Tag: Kay Dunbar

Words by the rising Water

Published March 18, 2019

A few years ago, I wrote a blog about the Words by the Water Festival of Words and Ideas. We have continued to visit this lovely festival most years, camping in our little van on the shores of Derwentwater and walking across the hill each day to the Theatre on the Lake, for an enriching series of talks, readings and lectures.

This year, following an unseasonably warm, dry February, the elements decided to greet us in Cumbria with rain, hail, snow and ice, which added a certain interest and spice to our camping.

The first night, as we slept, the lake crept up to meet us, so the next morning we were moved to a slightly higher pitch, where we were safe from inundation but could still enjoy the glorious view.

The following day, snow crept down the mountains to chill us a little, and the dramas of extreme weather continued through the week. After three nights on the campsite, we arrived back late at night to find our little van all alone. All the other camper vans and caravans had been evacuated during the evening because of the imminent risk of flooding, but as we had been watching the film of Oscar Wilde, with our mobile ‘phones turned off, we hadn’t received the message asking us to head for dry land. We drove out and found a quiet spot beside the road on higher ground, where we enjoyed a peaceful night’s sleep. The next day we booked into a b&b for the rest of the week, which was just as well as the campsite had still not re-opened by the time we left. By then, not only was the campsite underwater, but most of the surrounding fields and woodland.

This year’s programme of events at the festival looked as promising as ever, and we had ‘phoned the theatre on the day booking opened, to make sure we could get tickets to all the ones we wanted to attend. Tickets are not cheap, so it is necessary to be a little circumspect when selecting. But between us we covered a fair percentage of the treats on offer.

Rather than going through the programme to report on each event, I’ll mention some of the highlights of the festival, and pull together a few threads from the week.

Two of the best events we attended were on the first weekend.
Mike Berners-Lee gave an informative and balanced talk about climate change based on his new book, ‘There is no Planet B’. The well-researched information in his talk could not fail to shock, but he also found a way to offer at least some hope that all is not yet lost – as long as we all take the threat extremely seriously, and act now to save the planet.

Peter Sanford appeared in the main theatre to give a talk entitled ‘Angelology’. Peter is a gifted lecturer and held us spellbound as he explored the history and mythology of belief in angels. He quoted the surprising statistic that one in ten Britons claims to have experienced the presence of an angel. It would appear that many of these people believe in ‘guardian angels’, rather than in the more general, and more interesting idea of angels being messengers from God.

Among the other exceptionally good events were Diarmaid MacCulloch on Thomas Cromwell, Kenneth Baker on Sins and Sinners, Marcus du Sautoy on Artificial Intelligence and Melissa Benn on Education – all inspiring speakers. MacCulloch gently filled some of the gaping holes in my knowledge of history and Baker had fun with the seven deadly sins, amply illustrated by slides. Du Sautoy gave an informative and lucid presentation of where we are in the development of AI and although I heard some of the audience afterwards complaining that he had scared the life out of them, he was honest about the advantages as well as the dangers of AI. Melissa Benn was lucid, charming, ideological and practical as she proposed a better model of education through a National Education Service built on the same model as the NHS.

Marcus du Sautoy Melissa Benn
As usual, there were some well-known celebrities in the programme, such as Roger McGough and Melvyn Bragg. As one would expect, both of these spoke or read well, though perhaps being extremely celebrated can make it a little more difficult to stun an audience in a new way. There were also some quirky events, such as Christopher Skaife, the Ravenmaster at the Tower of London, talking about the ravens of the Tower (very good), and Irving Finkel, the Assyriologist at the British Museum, giving a rather strange and histrionic introduction to his latest book.

We enjoyed a couple of evening events: first a talk about Oscar Wilde by Michèle Mendelssohn, followed by the film, ‘Wilde’, starring Stephen Fry; and later in the week, a highly entertaining hour with the comedian, Robin Ince.

I chaired the Poetry Breakfast, at which 30 poets enjoyed coffee, croissants and fruit juice and read poems, either their own or from well-known poets. Without prior knowledge of the chosen readings, there is a always a certain risk to chairing an event like this, so it was gratifying that as the last reader finished, the clock showed that we had landed fairly and squarely on our advertised end time.

There was a philosophy day, at which Raymond Tallis and Julian Baggini spoke; an interesting talk about Gypsy Britain by Damian Le Bas; an inspiring story of a walk round the SW coast path, by Raynor Winn; an exploration of labyrinths and mazes by Henry Eliot; and a fascinating talk about Katherine of Aragon and Juana of Castile, by Julia Fox.

