National Poetry Day is an annual celebration of poetry and all things poetic. Started in 1994 by William Sieghart, it has engaged millions of people across the country with reading, writing and listening to poetry.
This year, National Poetry Day is taking place on Thursday 6th October. The 2016 theme is Messages – think texts, emails, letters, cards, speech; sad messages, hopeful ones, happy messages and even unspoken ones. They could be spooky, paranormal messages or those you hear every day, such as “hello” and “goodbye”.
Say it with a poem – be inspired by this years theme of Messages, and write a poem of your own to express yourself!
Download this year’s FREE poetry eBook – Messages: National Poetry Day 2016 is a free anthology of wonderful Messages poems – old and new. The fourteen poets in this eBook (created by MacMillan Children’s Books with Forward Arts Foundation) are all National Poetry Ambassadors.
Featured poets: Deborah Alma, Liz Brownlee, Paul Cookson, Sally Crabtree, Joseph Coelho, Matt Goodfellow, Sophie Herxheimer, Rachel McCrum, Brian Moses, Michaela Morgan, Joshua Seigal, Roger Stevens and Indigo Williams.
Get involved! Attend one (or more) of the many National Poetry Day events happing all over the UK. There are loads of events happening on and around National Poetry Day, 6th October, including two of our own:
Take advantage of free online resources – There are loads of resources on the National Poety Day website, including advice on how to get your school enjoying poetry, news, and free poems to read and share. Take a look here.
Seren’s own celebrations will kick off with a flash poetry sale – keep an eye on our website (or social media channels) on 6th October to take advantage of our special National Poetry Day book offers!
The original £8m Severn bridge was opened by the Queen on 8 September 1966, heralding a new economic era for South Wales. In celebration, here is an extract from Edging the Estuary by Peter Finch, in which Peter meets the men continuing the traditional method of Lave net fishing on the River Severn, at times directly below the bridge.
About Edging the Estuary: In the Middle Ages the port of Cardiff stretched from Chepstow to Gower. Peter Finch, archetypal Cardiffian, sets out to explore his heritage, walking the Welsh side of the Severn Estuary and reclaiming his personal memories in addition to discovering the lives of others. And with a detour to Maismore, the highest tidal point of the estuary, he walks the English side too, taking in the differences with Wales, reviving past links and looking at his homeland from abroad. On his journey he sees the estuary as border, a highway for trade and ideas, an industrial zone, and a place where people spend their leisure. Rich in anecdote, evocative in description, Finch’s book takes in villages and cities, power stations and fishermen, castles and caravans, leg-aching walks and deckchairs on the beach.
The Lave Fishing Grounds
The novelist and poet Richard Brautigan went trout fishing in America. There the fish were made of a precious and intelligent metal. Trout steel in the snow-filled rivers. Among them he found the dharma or the Buddha, or love or something. I’d never done any of that. I’d never really thought much about fishing anyway other than logging that lots of people did it. Blokes in wool hats sitting on piers, pond sides, river edges waiting and on their faces that distant look. It seemed all about waiting. And I couldn’t be doing with that.
At the end of Black Rock Road, to the east of Sudbrook, is the small park the council has created facing Black Rock. In a corner is the Black Rock Lave Net Heritage Fishery’s hut. Hand built in local stone. A salmon in wrought iron adorns the front. For most of the year the hut is closed and locked but today it’s not. Martin Morgan, a fifty-year-old steelworker from Undy, is in action out front. Spread on the grass he has replicas of the fishtraps that have been used in these waters since medieval times. They’ve now been banned by the Environment Agency in an attempt to conserve fish stocks. “There used to be other methods of fish catching that are gone too,” Martin tells me. “Stock boats, drift nets, tuck nets. Those ways are over.”
The putt, a great ten-foot-long assemblage of bent willow in the shape of an open-mouthed giant cone, is the older method. The example Martin shows me is a replica made from an ancient original pulled from the river muds. These things go back to the eleventh century. The cone would be pegged to the river bed facing an ebb tide and once a salmon had swum in, it couldn’t then get back out.
Also on show are replicas of putchers – smaller five-foot cones made originally of woven hazel or willow but from the 50s onwards of aluminium mesh.These would be assembled in racks known as engines with sometimes a hundred or more in a single array. These would be strung out across the river like radar sets. Salmon was the target but they also caught whitefish and eels and anything else that drifted in.
These were the fixed engines, the fish henges. In the sixteenth century, Rawlins White, the Cardiff martyr, operated something similar at the Rhymney River mouth. The remains of ancient putcher racks have been discovered by estuarial archaeologists in waders, stepping through the glutinous mud between the river’s rapid tides. The largest, containing some fifteen hundred baskets swung out into the waters opposite Goldcliff.
