Thursday 30 APRIL 6:00 pm
Human Rights in the Covid-19 Climate. Panel discussion with Professor of Law TAWIA BAIDOE ANSAH, Afghan charity director RAHELA SIDDIQI, film director LISA CLIFFORD and modern slavery and trafficking lawyer AHMED AYDEED. Moderated by SAMANTHA KNIGHTS QC.
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMjpRsN6Xk8&t=15s
This discussion will bring together different perspectives on the current Covid-19 crisis from experts in their field - law, journalism, education and the charity sector. It will look at the impact on human rights in a variety of areas including free movement, access to healthcare, education, privacy, access to food, criminal justice, prisons, refugees and victims of modern slavery and trafficking. It will also explore the situation from different parts of the globe including the US, UK and Afghanistan. The panellists will give short introductions and will then respond to questions from the moderator and from the audience.
Human Rights in the Covid-19 Climate. Panel discussion with Professor of Law TAWIA BAIDOE ANSAH, Afghan charity director RAHELA SIDDIQI, film director LISA CLIFFORD and modern slavery and trafficking lawyer AHMED AYDEED. Moderated by SAMANTHA KNIGHTS QC.
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMjpRsN6Xk8&t=15s
This discussion will bring together different perspectives on the current Covid-19 crisis from experts in their field - law, journalism, education and the charity sector. It will look at the impact on human rights in a variety of areas including free movement, access to healthcare, education, privacy, access to food, criminal justice, prisons, refugees and victims of modern slavery and trafficking. It will also explore the situation from different parts of the globe including the US, UK and Afghanistan. The panellists will give short introductions and will then respond to questions from the moderator and from the audience.
Friday 22 May at 6:00 pm via zoom
Sophy Roberts on The Lost Pianos of Siberia
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtMeZ-aA2tc
Sophy is a British writer whose work focuses on the wild places from Papua New Guinea to the Congo. She began her career assisting the writer Jessica Mitford, and trained in journalism at Columbia University in New York. She regularly contributes to the Financial Times and the US edition of Condé Nast Traveler, among others. The Lost Pianos of Siberia, which Sophy will be discussing, is her first book. In the summer of 2015 Sophy was sitting in a tent in Mongolia talking to a musician who expressed deep sadness at not having a piano. This prompted Sophy's quest and a tale of months of travel across the remotest parts of Siberia in search of an historic piano meeting individuals - musical and otherwise. Her newly published book has already received great acclaim with rave reviews including in The Times.
Sophy Roberts on The Lost Pianos of Siberia
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtMeZ-aA2tc
Sophy is a British writer whose work focuses on the wild places from Papua New Guinea to the Congo. She began her career assisting the writer Jessica Mitford, and trained in journalism at Columbia University in New York. She regularly contributes to the Financial Times and the US edition of Condé Nast Traveler, among others. The Lost Pianos of Siberia, which Sophy will be discussing, is her first book. In the summer of 2015 Sophy was sitting in a tent in Mongolia talking to a musician who expressed deep sadness at not having a piano. This prompted Sophy's quest and a tale of months of travel across the remotest parts of Siberia in search of an historic piano meeting individuals - musical and otherwise. Her newly published book has already received great acclaim with rave reviews including in The Times.
Thursday 11 June at 6:00 pm via zoom
James Crowden on The Frozen River - Seeking Silence in the Himalaya
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TueMmpt2slQ
James is an author and poet living in Somerset. In 1976-77 James gave up what might have been a promising career in the army, and he spent a winter on the northern side of the Himalaya, in the remote Zangskar Valley in Ladakh. This is the story which he tells in The Frozen River, his newly published book written over forty years later. There will be slides of the Zangskar valley in winter plumage and the story of the chadar, the rather dangerous trade route where the Tibetan Buddhist Zangskaris carry butter down a frozen river in the depths of winter. Temperatures hover around –30C and winter lasts for 6-7 months. Since his stay there he has returned to the valley several times. With the effects of global warming and glacier retreat, their precious way of life is changing fast. Avalanches and wolves were only a few of the problems encountered...The Frozen River has had stunning reviews in The Spectator, Western Morning News among others.
