News from Gillian Southgate

On 23 September on BBC4 at 8.30pm Cerys Matthews 
looked at the Celtic myth saga The Mabinogion, one of the great 
literary treasures of the medieval world, according to Matthews. They were 
part of the oral tradition till they were translated and put to a wider 
audience in Victorian times.  There have been four of these Secret Life of 
Books programmes, and I have seen three of them. Simon Russell Beale on 
Shakespeare, a Professor of English on Mrs. Dalloway, and an actor on Great 
Expectations. Quality has been variable but all are worth watching, and will 
probably be repeated if blog readers look out for them in TV schedules.

How the blog works

This is a new venture to support the activities of the Winchelsea Literary Society. The Society meets on Friday evenings at approximately monthly intervals, and has a mixed programme of invited speakers as well as themed meetings on particular authors or subjects. 

 Blogs are posted in reverse order of time, the most recent first. Suggested content includes:1) Background information on our speakers, 2) Material or links to material provided by speakers in advance of talks. 3) Accounts of past meetings 4) Visual material, such as pictures, (clicking on the picture gives an enlarged version) or videos, preferably as .flv files, If anyone has any contributions, please e-mail them to me at lyoulten@aol.com, preferably as attachments of Word documents for text and .jpg files for pictures. Text from the body of e-mails can be used as well.

Meetings usually take place in the Court Hall*, High Street, Winchelsea, but if this venue is unavailable or a larger than usual attendance is anticipated, we meet in the hall of St Thomas' C of E Primary School, Friars Road Winchelsea

The society's secretary, who can supply further information, is Howard Norton, e-mail howard@ryeview.net

Any contributions for the blog should be sent to me, Lawrence Youlten, by e-mail (lyoulten@aol.com) and you can e-mail me or phone (01797 224045) if you need guidance
Would anyone like to volunteer to write a short history of the society?

*My thanks to Anne Simpson for the drawing above

Slightly Foxed (by Jonty Driver)

Slightly Foxed, the “quarterly for real readers”, has just entered its eleventh year.  Each number of the magazine includes a number of short essays about particular books and their authors that readers have especially enjoyed, often books which have fallen out of general notice but which deserve to be remembered and read (or re-read). A subsidiary is Slightly Foxed Editions, sturdy and beautiful little cloth-bound editions, usually of classic memoirs which have been given a new life by being re-published. More details may be found if you click here

Howard Norton on the Pleasures of Book Collecting (by Jonty Driver)

On 12th September, Howard Norton, secretary of the WLS, gave a most interesting talk on his long-standing interest in collecting books;  he had brought with him to the meeting a range of those he had found over the years since he began collecting.  Howard explained that he limits his collecting to a specific period (1930-70) and makes it a rule that he doesn’t use the internet to search for titles, relying instead on visits to actual bookshops. He is particularly interested in early examples of Penguin titles.  Authors whose books he looks for include Richmal Crompton, of the “William” series, and Enid Blyton (her early novels especially, before she became an industry rather than a writer). There was discussion of the value of dust-covers and of bindings and re-bindings, and (as should always happen after well-planned talks) much chat with the audience on books they too had collected. Howard generously allowed the audience to handle some of the collection he had brought with him.

Appeal for Feedback:

I'm sure that, like poetry, blogs are sometimes more written than read. So far, I have had little indication that anyone has looked at the blog. If you have, please send me an e-mail at lyoulten@aol.com with constructive criticism, other comments or, best of all, your contributions. These should be ideally attached as Word documents and JPG images, but I can also use text from the body of an e-mail.