The archaeologist J.R.L. Allen has used aerial photographs of the Estuary to uncover a complex pattern of fish traps dating from Mesolithic times to virtually the present day. His shots show putcher lines running just off the river shores like the claw prints of giant birds. Further out are the remains of rod and wattle fencing, formed into complexes of stone and woodposted weir. Fish dams, intertidal fish pools, fish gullies. Fish capture has gone on in these waters for thousands of years. But it’s all banned now. Regarded as being as bad as fishing with dynamite. All that’s left are the lave fishers. Eight of them. The Environment Agency refuses to issue any more licences.
Lave fishing uses large Y-shaped nets each individually made by the fisherman. The net has willow arms known as rimes hinged onto a stout handle called the rock staff, made of ash. Fishermen wade into an outgoing tide and wait. They can stand for hours with the Severn’s tides falling around them. They call this cowering. Much more exciting is stalking, where the fisherman spots a fish moving over the sandbanks and gives chase.
Caught fish are dispatched with a short wooden baton known as a knocker. Weights are anything from five to seventeen pounds. The record was held by Martin’s great grandfather. He landed a monster that weighed in at fifty-six pounds. There’s a silver-coloured replica back at the hut. The net they also knit themselves. It was once made of hemp. Smacker Williams, in Sudbrook in the 1960s, could knit a single net in a day. That was going some. When he went, the practice died out, but Martin’s fishermen have revived it. They use nylon cord today.
At the Heritage Fishery they are all lave fishermen, although as the season is so short they double up for the rest of the year with rod and line. They used to fish from February right through until October but the Environment Agency have now got them down to a mere three months. 1st June to the 31st August. They’re allowed to catch an absolute total of fifteen fish, five a month, and that’s it. Not much. Martin thinks the Agency would be happiest if it could close the lave fishermen down.
The Agency is at odds with the Heritage authorities who see the Black Rock fishermen as a relic of Wales’ traditional past and something to be encouraged. Martin tells me that last week they had a camera team along from Wedi Saith who brought a Teifi coracle fisherman with them to compare traditions. We’re out on the mud now, walking through the glutinous slime to get into the fishermen’s tiny boat. “You take care,” says Martin. “We’ve had camera crews slip here and go sprawling. They always somehow manage to save their equipment, though.” In my Homebase green wellingtons I take it slow.
The fishing grounds all have names that don’t appear on most maps. Grandstand, The Hole, The Monkey Tump, Lighthouse Vere, The Marl, The Looby and Gruggy. We row west of the Second Severn Crossing to anchor in waters that are moving at around five knots and are at least eight feet deep. “This new bridge was built right across our traditional fishing grounds,” Martin tells me.We watch his brother Richard in the distance striding along the shoreline, net over his shoulder. “It’s made the mudbanks shift and created new ones but we can still fish.”
He and Tim Bevan, a tinplate printer from Sudbrook, are in the water now, chest deep, nets below the surface, that look of concentrated desire mixed with endless patience on their faces. Catching fish is all a matter of getting the wind in the right place and the spring tide flowing. “Are things right today?” I ask. “Could be.” But in the end it turns out they’re not.
During the two-hour window between tide ebb and flow I watch the water drop more than four feet. Fields of rocks emerge around me. Hundreds of boulders running in all directions like this was the Russian Steppes. The brown water slows from a rush to a drifting crawl.You can hear the muted traffic roar on the bridge high above. But the water itself is silent. The boat shifts on its anchor mooring then bumps against rocks below. Martin has walked off hundreds of yards into the distance. His brother, once separated from us by a river depth too great to navigate, now strides across, net over his shoulders, nothing caught where he was either.
Looking west the river runs off into a silver distance that points right out into the Atlantic. You’d think there’d be ship traffic but there is none. Nothing floats by. Just the ripples. “It would have been better if we’d caught something,” says Martin. But half of fishing is the activity itself. Richard Fox and Rob Evans, two other Lave Fisherman in action today have been working the river east of the bridge. “They’ve not been with us that long,” says Martin. “And they’re the only two who haven’t caught their first fish.We’ve two more days left. They’ll be out tonight, 2.00 am, fishing in the dark, just to catch up.”
We’re back on shore now. The fishiest thing we’d seen all day was a tiny mullet about five inches long that Tim had in his net and then threw back. I missed that, too busy taking photos of English coast, power stations, or Sudbrook from the estuary distance, pumping station and the Seven Tunnel Great Spring outfall, still rushing fresh water into the river after all these years.
The EU control that limits catches is contained in Annex 11 of the EC Habitats Directive (council directive 92/43/EEC). It ripples off the tongue. But irrelevant today. Down the pub now, yes.