James Crowden on The Frozen River - Seeking Silence in the Himalaya
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TueMmpt2slQ
James is an author and poet living in Somerset. In 1976-77 James gave up what might have been a promising career in the army, and he spent a winter on the northern side of the Himalaya, in the remote Zangskar Valley in Ladakh. This is the story which he tells in The Frozen River, his newly published book written over forty years later. There will be slides of the Zangskar valley in winter plumage and the story of the chadar, the rather dangerous trade route where the Tibetan Buddhist Zangskaris carry butter down a frozen river in the depths of winter. Temperatures hover around –30C and winter lasts for 6-7 months. Since his stay there he has returned to the valley several times. With the effects of global warming and glacier retreat, their precious way of life is changing fast. Avalanches and wolves were only a few of the problems encountered...The Frozen River has had stunning reviews in The Spectator, Western Morning News among others.
Thursday 25 June at 6:00 pm via zoom
Christina Lamb on Our Bodies, Their Battlefield
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fdtB7u0Km4&t=8s
Christina is Chief Foreign Correspondent at The Sunday Times and one of Britain’s leading foreign journalists. She has been awarded Foreign Correspondent of the Year five times as well as Europe’s top war reporting prize, the Prix Bayeux. She is the best-selling author of Farewell Kabul, The Africa House, Waiting For Allah, The Sewing Circles of Herat and House of Stone. She also co-wrote the international bestseller I am Malala with Malala Yousafzai and The Girl from Aleppo with Nujeen Mustafa. She is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, an honorary fellow of University College, Oxford and was awarded an OBE by the Queen in 2013. Christina will be discussing her latest book, Our Bodies Their Battlefield - What War Does to Women, the first major account to address the scale of sexual assault in modern conflict, which exposes the unheard stories of women in war zones with unfailing care and humanity.
Christina Lamb on Our Bodies, Their Battlefield
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fdtB7u0Km4&t=8s
Christina is Chief Foreign Correspondent at The Sunday Times and one of Britain’s leading foreign journalists. She has been awarded Foreign Correspondent of the Year five times as well as Europe’s top war reporting prize, the Prix Bayeux. She is the best-selling author of Farewell Kabul, The Africa House, Waiting For Allah, The Sewing Circles of Herat and House of Stone. She also co-wrote the international bestseller I am Malala with Malala Yousafzai and The Girl from Aleppo with Nujeen Mustafa. She is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, an honorary fellow of University College, Oxford and was awarded an OBE by the Queen in 2013. Christina will be discussing her latest book, Our Bodies Their Battlefield - What War Does to Women, the first major account to address the scale of sexual assault in modern conflict, which exposes the unheard stories of women in war zones with unfailing care and humanity.
Thursday 9 July at 6:00 pm via zoom
Robert Twigger on Walking the Great North Line
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COuu3KOk1W4
Robert has written mostly about adventurous travel sometimes disguised as memoir, fiction or self-help. He has published award-winning and acclaimed titles on a variety of topics from modern masculinity, micromastery, studying aikido in Japan, to taking a polymathic look at the river Nile. He also writes poetry and won a rare and distinguished prize called the Newdigate for a poem judged by Peter Levi. His published books include Micromastery, Angry White Pajamas, The Extinction Club, Big Snake, Lost Oasis and Voyageur. He practises martial arts although adventurous expeditions are his favourite thing. He also loves taking street photographs, looking at fires, unplanned picnics, reading poetry aloud, driving down steep hills with the engine switched off and other small and unpretentious adventures...Robert will be discussing his new book, Walking the Great North Line.
Robert Twigger on Walking the Great North Line
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COuu3KOk1W4
Robert has written mostly about adventurous travel sometimes disguised as memoir, fiction or self-help. He has published award-winning and acclaimed titles on a variety of topics from modern masculinity, micromastery, studying aikido in Japan, to taking a polymathic look at the river Nile. He also writes poetry and won a rare and distinguished prize called the Newdigate for a poem judged by Peter Levi. His published books include Micromastery, Angry White Pajamas, The Extinction Club, Big Snake, Lost Oasis and Voyageur. He practises martial arts although adventurous expeditions are his favourite thing. He also loves taking street photographs, looking at fires, unplanned picnics, reading poetry aloud, driving down steep hills with the engine switched off and other small and unpretentious adventures...Robert will be discussing his new book, Walking the Great North Line.
