Headingley LitFest: Inspiring stuff for Ilkley

Sunday 19 October 2014

Inspiring stuff for Ilkley - and Headingley

Sally Bavage writes:
Osmondthorpe and Headingley Writers work their magic again

Saturday night at the Ilkley Literature Festival Fringe and two groups who collaborated to put on a fantastic performance at the Headingley LitFest in March joined together once again to reprise some of their work and add in a few new pieces. Inspiring stuff – despite that you were sometimes holding your breath with admiration and awe as feelings and effort were laid bare.

The groups were first brought together early in January 2014 by a partnership between the WEA and Headingley LitFest, supported by a grant from Jimbo’s Fund. LitFest commissioned local author and WEA tutor Alison Taft to provide significant additional tuition to wannabe writers and poets from the Osmondthorpe Resource Centre. The new creative writing tutor at the ORC, Maria Preston, did her group proud as compere, with strong technical support from centre manager David Fletcher. Their belief in their writers shone out, and it was wonderful to see the self-belief developing in our performers, despite the shaking hand-held papers and quavering voices.

The groups have produced a heartwarming 48-page anthology of their writing and poems, available for only £2 from the Osmondthorpe Centre.

Contact david2.fletcher@leeds.gov.uk for further information.

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LITERARY HEADINGLEY

Headingley is just the place for it! Don't expect a big circus with marquees, though: we're not at that stage yet. We're all volunteers as well.

Our venues include the HEART Centre on Bennett Road, the New Headingley Club on St Michael's Road, friendly cafés, historic local cinemas, Headingley Library, people's houses and the historic Leeds Library in Commercial Street, city centre.

Headingley's Literary Links

Headingley has strong connections with many writers:

Arthur Ransome was born in Headingley, J R R Tolkien lived at 5 Holly Bank and also at 2 Darnley Road, West Park when he was reader in English Language at the University of Leeds 1920 - 25, Alan Bennett lived over a butcher's shop opposite the Three Horseshoes, now Royale Dry Cleaners.

Lucy Newlyn has published poetry about her early life in Headingley, George Orwell stayed at 21 Estcourt Avenue with his sister Marjorie and her husband Humphrey 'Humpy' Dakin (with whom he visited the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth), T S Eliot used to visit his mother-in-law in Weetwood Lane, William Fryer Harvey was brought up in Spring Bank, Trevor Griffiths lived just off Victoria Road on Winstanley Terrace, Jon Silkin's first office of STAND magazine was his flat at 144 Otley Road, Sir Geoffrey Hill lived in Shire Oak Road, Peter Redgrove lived in Headingley between 1962 and 1965 when he was Gregory Fellow of Poetry at the University of Leeds, and playwright Kay Mellor still lives near The Hollies in Far Headingley.

Wilson Barrett, the charismatic first manager of the Grand Theatre, Leeds (a prolific playwright as well), lived in Beech Grove Terrace, Woodhouse in the 1870s. His house was a meeting place for many writers, artists and visitors to Leeds - such as W. S. Gilbert, George Grossmith and Atkinson Grimshaw.

Headingley LitFest 2020 was the thirteenth. The fourteenth will take place from March 2021 and will be adapted to the rules of the Covid pandemic. We are now a proud part of the annual Leeds Lit Fest.