The Seren summer sale is here for this week only, so curl up in a comfy armchair and have a browse on our website for some book bargains.
We have something for everyone – everything from poetry to novels, short stories, art, history and biography. And with so much choice, we thought you might like a helping hand choosing what to read next. Take a look below for our summer sale suggestions.
Best for… reading on the beach: Foreign Bodies by Candy Neubert £7.99 £3.99 Deep down she had always known that the world was like this. It was incredible to think of all those people in their offices in London still living their grey lives, while here in the Philippines… this. Life bursting out everywhere.
Fresh from the UK, Emma thinks she has fallen in love with a place, a person, and pursues the man of her dreams with a colonial zeal. But for all her poetic sensibilities, she seems unaware of the destruction she is capable of leaving in her wake.
Best for… getting lost in, on a long afternoon: The Roots of Rock by Peter Finch £9.99 £4.99
‘This is a vivid and engaging read that breathes new life into some great old music.’ – The Welsh Agenda
Peter Finch follows the trail of twentieth century popular music from a 1950s valve radio playing in a suburban Cardiff terrace to the reality of the music among the bars of Ireland, the skyscrapers of New York, the plains of Tennessee, the flatlands of Mississippi and the mountains of North Carolina. From Etta James to Bert Jansch, Taylor Swift to Ray Charles, Finch’s world of music is as broad as the last six decades allows.
Best for… poring over on a rainy day: A Boat Called Annaliseby Lynne Hjelmgaard £9.99 £4.99
‘Hjelmgaard brings the specialist knowledge of an experienced sailor to her understanding of the varied rhythms demanded by her poetry. Reading her, I begin to appreciate what a sea-journey feels like.’ – London Grip A Boat Called Annalise is wonderfully evocative of life on a sailboat; the book recalls a journey this much-travelled author took on a sailboat to the Caribbean and back to Europe with her husband. Hjelmgaard’s poems are beautifully poised, full of clear-eyed and frequently humorous observations.
Best for… livening up long journeys: Advantages of the Older Manby Gwyneth Lewis £7.99 £3.99
‘A little gem of a novella with hidden depths. This light-hearted story of a young woman suffering from an unrequited passion explores life, love, death and the fine art of poetry.’ – Pamreader
A light-hearted story exploring the strange case of a Swansea woman who is apparently possessed by the spirit of Dylan Thomas. Naturally all is not as it seems. The woman, who works in the Dylan Thomas Centre, meets a rather different Dylan from the one she knows by repute, one who doesn’t really fit in with the ghosts of other poets in heaven and is desperate to train himself to join the fitter shades of the long distance runners instead. Her own life, which has been lonely and sad, is completely transformed by the encounter.
Best for… broadening your mind: The Dragon and the Crescent by Grahame Davies £12.99 £6.49
‘This is a fully annotated work of scholarship as well as an always readable, sometimes exciting book that opens out a previously neglected aspect of Welsh – and British – culture over more than 400 pages’ – Western Mail
In the early twenty-first century, the relationship between the West and Islam has, due to recent political events, become the subject of intense study, curiosity and tension. But to understand contemporary anxieties, we need to trace their historical roots. The Dragon and the Crescent does this for one small European nation, revealing for the first time, the full and surprising story of the Welsh relationship with Islam.
Best for… curling up with on a dark night: Masqueby Bethany Pope £9.99 £4.99
‘A novel richly layered with both gothic appeal and intellectual depth. In Masque Pope has initiated an important dialogue about the value of art to the human soul, and the psychological masks we wear as we pick our way through life.’ –Wales Arts Review
A richly gothic retelling of Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera . A promising young singer is torn between two loves. One, her patron, is a rich vicomte, who offers her a life of luxury and light. The other, the mysterious Phantom of the Opera, is a dark enigma who offers to help her further her art. One is a man, the other a monster. But truth and life are twisted things. A life of empty privilege can be ugly and monsters can be kind. And art exerts its own demands.
This is not the story you think you know.
We hope you enjoy browsing our summer sale. The half price offer ends at midnight on bank holiday Monday, 29th July, so hurry and fill your library for less before it ends.
The coming months will see the commemoration of one of the most notorious battles in history. The Battle of the Somme, fought between July 1st and November 18th 1916, has left an indelible mark on the history of the twentieth century and, for Britain in particular, it symbolises the horrors of modern warfare.
One hundred and forty one days of horror. The casualties are well documented: the first day alone saw 57,470 British casualties, 19,240 of whom were killed. The second day, with 30,000 British casualties, was not much better. Add to that the French and German losses and you have total losses of dead and injured easily exceeding 1,000,000.