- Thursday 30 July at 6:00 pm via crowdcast
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7uFh3EHTG0&t=5s
Peter is the author of Oak and Ash and Thorn, a Guardian Best Nature Book of the Year. As publisher for Time Out, he produced city guides, as well as books about Britain’s countryside and seaside. He lives in South London. Peter will be discussing his latest book, Footnotes: A Journey Round Britain in the Company of Great Writers. In this highly acclaimed book Peter follows in the footsteps on twelve inspirational writers tracing paths recorded in their books and journals, looking for the country they once knew. His fellow travellers include Enid Blyton, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, JB Priestly and many more. Blending travel writing, history and biography, wide-ranging in its subject matter and deeply personal, Footnotes is a fascinating quest to discover Britain anew. Footnotes has amazing reviews including in The Observer and Financial Times.
Thursday 10 September at 6:00 pm via crowdcast
Martin Hesp on Tales from the Lockdown: Six Stories of Rural Life Written During Coronavirus
Registration: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/martinhesp
Martin has worked as a journalist for over 40 years and until last year was editor-at-large of the Western Morning News, the main daily paper in the South West. He now works as a free lance editorial consultant and writes novels in his spare time. His new book was written as the pandemic spread around the world. In the stories Martin attempts to paint a picture of rural life during the spring and early summer of this remarkable year. The six tales follow ordinary individuals as they attempt to cope with the sudden lockdown and isolation in the English countryside. The characters include a well known TV reporter who ends up living in a yurt, a lonely forester who sets out to walk 100 miles to visit his mother, a married woman who suddenly discovers her illicit affair must be put on hold, and more. They are tales of small town rural life told by one of the West Country's best loved journalists.
Martin Hesp on Tales from the Lockdown: Six Stories of Rural Life Written During Coronavirus
Registration: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/martinhesp
Martin has worked as a journalist for over 40 years and until last year was editor-at-large of the Western Morning News, the main daily paper in the South West. He now works as a free lance editorial consultant and writes novels in his spare time. His new book was written as the pandemic spread around the world. In the stories Martin attempts to paint a picture of rural life during the spring and early summer of this remarkable year. The six tales follow ordinary individuals as they attempt to cope with the sudden lockdown and isolation in the English countryside. The characters include a well known TV reporter who ends up living in a yurt, a lonely forester who sets out to walk 100 miles to visit his mother, a married woman who suddenly discovers her illicit affair must be put on hold, and more. They are tales of small town rural life told by one of the West Country's best loved journalists.
Friday 18 September at 6-7:15 pm (Singalong & Concert) via crowdcast
Polina Shepherd: Songs of the Steppes and the Shtetl
Registration: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/polina
Born in Siberia, Polina started her musical training as a child around her Russian Jewish family table where songs were frequently sung after eating borscht and drinking homemade wine. Polina joined Russia's first klezmer band in 60 years and soon became the principal Yiddish choir leader of the former Soviet Union. Whilst living in Russia and studying at the State Academy, Polina toured the dark Soviet theatres, performed to Boris Yeltsin and to the World in 1998-2002. Now living in Britain since 2003 she continues to travel the world performing solo, as a duo with Merlin Shepherd and with many others. With over 20 years of professional experience, Polina now leads several choirs and also works as an educator teaching vocal workshops internationally. Come and learn some songs with Polina in the singalong (no previous experience or Russian or Yiddish language required), stretch your vocal muscles and then listen to her perform.
Polina Shepherd: Songs of the Steppes and the Shtetl
Registration: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/polina
Born in Siberia, Polina started her musical training as a child around her Russian Jewish family table where songs were frequently sung after eating borscht and drinking homemade wine. Polina joined Russia's first klezmer band in 60 years and soon became the principal Yiddish choir leader of the former Soviet Union. Whilst living in Russia and studying at the State Academy, Polina toured the dark Soviet theatres, performed to Boris Yeltsin and to the World in 1998-2002. Now living in Britain since 2003 she continues to travel the world performing solo, as a duo with Merlin Shepherd and with many others. With over 20 years of professional experience, Polina now leads several choirs and also works as an educator teaching vocal workshops internationally. Come and learn some songs with Polina in the singalong (no previous experience or Russian or Yiddish language required), stretch your vocal muscles and then listen to her perform.