At a festival planned many months in advance, there are always likely to be a few changes and cancellations, but we got away fairly lightly this time. I was going to get my husband to report on the events he went to without me, particularly the political ones, but I think I have included enough here to give a good taste of the festival. Unfortunately, we had to leave before the final day, so missed a few events that would have been of interest.

This was the first year in which Kay Dunbar and Steve Bristow were not with us for the whole festival. Between them, this ‘Mr and Mrs Ways with Words’ not only started all three festivals (Dartington and Southwold being the others), but have run them brilliantly ever since their inception. They are now taking a back seat, and have handed on the Directorship to Leah Varnell, who with the rest of the Dartington team, especially Jane Fitzgerald and Philip John, is well-capable of maintaining the high standard of festivals that we have come to expect.

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Ways with Words 2018

Published July 20, 2018

Most of you probably know that I am a huge fan of Ways with Words, the literature and ideas festival that’s held at Dartington Hall in Devon every July. It was started in 1991 by Kay Dunbar and Steve Bristow, who ran it every year until they took a back seat this year, handing it on to their fantastic staff, Leah, Jane and Phil, to keep up the good work

I again enjoyed chairing some of the events. As long as one does the homework properly, ie reads the books and thinks about how to introduce the speakers and ask some pertinent questions, this is great fun. I thought I’d tell you a little about two of the events that I chaired, and the Oversteps Day I organise and chair each year.

Sean Borodale‘s last collection, ‘Bee Journal’, was sheer joy to someone like me who kept bees for many years. His new book, ‘Asylum’, takes a subject that is likely to be more challenging for anyone with an aversion to being underground. The whole audience was also particularly sensitive to the theme of speleology, as we were meeting on the very day that the divers in Thailand were attempting (successfully, we were relieved to hear) to rescue the boys who had been trapped in a flooded cave for nearly a fortnight.

‘Asylum’ is based on the thirty miles of subterranean caves, mines and quarries of the Mendip Hills. Never would I have imagined that the ground below our feet is full of poetry; but having read ‘Asylum’, I can vouch for the fact that it is. Sean’s poetry is muscular, honest and uncompromising — and I recommend it highly.

Mark Oakley is Canon Chancellor at St Paul’s Cathedral, though he will be moving at the end of next month, to take up the post of Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge. He is also a poetry-lover, with a keen ear and discriminating mind. In his recent book, ‘The Splash of Words: Believing in Poetry’, he has selected and presented twenty-nine poems, from all ages and in all forms, in each case then going on to a wide-ranging discussion of the work, his response to it, and his personal and faith journey. It makes riveting reading, and because practically all the poems are ones I have loved for years, reading it was like meeting up with old friends and forming an even deeper acquaintance with them.

The poems Mark chose are certainly not all, in any obvious sense, religious; and some of them would be considered by some people to come into the ‘difficult’ category. But, accompanied by Mark’s wit and wisdom, no one could fail to enjoy and be inspired by this anthology and the essays following the poems. This was borne out by the fact that there was a long queue at the signing tent after the talk; and I reckon that practically everyone who attended the event was moved to go straight to Waterstones to buy Mark’s book and get him to sign it.

Because of the stunning weather all week, it looked as though some of the audience numbers were slightly down this year, probably because of the temptation of sandy beaches and cooling sea not very far away. That was not the case, however, with the Oversteps Day, at which we had larger audiences than ever, and as the room filled up for the first session, we had to go out in search of extra chairs to accommodate everyone.
In the two morning sessions, ‘A Warm Welcome’ and ‘Too Good to Lose’, I introduced the poets whose books had been published by Oversteps this past year, including some who had also published with us before. Included in these morning readings were Paul Surman, Ian Royce Chamberlain, Melanie Brandon, Rebecca Bilkau (pictured reading above), Hilary Elfick, Sue Proffitt and Jane Spiro. Then in the afternoon we had two themed events: ‘Once upon a time’ and ‘Where on earth?’, at which the morning readers were joined by Jennie Osborne, Christopher North, Susan Taylor, Simon Williams and myself.

The audiences were enthusiastic about the day, several claiming that, although the Oversteps Day is always enjoyable and inspiring, this was the best one yet. I am therefore truly grateful to all the poets who read so well, to the audiences for their appreciation and applause, and to the staff at Ways with Words for granting us this wonderful platform each year, on which to share some of the best of contemporary poetry.

Now I’m looking forward to Ways by the Water, the sister festival that takes place in the Lake District in March each year.