It was inevitable that many British sportsmen would be among the dead. Heart of Midlothian, Scotland’s table topping football team, lost 3 players on the first day while English cricket saw 3 notable all-rounders, Booth, Jeeves and Burns make the ultimate sacrifice. Welsh goalkeeper Leigh Roose, English footballers Evelyn Lintott and Donald Bell VC and England rugby captain Lance Slocock met the same fate. But what of Welsh rugby? What sacrifices were made by this small nation, a nation which was just at the close of its first rugby ‘Golden Era’? The answer is stark. The total number of Welsh rugby internationals to die as a result of the Great War was 13, 14 if one includes ‘Hop’ Maddock who died in December 1921 as a result of illness which had its roots in the battlefields of the Somme. No less than 5 of these unlucky and brave young men met their death on the Somme.
Charles Meyrick Pritchard
The first to appear in Mike Rees’ book, Men Who Played the Game: Sportsmen who gave their life in the Great War, is a true man of Newport, Charles Meyrick Pritchard. Charlie was the son of John Pritchard, a founder member of the Newport Rugby Club and part of a family that ran a wine and spirit business. Following an education at Newport Intermediate School and Long Ashton, Bristol, Charlie joined Newport RFC and by 1904 this twenty two year old, thirteen stone, six foot tall version of the modern backrow forward was in the Welsh team. A year later he was taking his place on the field to decide the unofficial championship of the world. The New Zealand All Blacks arrived in Cardiff unbeaten to be challenged by a strong Welsh team and Charlie was to play a huge part in what many regard as the most important match in rugby history. Wales deservedly won a thrilling, controversial match 3-0 but, although it was Teddy Morgan who scored the try, Charlie was the inspiration. Fellow players had no doubt in telling anybody who was not too excited to listen that Charlie had played a key role, “knocking ‘em down like ninepins” according to George Travers, a fellow hero and club colleague. Others talked of his willingness to be in the thick of the fight, disrupting the hitherto invincible All Blacks with his devastating tackling. Following this victory Charlie’s fame was assured but his career didn’t end there. In 1906 he was made captain of Newport, a position that he held for 3 years. On the international field he won a further 10 caps, (14 in all), a figure that would have been higher but for injury. He played in the championship winning Wales team of 1906 and in the first Grand Slam success in 1908. After missing out on a second Grand Slam in 1909, Charlie played his last game for Wales in 1910.
With the outbreak of war Charlie was quick to enlist. He joined the South Wales Borderers as a temporary Second Lieutenant in May 1915, was promoted to lieutenant at the end of July and was made a captain in the 12th Battalion the following October. Following a period of training, Charlie arrived on the Western Front in June 1916 in time for the Somme offensive and was quickly into the action. He and his men had been forced to take cover in the long grass from their own bombs and struggled to avoid the German searchlights. On the night of 12th/13th August Charlie was instructed to lead a raiding party on the German trenches with a view to taking as many prisoners as possible. He led his men into the trenches showing exceptional bravery in the process and, despite being wounded in the wrist, continued to encourage and lead his men in what was to prove to be a successful raid. He took one of the enemy prisoner but was wounded once again, taken back to the British front line and then to No1 Casualty Clearing Station shortly before dawn on the wet morning of August 13th. Here his concern for the success of the raid and his devotion to duty came to the fore asking, “Have they got the Hun?” “Yes” he was told, “Well I have done my bit,” Charlie replied, the last words that he was known to speak. He died, without ever leaving the Clearing Station, on August 14th 1916.
His commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander, wrote to the family describing Charlie as being “as brave as a lion” and talking about how his death had “cast a gloom” over the whole Battalion. Others spoke of the deep affection in which he was held, the fine example that he set as to what a sportsman should be and his “private tenderness” who was “loved by all who came into contact with him”. Attempts to grant him the Distinguished Order failed, as only living soldiers were eligible, although he was given a Mention in Dispatches. Charlie was buried in Choeques Military Cemetery, one of 86 members of Newport Athletic Club who lost their lives in The Great War and remembered on the Memorial Gates at Rodney Parade. The thirty two year old left in Llwynderi Road, Newport, a grieving widow with two young children and the legacy of a true Welsh rugby hero.