Thursday 24 September at 6:00 pm via crowdcast
Susan Owens on Spirit of Place: Artists, Writers, and the British Landscape
Registration: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/susanowens
Susan is a writer and curator. She studied English at Somerville College, Oxford and art history at the Courtauld Institute and University College London, and pursued a career as a museum curator, becoming Curator of Paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2007. Now freelance, she lives in a medieval house in rural Suffolk. Her books include Amazing Rare Things: the Art of Natural History in the Age of Discovery (co-authored with David Attenborough), The Ghost: A Cultural History (inspired by stories about her house) and Christina Rossetti: Poetry in Art (co-authored with Nicholas Tromans). Susan will be talking about her new book, Spirit of Place: Artists, Writers and the British Landscape, which looks at how people over the centuries have observed and imagined the natural world, and how they have expressed it in legends, maps, tapestries, poems and paintings.
Susan Owens on Spirit of Place: Artists, Writers, and the British Landscape
Registration: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/susanowens
Susan is a writer and curator. She studied English at Somerville College, Oxford and art history at the Courtauld Institute and University College London, and pursued a career as a museum curator, becoming Curator of Paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2007. Now freelance, she lives in a medieval house in rural Suffolk. Her books include Amazing Rare Things: the Art of Natural History in the Age of Discovery (co-authored with David Attenborough), The Ghost: A Cultural History (inspired by stories about her house) and Christina Rossetti: Poetry in Art (co-authored with Nicholas Tromans). Susan will be talking about her new book, Spirit of Place: Artists, Writers and the British Landscape, which looks at how people over the centuries have observed and imagined the natural world, and how they have expressed it in legends, maps, tapestries, poems and paintings.
Thursday 8 October at 6:00 pm via crowdcast (link to be published)
Luke Harding on Shadow State: Murder, Mayhem and Russia's Remaking of the West
Luke is a Guardian foreign correspondent and between 2007 and 2011 was the paper's Moscow bureau chief. The Kremlin expelled him from the country in the first case of its kind since the Cold War. Luke is the author of a number of books including Collusion, A Very Expensive Poison, The Snowden Files and Mafia State. His new book sheds light on the spies deployed by the Russia and the way the state has used them to wage an increasingly bold war in the UK and beyond. Based on years of investigation, Luke reveals how Russian operatives helped to sway the 2016 US presidential elections in favour of Trump and backed the campaign which resulted in Brexit - and how they lied, deceived and murdered to do so. The future of Western democracy is at stake.
Luke Harding on Shadow State: Murder, Mayhem and Russia's Remaking of the West
Luke is a Guardian foreign correspondent and between 2007 and 2011 was the paper's Moscow bureau chief. The Kremlin expelled him from the country in the first case of its kind since the Cold War. Luke is the author of a number of books including Collusion, A Very Expensive Poison, The Snowden Files and Mafia State. His new book sheds light on the spies deployed by the Russia and the way the state has used them to wage an increasingly bold war in the UK and beyond. Based on years of investigation, Luke reveals how Russian operatives helped to sway the 2016 US presidential elections in favour of Trump and backed the campaign which resulted in Brexit - and how they lied, deceived and murdered to do so. The future of Western democracy is at stake.
Thursday 15 October at 6:00 pm via crowdcast (link to be published)
The Future of British Farming. Panel discussion with MARY QUICKE of Quicke's Cheeses, FRANCIS (HERBI) DRAKE, organic farmer and former Standards Director Soil Association, and
ANTHONY GIBSON, writer and former South West Regional Director NFU. Moderated by JAMES CROWDEN.
This event will bring together different perspectives about the opportunities and challenges to sustainable, organic and non-organic farming posed by the current climate including the pandemic, Brexit, and proposals for new legislation. It will explore how farming has been affected in the recent past and how the future of food production in the UK could and should look. James Crowden, who farmed, sheep sheared and made cider for decades before turning full time to poetry and writing will lead the discussion.
The Future of British Farming. Panel discussion with MARY QUICKE of Quicke's Cheeses, FRANCIS (HERBI) DRAKE, organic farmer and former Standards Director Soil Association, and
ANTHONY GIBSON, writer and former South West Regional Director NFU. Moderated by JAMES CROWDEN.
This event will bring together different perspectives about the opportunities and challenges to sustainable, organic and non-organic farming posed by the current climate including the pandemic, Brexit, and proposals for new legislation. It will explore how farming has been affected in the recent past and how the future of food production in the UK could and should look. James Crowden, who farmed, sheep sheared and made cider for decades before turning full time to poetry and writing will lead the discussion.
