wonderful medley of local poems – evocative, witty, deep. The styles of recital were distinctive and satisfying, bearing the stamp of character of each 'rhyme-smith'

Brilliant poems, and a great setting. A fantastic way to celebrate World Book Day.

Really great event – excellent line-up of poets, and a lovely relaxed atmosphere. And thank you for the wine!

Good varied programme - from the way Becky read with emotion and Ian with clarity, Tom K with quiet confidence and Tom W with laid-back humour.

Very enjoyable event with 4 clever poets! Good to see local talent celebrated.

Such acuity, such emotion, such imagination, such condensed language. Thank you!

Much enjoyed all poets' work (much already familiar) notably the differences of sensibility between all four poets. Note the differences between all of them and the voice of the women's work. Fancy there is an assumption that everybody interested in poetry has email - presumably anyone who has not is as good as dead? Forgive the script, I am partially sighted.

Excellent readings from all the men. The female more a performance than poetry. Words are not enough. Artifice and theatre.

A very nice and interesting evening with four very good poets; Becky Cherriman, Ian Harker, Tom Kelly and Tom Weir. I found all the poetry very interesting, particularly Becky's poetry on her own parenthood.

All poets were entertaining – their poems stimulating and easily accessible, and great to have wine at the event as well as opportunity to buy pamphlets. Perhaps a more 'professional' introduction to the event, and to each of the poets, would be in order.

Lovely event. Nice to hear a range of poets with different styles. Also nice to hear poets try 'new poems'. Lovely that it coincided with World Book Day.

Four very good poets, three of whom I know very well anyway. Good location.

Brilliant reading especially by Tom, Ian and Tom

A wonderful opportunity. So many poets for free. Thank you! I particularly enjoyed Becky Cherriman and Ian Harker. Excellent speakers as well as poets.

Four very accomplished poets, enjoyable evening.

I've just arrived in Leeds – am on loan from London to a sister charity here in Leeds. And I thoroughly enjoy my first Headingey LitFest and can't wait to come to more events.

An excellent and diverse programme of contemporary poetry. Well done to the poets!