John Lewis Williams
A second significant Welsh rugby player with Newport connections had already died on the Somme. John Lewis Williams is quite properly remembered as a prolific wing for both Cardiff and Wales, the most capped Welsh international to die in the conflict. However Johnnie Williams began his career at Newport in 1899 after leaving Cowbridge Grammar School. Born in Whitchurch in March 1882, Johnnie had an illustrious rugby career. After winning his first cap against the 1906 Springboks he went on to score a record seventeen tries in seventeen internationals, a record that was later equalled by Ken Jones and beaten by both Gerald Davies and Gareth Edwards in 1976. Illustrious company indeed! Noted for his swerve and sidestep, Johnnie was an integral part of three Wales Grand Slam winning teams in 1908, 1909 and 1911, one of the handful of Welsh players to achieve such a feat. Unsurprisingly, Johnnie also toured with the British Isles team which visited Australia and New Zealand in the summer of 1908 where he played in two of the three tests, scoring twelve tries on the trip. While making the long sea journey to the Southern Hemisphere, Johnnie earned himself a supplement to his two shillings a day out of pocket expenses by writing articles for the South Wales Daily News and the South Wales Echo. A well-educated man who earned his living as a principal clerk in a coal exporters based in Cardiff Coal Exchange, Johnnie was given the captaincy of his country for the game against France in Paris in 1911 due to his ability to speak French at the post match dinner. A couple of weeks later he played his seventeenth and final match for Wales in the victory over Ireland. His record was impressive with only two defeats in his Wales international career.
On the outbreak of war Johnnie joined the 16th Battalion of the Royal Welch Regiment and was, by July 1916, in the thick of the action on the Somme, in particular at Mametz Wood, a place synonymous with the Welsh losses in the Great War. The action which took place at Mametz between 7th and 12th July 1916 saw the 16th Royal Welch and the 11th South Wales Borderers suffer the most appalling losses. Johnnie went over the top on 7th July but heavy machine gun fire cut them down. Johnnie was severely wounded and his left leg was amputated. Infection set in and, although he was able to write to his wife Mabel that he was in good spirits, Johnnie died of wounds on 12th July. He was one of 190 officers and 3,803 other ranks who were casualties at Mametz. He had fought in distinguished company – the poets Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and David Jones as well as the writers Frank Richards and Llewellyn Wyn Griffith all fought at Mametz but, unlike Johnnie, they survived to commit their experiences to paper. Johnnie was not so lucky. He left his wife of a mere eighteen months a widow in their Penarth home. His reputation as one of the great Welsh wings, however, remains firmly intact.
Dick Thomas
Alongside Johnnie, another Welsh international rugby player also made the supreme sacrifice. Born in Ferndale in October 1883, Dick Thomas had spent his early years working underground as a collier before joining the police force based in Mountain Ash. Dick, by now playing for Mountain Ash after short spells with Penygraig and Cardiff, had made his debut for Wales in the same game as Johnnie made his international bow. Although on the losing side against South Africa, Dick went on to win three more caps and contributed to victories in each of the 1908 and 1909 Grand Slam seasons. Only illness prevented him from winning more caps and possibly becoming a regular in the Welsh pack of this ‘Golden Era’. Dick was known as a tough uncompromising forward, who was also a Glamorgan Police heavyweight boxing champion. Never one to shirk a challenge, he went over the top on 7th July. His body was never found and he is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial, one of the 72,195 names on that ‘memorial to the missing’.
David ‘Dai’ Watts
Dick Thomas is not the only Welsh international named on the Thiepval Memorial. One week after Dick was lost and just three days after Johnnie Williams succumbed to his wounds, Dai Watts, a tough forward born in Maesteg in March 1886, was killed in action at Bazentin Ridge on 14th July. After a career spent playing for smaller valley clubs, Dai joined his hometown club, Maesteg where he became the first player from this club to be capped. Following impressive games for the Glamorgan League and then Glamorgan County, Dai was picked for the first international of 1914 against England. Wales lost this game 10-9, a match they should have won due to the supremacy of their forwards. England went on to win the Grand Slam under the captaincy of Ronnie Poulton, the glamorous young England centre who was killed in 1915, while the Welsh pack remained unchanged for their three subsequent victories and cement their reputation as ‘The Terrible Eight’. A long rugby career at international level appeared to be Dai’s destiny.
It was not to be. In the autumn of 1914 Dai joined the 7th (Service) Battalion, The King’s (Shropshire Light Infantry). In July 1916 they were involved in the Battle of Bazentin Bridge. At 3.25am on 14th July the KSLI were ordered to attack. Confronted by uncut wire they became easy targets and Dai was one of the 171 who lost their lives in this attack. There are no records of how this toughest of forwards met his end, only that his body was never recovered and that he left a widow and two children.