Friday 23 October at 7:30 pm via crowdcast (link to be published)
Tracy Chevalier on A Single Thread
Born in Washington DC and a long-time Londoner, Tracy is the author of ten novels, and is best known for the international bestseller Girl with a Pearl Earring. Tracy has loved cathedrals all her life and her latest novel, A Single Thread, which she will be discussing at the festival, chronicles the blossoming of a 'surplus woman' in the 1930s who builds a new life amongst the embroiderers and bellringers at Winchester Cathedral, while society is still recovering from one war and moving irrevocably towards another. A Single Thread is newly published in paperback and has had rave reviews including in The Guardian, The Times and many others.
Tracy Chevalier on A Single Thread
Born in Washington DC and a long-time Londoner, Tracy is the author of ten novels, and is best known for the international bestseller Girl with a Pearl Earring. Tracy has loved cathedrals all her life and her latest novel, A Single Thread, which she will be discussing at the festival, chronicles the blossoming of a 'surplus woman' in the 1930s who builds a new life amongst the embroiderers and bellringers at Winchester Cathedral, while society is still recovering from one war and moving irrevocably towards another. A Single Thread is newly published in paperback and has had rave reviews including in The Guardian, The Times and many others.
Friday 20 November at 7:30 pm, St Michael's Church Shute
The South Country: A folk/classical fusion of traditional English tunes
The South Country blurs the boundaries between arrangement, composition, tradition and experimentation. The result is a unique hybrid: English tunes, old and newly created, in settings which take on influences as diverse as pastoralism, neo-classicism and post-minimalism. The South Country take their name from the eponymous book by Edward Thomas which describes the folk culture, natural history and landscapes he encountered on a journey through southern England. Their music travels through parts of this real and imagined world and attempts to capture something of Thomas’s visceral response to the changing seasons, landscape and peoples. Inspired by his ceaseless wondering and exploration, the South Country confirms and disrupts a sense of place through unexpected musical diversions. All the trio are classically trained professional musicians based in the South West.
The South Country: A folk/classical fusion of traditional English tunes
The South Country blurs the boundaries between arrangement, composition, tradition and experimentation. The result is a unique hybrid: English tunes, old and newly created, in settings which take on influences as diverse as pastoralism, neo-classicism and post-minimalism. The South Country take their name from the eponymous book by Edward Thomas which describes the folk culture, natural history and landscapes he encountered on a journey through southern England. Their music travels through parts of this real and imagined world and attempts to capture something of Thomas’s visceral response to the changing seasons, landscape and peoples. Inspired by his ceaseless wondering and exploration, the South Country confirms and disrupts a sense of place through unexpected musical diversions. All the trio are classically trained professional musicians based in the South West.
Saturday 21 November at 7:30 pm, St Michael's Church Shute
Abi Daré on The Girl with the Louding Voice
Abi Dare grew up in Lagos Nigeria and has lived in the UK for over 18 years. She studied law at the University of Wolverhampton and has an M.Sc in International Project Management and an MA in Creative Writing from Birbeck University of London. Her novel, The Girl with the Louding Voice won The Bath Novel Award in 2018 and was selected as a finalist in The Literary Consultancy Pen Factor competition in 2018. It tells the story of Adunni a fourteen-year old Nigerian girl who wants an education. But when her mother dies, her father sells his daughter into marriage. One tragedy follows another and she is then sold as a domestic servant into a weathly Lagos family, where no one will talk about the strange disappearance of her predecessor. No one but Adunni, that is.
Abi Daré on The Girl with the Louding Voice
Abi Dare grew up in Lagos Nigeria and has lived in the UK for over 18 years. She studied law at the University of Wolverhampton and has an M.Sc in International Project Management and an MA in Creative Writing from Birbeck University of London. Her novel, The Girl with the Louding Voice won The Bath Novel Award in 2018 and was selected as a finalist in The Literary Consultancy Pen Factor competition in 2018. It tells the story of Adunni a fourteen-year old Nigerian girl who wants an education. But when her mother dies, her father sells his daughter into marriage. One tragedy follows another and she is then sold as a domestic servant into a weathly Lagos family, where no one will talk about the strange disappearance of her predecessor. No one but Adunni, that is.