The Mona Lisa and the Pre-Raphaelites; Victorian Body Parts and The mysterious Mr Black and the Rooks; Powerful Queens and Medieval Saints; the Battle of Bosworth and the Tudor Myth; Historical Romance, the Fascinating story of The Huntingfield Paintress, and Gothic Revival at Scott's St Nicholas Newport. All this and the wonderful gothic flash fiction pieces and local history.
We have drunk deep and drunk very well.
High points? They all were.
If you click on the links you will be taken to some great pieces by Young Journalist, Ellen Lavelle.
Some 350 people wrote a gothic story in exactly 50 words; well most of them did. As I said, in some cases literacy was ahead of numeracy. The quality was high in each of the three classes: Primary, Secondary and Adult. As well as hearing the winners of our competition we heard wonderful pieces by the students of First Story. Well done to all concerned, not least the hard working English teachers and First Story's Writer in Residence, Kerry Drewery.
I move quickly to Dianne Setterfield
Dianne spoke very openly about her gothic novels and what gothic means to her. Two short quotes I will keep with me:
"Death is the counterpoint that enables us to take joy in life"
"I've got no time for Scooby Doo and the ghosts that turn out to be the janitor in disguise"
With Dianne, and Romance writers Janice Preston and Jenni Fletcher, my understanding of gothic and romantic fiction and how they relate to each other has advanced leaps and bounds: subtle intermeshed depths.
“Romance would not be so enduringly popular if us writers failed to display the freedom and equality of women today”
I unashamedly relish David Starkey's irreverence, and how great to see teenage boys queueing to take a selfie with him. He dug back into medieval England to find the thin line of legitimacy for the tudor dynasty but then exploded it all as a carefully crafted myth.
“The myth is there from the very beginning, they didn’t just win at Bosworth, they won the ideas”
Kirsty Stonell-Walker's stories of the Pre-Raphaelite women, set alongside Kathryn Hughes entertaining survey of Victorian body parts, helped me to see much more clearly a hugely creative time in our history.
Alison Weir and Sarah Gristwood , strong women talking of strong Queens has to be a winner with comments like:
"I'm an Elizabeth Girl all the way - Take your side, Mary or Bess!
"It could never be said that these queens were mere cyphers"
Janina Ramirez held her audience in the palm of her hand as she unpacked saints and sainthood. On my bookshelf are the six volumes of Butlers Lives of the Saints. Yet I walk the coast of Northumberland and Cornwall and feel beneath my feet the prints of saints who have gone long before. I now see that sainthood digs much deeper than two millennia; our saints go back to our very beginnings.
The penultimate event was a morning on Local history revealing yet again the riches of Lincolnshire.
Topping and tailing the festival week were Martin Kemp's fascinating insights into who the Mona Lisa actually was, and the Fascinating story of The Huntingfield Paintress by Pamela Holmes.
Gilbert Scott's St Nicholas Newport was the perfect place to finish with an afternoon on Gothic Revival.
My history of British Manufacturing
My history of British Manufacturing
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