The third and final Welsh international named on the Thiepval Memorial is a player of a very different type to the tough, uncompromising miners, the forwards Dick Thomas and Dai Watts. Horace Wyndham Thomas was an outside half educated at Monmouth School and Cambridge University where he was a choral scholar. Born in Pentyrch near Cardiff in 1890, he originally attended Bridgend Grammar School before winning a scholarship at Monmouth. Both at Monmouth and Cambridge Wyndham excelled in a range of sports. Injury and choral duties prevented him gaining his ‘Blue’ but he finally achieved this in 1912 when he played his part in a Cambridge victory. Four days later this brilliant and elusive outside half made his debut for Wales in the match against the Springboks, a game which he nearly won for Wales with a late drop goal attempt which sailed narrowly wide. Many who saw this effort were adamant that the ball had actually gone through the posts and that Wales were ‘robbed’. He kept his place for the game against England a few weeks later but, although he played in this match, Wyndham had been offered a job with a firm of shipping agents in Calcutta. Immediately after the game Wyndham sailed to India to fulfil a five year contract, a huge loss to Welsh rugby. It was expected that Wyndham would be the Welsh outside half for years to come.
When war broke out Wyndham resigned his job and headed home to join the 14th (Reserve) Rifle Brigade. In August he was to be found on the Somme and on 3rd September he was attempting to capture trenches above the Ancre. The assault resulted in over 400 casualties, one of whom was Second Lieutenant Horace Wyndham Thomas. His body was never found and his name joined those fellow players on the Thiepval Memorial. Of all the Welsh internationals killed in the Great War perhaps Wyndham Thomas was the player whose potential was greatest and unfulfilled. Lost to rugby far too soon, Wyndham, with all his brilliance and talent, perfectly represents the sacrifices made by that generation of rugby players one hundred years ago.
The stories of these players, (with the exception of Dai Watts), are included in Men Who Played the Game. Mike Rees has included the contributions of sportsmen in The Great War from all corners of Britain and the wider Empire but, during this summer of 2016, none of the stories have greater significance than those of the Welsh rugby heroes on the Somme. It is fitting that we now remember their sacrifice made a century ago.
Join us for a night of gothic romance as Bethany W. Pope reads from Masque, her rich and psychological re-telling of Gaston Leroux’s classic, The Phantom of the Opera.
The event is at the new Octavo’s Book Cafe & Wine Bar in Cardif Bay, Wednesday 22 June, 5:00-7:00pm, and is free for all to attend.
Bring your friends, have a glass of something decadent, and listen to the story unfold.
About Masque: Masque is a richly gothic retelling of Gaston Leroux’s phantom of the opera story by debut novelist Bethany W Pope. Centre stage is promising young singer Christine, who, despite being devoted to her art, attracts the attention of both the Phantom (Erik), and rich Parisian theatre owner Raoul.
The intensely ambitious Christine finds herself caught between the twin evils of the Phantom’s murderous pursuit of artistic perfection and Raoul’s ‘romantic’ vision of her as a bourgeois wife. Her own desire to follow her operatic career becomes her guiding light, but none of the three leading characters can control the directions in which their passions lead them, while the beautiful masked skull of the opera house itself looms large over their respective fates. The resulting mix of love, rage, art and murderous intent, is explosive.
Love, lust, adventure, romance, and the monstrous nature of unfulfilled creativity await you here.
Everyone wears a mask. Look beneath it, if you dare.
Set aside thirty minutes to watch author Richard Collins’ honest, moving and sometimes humorous video about his experience of suffering from Parkinson’s disease. About the video, he says: ‘I hope that it will give people a better understanding of this entertaining illness.’
Collins’ diagnosis in 2006 led to some years of extensive travelling, in the Himalayas, the Andes, the Middle East and North Africa, which he recorded in The Road to Zagora (Seren, 2015), a wonderful combination of travel and memoir. But a decade later Richard’s situation has worsened and he has moved from writing to making this video in which horizons have closed in and he has become more reliant on himself, and others. This is a revealing glimpse into a world we seldom see in person. You’ll learn about Mr Parkinson (as Collins calls his condition), about Richard’s enduring left-fielded take on life and, quite possibly, a little about yourself.
It’s Euro 2016 and Wales is in the finals! Historian Mike Rees looks back into Wales’ sporting history to remember goalkeeping legend Leigh Roose, who found glory on the football field and died a hundred years ago, at the Somme.
Mike Rees’ book Men who Played the Gamelooks at the development and importance of sport in Britain and the Empire leading up to the outbreak of the First World War, and the part played by sportsmen in the conflict.
On the eve of Wales’s participation in the finals of a major international football tournament for the first time since 1958, it is likely many of you may be reflecting on past glories achieved by Welshmen on the football field.