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Words by the Water 3

Published March 14, 2014

After the storm on our first night here — with six inches of rain overnight — we’ve been enjoying fantastic weather for the last few days, with nearly all meals now taken outside. Also hugely enjoyable were the two talks by amazingly bright and charismatic speakers on Tuesday: Tom Holland and George Monbiot.

Tom Holland (pictured here with Stephen Bristow) has recently translated the whole of Herodotus, so his talk was entitled Herodotus and the Ancient World. His portrayal of Herodotus, the first historian, as a precursor of Google might have been a little fanciful, but in terms of following threads within the Histories, going off at tangents to investigate and pursue something of current fascination and skimming to find the bits of most interest, there were certainly some parallels.

Herodotus was writing between 440 and 430BC, and he lived in Ionia, in modern-day Turkey. His stories of the Persian Wars were what first attracted Holland to him at the age of 11, and Holland has loved his work ever since. It took him six years to translate the Histories, taking one paragraph every day without fail, regardless of holidays or any other excuses for not writing.

I must admit to being a fan of George Monbiot’s, so was delighted that he was featuring at the festival. From the applause at the end of his talk it was evident that I wasn’t the only one to appreciate his entertaining and informative lecturing style, his wide-ranging interests and his quirky sense of humour.

George was talking about his recent book, Rewilding: the talk began with elephants, proceeded through hedge-laying, upland farming and the ‘shifting baseline syndrome’ and took in a range of megafauna, farming subsidies and reforestation. His main thesis is that we should be returning the country — or at least a good part of it — to forest, and that the (beautiful) bare fells of the Lake District, with their attendant extensive sheep-farming, are bad for the environment. He would also like to re-introduce some to the species of fauna that we’ve lost, such as beavers and pine martens. I hadn’t realised before that the presence of pine martens can actually increase the incidence of red squirrels. Apparently they were introduced into Ireland some time ago, and as they chase squirrels, the greys cannot get away from them while the lighter, more agile, reds are able to find protection at the ends of branches; so the greys are diminishing while the reds are increasing.

Monbiot’s message, which was characterised by hope rather than pessimism, is one of positive environmentalism. There were Lakeland farmers in the audience who were not happy about Monbiot’s approach; but Monbiot is a deep thinker who not only has something of a feral nature himself, but is also blessed with a huge brain, extensive knowledge and a charming manner, so while it is possible to dispute some of his ideas, I think we should all hear and reflect upon what he has to say.

We took the day off on Wednesday, and as the sun was beating down we decided to walk all round lunch at Mary Mount reduced Derwentwater. It’s a distance of a little over nine miles, but there’s a good spot for lunch half-way round where, yet again, we were able to eat outside. The terrain has been improved since the last time we trekked round the lake, so the walking was not difficult, and it was certainly a day for shorts and tee shirts. We were surrounded every minute of the day by so much beauty, both in the countryside through which we passed and also in the individual trees, flowers and lichens that we stopped to admire on the way.

We still had the energy to return to the theatre for the evening where we had a lecture about WikiLeaks by David Leigh, the former Guardian correspondent who co-authored the book about WikiLeaks with Luke Harding. This was followed, after an interval, with the film The Fifth Estate, which was a dramatised portrayal of the phenomenon of WikiLeaks and of its instigator, Julian Asange.

Moving on to Thursday evening, I went to hear Richard Harries, the former Bishop of Oxford, talk on the subject of his latest book, Modern Art: A Friend of Christianity? I’ve lectured many times myself on the subject of religious art, so was interested to to hear what he had to say and to see which works of art he chose to show. One of the attractive features of his presentation was that he allowed us some silence in which to engage with the pictures, instead of talking the whole time. We were treated to a wide range of artists to support Harris’s thesis that modern art is the friend of Christianity rather than its foe.

The final lecture of the day was a tour de force by Simon Thurley, author of The Building of England, who guided us through a history of England through architecture. He describes himself on his website as ‘an historian, archaeologist, curator, writer, broadcaster, museum director and heritage crusade’ and he appears to be an expert in each of these fields. He is now Chief Executive of English Heritage. Instead of tracing the history of architecture through chronology, dynasties or styles, Thurley does it through the people who built and used the buildings: what they built, why they built them, and what the buildings tell us about those people. Rather than an exegesis on columns, then, or the appropriate names given to stylistic changes, we had flying shuttles, steam engines, fire grates, the Black Death, the rise of Britain’s (especially London’s) dominance in the world and population decline and increase — all absolutely fascinating, and delivered with verve and panache.

It is impressive how Kay Dunbar and Stephen Bristow manage to attract such wonderful scholars and speakers to their festivals; and it is a great privilege to be able to sit at their feet to listen and learn.

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