Talking Walk with Martin Hesp
Saturday 18 SEPTEMBER
2-4 pm
A QUANTOCK ADVENTURE BASED ON THE LAST BROOMSQUIRE led by MARTIN HESP
Meet at Dead Woman's Ditch Car Park: Grid reference: ST161381; nearest postcode TA5 1HW.
Martin is a writer and journalist based in Somerset. For decades he was Editor at Large of the Western Morning News and his knowledge of the South West is legendary. Martin's tale The Last Broomsquire is increasingly referred to as the Quantock novel and has an evocative sense of place. You can watch Martin talking about the novel at Shute Festival earlier this year via our Programme page. The story, which takes places as the 18th century becomes the 19th, could only have happened in the Quantock Hills. The tale is intrinsically woven into the deep coombes and lofty ridges of what is now an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. All the locations described actually do exist and won’t have changed much in the intervening 200 years. Martin will be leading us on a unique walk in the central Quantock area which will take us to some of the main locations in the novel. The walk will involve some uneven ground and uphill walking.
Clive Stafford Smith on Life & Death
Friday 17 September 6:30-7:30 pm
St Michael's Church Shute EX13 7QR
THIS EVENT IS POSTPONED AND WILL BE RESCHEDULED
Clive is the founder and until recently Director of Reprieve, a charity providing free legal and investigative support to some of the world’s most vulnerable people – to help those facing execution around the world, and those victimised by states’ abusive counter-terror policies, including torture and extrajudicial killing. In 2001, Clive sued for access to the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. Believing the camp was an affront to democracy and the law, his goal was to close Guantánamo. Clive has helped secure the release of 69 prisoners from the camp, including every British prisoner. A graduate of Columbia Law School in New York, Clive worked as a lawyer with the Southern Center for Human Rights, focusing on death penalty and civil rights cases. He has represented over 300 prisoners facing the death penalty in America, preventing the death penalty in all but six cases. Clive has received an OBE for Humanitarian Services and an International Bar Association’s Human Rights Award. Clive will be speaking about life and death in the American court room and the injustice in the case of a British man Kris Maharaj who has sat on death row in Florida for over 30 years for a crime which he didn't commit.
Jo Seaman on Roses Down the Barrel of a Gun
Sunday 7 November 3-4 pm
Georgia 2001. “Your mission, Jo, should you choose to accept it, is to find out what young Georgians want,” said the man from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, or words to that effect. “We’re keen to know what will happen when President Shevardnadze moves on.”
Jo Seaman went to the South Caucasus as director of the British Council in Georgia at a time of political uncertainty and turmoil. In attempting to fulfill her mission of cultural diplomacy she rubs shoulders with ballerinas and border guards, ambassadors and activists, ministers and musicians, despots and dodgy officials. Jo's intimate descriptions of a culture only relatively recently emerged from the shadow of the Iron Curtain are underpinned with a genuine warmth and compassion for the Georgian people. A consummate diplomat, Jo needs all her skills as she ventures out into the fraught and often amusing sphere of international relations, and is drawn into the heady events of the Rose Revolution. And life at home is far from uneventful...
James Crowden on Cider Country
Thursday 14 October at 6.00- 7.00 pm St Michael's Church Shute
Cider-making has been at the heart of country life for hundreds of years. But the fascinating story of how this drink came into existence and why it became so deeply rooted in the nation’s psyche has never been told. In order to answer these questions, James Crowden traces an elusive history stretching back to the ancient civilisations of Central Asia and the Mediterranean – and even the wild apple forests of Kazakhstan. Cider Country is the unusual and enthralling story of Cider and the remarkable people who have made it. James will be in conversation with writer and journalist Martin Hesp.
Sitar & Tabla Concert for Afghanistan
Friday 8 October 7:30-9pm, St Michael's Church, Shute EX13 7QR
Ricky Romain is a locally based artist and sitar player. He began his Classical Indian musical study by becoming a residential pupil of Punita Gupta (a disciple of Ravi Shankar) in Southall London in 1972. He continued to study Indian Classical music by the traditional master/pupil method, eventually becoming proficient in the understanding, and use, of Rag and Tal, (Melody and Rhythm), and with the improvisational techniques associated with Northern Indian classical music conventions. He has performed regularly throughout the West Country, nationally and in Europe since the early 1980’s. He has also been involved in a wide variety of collaborations and recordings with Classical Indian musicians. For the last ten years he has been an associate lecturer in Indian classical music at the University of Plymouth. Ricky will be accompanied by Lewis Riley on the Tabla. Both musicians have generously agreed a reduced fee so that proceeds from the concert can go to support a crowdfunder for Afghan women trapped in the country who need funds urgently to assist them whilst they seek to leave.
Tickets cannot be transferred, exchanged or refunded if you are unable to attend a ticketed event. If Shute Festival needs to cancel an event due to illness, weather or some other unforeseen circumstance, we shall offer all ticket holders a full refund or a credit.
Location
Shute is situated just off the A35 between Axminster and Honiton. The festival will be held in two locations in the centre of the village – St Michael’s Church and Shute Primary School.
If you are travelling by car, Shute is clearly signposted from the A35. Parking at the festival site is limited. There are spaces along Haddon Lane (the road between the church and school) but visitors should be aware that the lane is narrow and access must be maintained at all times. If possible, please share transport.
The nearest railway station to Shute is Axminster, which is on the Waterloo to Exeter mainline.
The station is well served by cab firms but it’s advisable to book in advance.
Axminster Taxis – 01297 34000
Paynes Premier Cars – 01297 35895
Axminster Cabs – 01297 33055
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Contact
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