You might well consider the achievements of Wales first ‘football superstar’ Billy Meredith, talisman of both Manchester City and Manchester United in the early years of the twentieth century or the ‘Gentle Giant’ that was John Charles, revered from Swansea to Turin where he won multiple league championships and cups as the focal point of a brilliant Juventus team. More likely, you’ll consider the incomparable Ryan Giggs, with his sack full of medals, or the striking prowess of Ian Rush or Mark Hughes. But as Gareth Bale, the latest Welsh superstar, graces the football stadiums of France this summer how many will remember Leigh Roose, the first renowned Wales goalkeeper and predecessor of Jack Kelsey in 1958 or Neville Southall in the 1980’s and ‘90’s? As we move towards the centenary of Roose’s demise on the battlefields of the Somme, perhaps it is time to ensure that a new generation is made aware of the exploits of this remarkable Welshman.
The process of remembering Leigh Roose has already begun. Pupils from Wrexham are creating a collage with a particular focus on his part in the first international match to be caught on film, the game between Wales and Ireland at the Racecourse, Wrexham on 2nd April 1906. This will be displayed in Eagles Meadow shopping centre, Wrexham and bring his name to many for the first time – recognition that is long overdue.
Leigh Richmond Roose was born at Holt, near Wrexham on 26th November 1877, the son of a Presbyterian minister, the fourth of five boys. Despite losing his mother to cancer at the age of four, he had a comfortable middle class upbringing which led to him gaining a degree in Bacteriology from UCW Aberystwyth in 1899. Leigh enjoyed his time at ‘Aber’, particularly his experience of playing for the town football team in his favourite position, that of goalkeeper. So successful was he that in February 1900 he was chosen to play for Wales in the match against Ireland, the first of his 24 caps. A host of professional clubs sought his signature but by now Leigh was working in King’s College, London, fully intending to pursue a medical career. In the summer of 1901, however, he relented and signed for Stoke.
It was not long before this six foot, thirteen stone athlete made his mark. He became known for his reckless bravery, total dominance of his penalty area, his startling reflexes and resulting shot-stopping. Playing often as a modern day sweeper, Leigh left the confines of his area to start attacks, carrying the ball to the half way line, as he was permitted to do. So effective was this tactic that in 1912 the laws were changed in order to prevent goalkeepers handling the ball outside the penalty area. Leigh was also prepared to impose himself in other ways. It was not uncommon for him to be involved in the occasional scuffle or dispute with authority, sometimes over his travel expenses, on other occasions, disputes with the opposition. Leigh was also an entertainer – his gymnastic ability used to swing from the crossbar when things were quiet at his end of the pitch. Crowds loved him, even more so when Wales won their first Home International championship in 1907. Although top league and cup medals eluded him, Leigh was always challenging for honours at Everton from 1904 and later at Sunderland. He became one of the country’s best known footballers whose lifestyle as an eligible young man in Savile Row suits predates David Beckham by ninety years. His affair with the ‘Queen of the Music Hall’, Marie Lloyd would delight the tabloids of the 21st century. However nothing lasts for ever and, following a spell as player coach at Arsenal, Leigh retired to his medical commitments and the after dinner circuit in 1912.
When war broke out Leigh joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and was quickly despatched to the Dardanelles where he served in Gallipoli. Here he worked in hospitals treating hundreds of serviceman injured in that futile encounter. However Leigh wanted to see the action for himself and, following his return to London, he joined the 9th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers. His wish for action was soon granted. Leigh was awarded the Military Medal after he had taken part in the capture of Ration Trench near Dainville and the subsequent resistance to the German counter-attack. In October 1916 Leigh was once again in action. The 9th Royal Fusiliers advanced on the Albert-Bapaume Road and this led to the capture of Le Sars but the cost was disastrous. Three hundred and thirty two officers and private soldiers were killed or injured in the action. Leigh was seen running across No Man’s Land firing his gun with no concern for his own safety. He was last seen lying in a crater, probably already dead. Leigh’s body was never discovered and he is remembered, his name engraved and incorrectly spelt, on the Thiepval Memorial to the missing. Thirty eight year old Leigh is one of the 72,000 names remembered on that most impressive of memorials.
Leigh’s death was keenly felt by all who knew him. Mike Rees, in his recent book Men Who Played the Game, quotes the Athletic Times which described him as “dexterous though daring, valiant though volatile”. But Rees also concludes that this is only part of the story and that Leigh Roose, along with Billy Meredith, did more to put Welsh football on the map than any other player. That, coupled with his ability to entertain thousands of spectators, demands that he be remembered as a sportsman of real significance, one who died as bravely as he played. During this summer of exciting Welsh football, a century after Leigh made the ultimate sacrifice, he deserves to be remembered.
Happy International Dylan Thomas Day! This year is the second annual celebration of Dylan Thomas, held on 14th May to mark the date Under Milk Wood was first read on stage at 92Y The Poetry Center, New York in 1953.
We have a number of Dylan Thomas related books in our store, and for today only, these titles are 50% off:
Dylan Remembered: Volume One: 1914-1934, ed. David N. Thomas Paperback: £12.95
£6.48
Hardback: £25.00
£12.50
This is the first of two volumes of transcribed interviews about the poet Dylan Thomas. Journalist, broadcaster, and author Colin Edwards interviewed numerous sources close to Thomas for a planned biography of the poet, but he was unable to begin work before his early death. The transcribed tapes have been edited into two collections, with the second due in 2004. Startling new information about Thomas’s life and writing is disclosed, including influences on his writing and the sources from which he drew inspiration and storylines.
Dylan Remembered: VolumeTwo: 1914-1934, ed. David N. Thomas Paperback: £12.95
£6.48
Hardback: £25.00
£12.50
This second volume culled from the Colin Edwards Archive of interviews with Dylan Thomas’ family, friends and colleagues made during the 1960s covers Thomas’ ‘adult’ life from his move, aged 20, to London to become a professional writer to his death in New York 51 years ago. It is a story which we think we know, but the archive sheds new – often contradictory – light on a life which has been much mythologised.
Fatal Neglect: Who Killed Dylan Thomas, David N. Thomas £9.99
£5.00
Who and what killed Dylan Thomas? The death of this iconic writer, in New York in November 1953, remains shrouded in mystery fifty-five years later. What might have been a triumphant new departure in his career and life with the first production of Under Milk Wood, and plans to work on operas with Igor Stravinsky and Samuel Barber turned instead into a requiem for man whose life spiralled out of control.
Leading Dylan Thomas authority David N. Thomas draws on his extensive research, and uncovers startling new evidence, to produce the definitive answers in a superbly written account which balances historical context with forensic detail, Thomas’ character with the demands made upon him by friends, lovers and his reading public.. His verdict is a chilling study of a poet, a place and a death.
Advantages of the Older Man, Gwyneth Lewis £7.99
£4.00
A light-hearted novella exploring the strange case of a Swansea woman who is apparently possessed by the spirit of Dylan Thomas. Naturally all is not as it seems. The woman, who works in the Dylan Thomas Centre, meets a rather different Dylan from the one she knows by repute, one who doesn’t really fit in with the ghosts of other poets in heaven and is desperate to train himself to join the fitter shades of the long distance runners instead. Her own life, which has been lonely and sad, is completely transformed by the encounter.
Fluent and entertaining, the story is written with all the confidence and panache you would expect from the former national poet, also a playwright and award-winning author of fiction and non-fiction. Alongside the humour there is a warmth and pathos, and some pithy observations on poets and poetry and the nature of fame.
This offer ends midnight, 14th May, so take advantage before the time runs out!
“After a sell-out course in 2016 in St Ives, I’m really pleased to announce that I’ll be co-tutoring another residential poetry course at Treloyhan Manor Hotel in St Ives, from the 20th-26th February 2017. I’m very excited to announce that my co-tutor this year will be the fabulous poet David Tait.…”
Find out more about the St Ives poetry course on Kim Moore’s blog.
The Cross Sports Book Awards today announced their shortlists, and Anne Lauppe-Dunbar’s powerful debut novel Dark Mermaids is on the shortlist for the New Writer of the Year category.
The Cross Sports Book Awards is a major annual promotion for Sports Writing & Publishing; the awards exist to highlight the most outstanding sports books of the previous calendar year.
Dark Mermaids is a shocking story of the horrors of a political system that doped its youngsters to sporting superhero status, and then left them to fend for themselves. Shortlisted for the Impress and Cinnamon First Novel Prize, this East German noir thriller is set in 1990, a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Unhappy West Berlin police officer Sophia is called on to investigate the murder of her childhood friend Kathe; after her beaten body is discovered in Sophia’s local park. Sophia is forced to return to the hometown she fled as a teenager with her enigmatic father Petrus, and Mia – a frightened child who turned up on her doorstep. She must investigate Kathe’s murder and care for a mother she believed abandoned her.
As she reluctantly delves into the sordid Stasi secrets of those she grew up with, Sophie uncovers a web of horrors about her own abusive past as a child-swimming star in the former GDR. But her hunt for the truth has not gone unnoticed by those close to her, people who still have too much to hide.
Download this year’s FREE poetry eBook – Messages: National Poetry Day 2016 is a free anthology of wonderful Messages poems – old and new. The fourteen poets in this eBook (created by MacMillan Children’s Books with Forward Arts Foundation) are all National Poetry Ambassadors.
