News & Projects
Mayor of Casterbridge - Exhibition of Design Bindings at Dorchester Museum. 24 July - 1st August 2010
The completed books of a 'design binding' project organised by John Jameson are to be displayed in an exhibition at the Dorset County Museum during the Thomas Hardy Conference & Festival. They are the work of a group of mainly amateur binders who have been binding a copy of The Mayor of Casterbridge. Many of the binders are members of the West region of The Society of Bookbinders or from the Wessex Guild of Bookworkers.
The notion of 'design binding' is that the binder completely rebinds the book seeking to achieve the highest technical bookbinding standards whilst interpreting the content of the book in their design. David Evans, one of the binders, says ' My binding took almost a week and is bound in Full Goat skin with a design imprinted blind into the leather to illustrate the agrarian economy and rural environment in the story. The front cover has a silhouette depicting the main character, this is done with black Calfskin, but it has been reversed to show the suede finish.'
For more information on the exhibition contact john@cotswoldbookbinders.co.uk
Art Walks Celebrate the 170th Anniversary of Thomas Hardy's Birthday. Wednesday 2 June 2010
Geoff Jones from Cinnabar Eco-Creative is organising two Art Walks. Both will be in Thorncombe Woods near Hardy's Birthplace and will 'combine elements of arts and science and of recreation and education' . The two walks are supported by Dorset Countryside Ranger Service. The morning walk will start at 10 am and there will be an evening walk at 7 pm. Further details from Geoff Jones Tel: 07925 175872.
'She Opened the Door'
13 May 2010 7.00pm Dorset County Museum
On 13 May 2010, AsOne Theatre Company will be reading the final draft of the theatre company's latest commission of a brand new drama with music. After the reading; the playwright Peter J Cooper, designer, Annette Sumption, and possibly the composer Roderick Skeaping, as well as AsOne's Artistic Director, Jane McKell shall be pleased to answer questions about this exciting new project. The play is a fresh look at some of the women in the life and novels of Thomas Hardy entitled 'She Opened the Door' by Peter John Cooper. In a dreamlike world on an autumn eve in the garden of Max Gate, the play weaves together the real and imaginary women of Hardy's life and work. It will receive its world premiere performance at the Thomas Hardy International Festival at the Corn Exchange on 1 August 2010.
www.asone-dorset.co.uk
A New Hardy Song Cycle
March 11th 2010
Andrew Wilson writes:
'I am a composer living in Devon, England. I wondered whether you might be interested in noting the world premiere of my Thomas Hardy song-cycle "Fiddlers Three". The performance is at the Church of St John the Evangelist, Bowdoin Street, Boston MA, USA on May 8th 2010 by the marvellous American tenor Christopher Aaron Smith.
The three of Hardy poems that form the cycle are portraits of three very different violinists: the sinister musician in "The Fiddler", Hardy's own Father in "To My Father's Violin" and the pitying child of "At the Railway Station,Upway".'
The songs have been published to coincide with the premiere.
French Association for Thomas Hardy Studies
FATHOM was founded in 2009 in Rouen to promote studies on Thomas Hardy. The association is organizing a conference on 22-23 October 2010 on the theme of "Silence in Thomas Hardy's Work" in Lyon.
Further details can be found at fathomhardy.fr/
Wantage Betjeman Festival
Celebrating the life of John Betjeman at Wantage the Festival is being planned for September 2011 with several Pre-Festival events between now and then.
Costa prize triumph for Christopher Reid News The Times Wednesday 27 January 2010
Ben Hoyle Arts Correspondent writes:
'A slim, quietly devastating volume of poetry written as a tribute to the poet's dead wife won the Costa Book of the Year award last night, one of Britain's most important literary prizes.
Christopher Reid's A Scattering was hailed by the judges as "a master work" mined from the deepest of personal tragedies.
A Scattering is laid out in four sequences, the first written during his wife's final illness, the other three at intervals after her death. He chronicles the moment of her death in eight perfectly weighted words. " Sparse breaths, then none/ and it was done."
Reid said that he was "flabbergasted, delighted and bewildered" to have won. Although he wrote love poems to his wife during her lifetime, they never discussed him writing poems about her after her death, he said, "but I think she knew I was bound to turn to the only thing I could do in life to make sense of it for myself".
Christopher Reid will be taking part in The Nineteenth International Thomas Hardy Conference & Festival 24th July - 1st August 2010, Dorchester, Dorset, UK.
Powys Society Events 2010
Saturday 24 April. A day in Cambridge. Subjects for discussion include John Cowper Powys and his contemporaries at Corpus Christi College in the 1890s and the friendship between John Cowper Powys and the writer James Hanley.
Saturday 5 June. Meet at the Dorset County Museum in Dorchester for talks and discussion and to visit the Powys Society Collection. The day closes with a walk on Maiden Castle.
Friday 20 August to Sunday 22 August. Annual Conference near Glastonbury.
November 2009
BBC Radio Solent presenter David Allen is sharing the best of Dorset for charity with the launch of a brand new walking DVD.
The presenter took a film crew with him on his favourite walks through the Dorset countryside to produce a stunning DVD “My Dorset” It features five of his favourite walks. On the way he meets many local people with fascinating stories to tell about the history, folklore and wildlife of the landscape.
David said, “I’m often talking about my favourite places in Dorset on my radio show and I hope this DVD will inspire people to put on their walking boots and do the walks too. What’s more the net proceeds of the sales will go to a cause I care about very much - Bournemouth Hospital’s Jigsaw Appeal.”
One of the walks takes David from Hardy's cottage at Higher Bockhampton to Dorchester along the River Frome. The DVD features interviews with Mike Nixon from the Thomas Hardy Society and Alistair Chisholm - Dorchester's town crier. The other walks take him to Shaftesbury, Studland, Cerne Abbas and Hengistbury Head.
The DVD is priced at £10.99 plus £1.00 postage and packing and available for sale online at www.mydorset.net or by sending a cheque made payable to Switched-on Multimedia, Chessel Studios, 114 Athelstan Road, Southampton, SO19 4DF, UK.
October 2009
Photographs Of Thomas Hardy come up for sale.
John Benjafield informs us:
I'm writing to offer for sale photographic platinum prints of Hardy taken in 1913 by Olive Edis, a life-long photographer who often photographed members of royalty and society. Since Olive's death in 1955 these photographs have remained locked in her studio and now that her beneficiary has died his widow wishes them to be sold. The attached show illustrations of the photographs and one may be seen on p22 of 'Face to Face', a book written by Childs, Nunn and Sampson [Tiverton: Halsgrove, 2005. ISBN 1 84114 434 7].
1 Hardy at his desk.
Platinum print measuring 15 inches x 12 inches, card mounted. The image is in fine condition.
There are four copies of this photograph, all that were found in the collection. Each photograph is priced at 650 GBP.
2 Hardy at his desk.
The dry-plate negative for this photograph. The condition is very good and copyright passes to the buyer.
Price: 900 GBP.
3 Hardy profile.
Sepia toned platinum print measuring 8 inches x 6 inches. The print, in fine condition, is mounted on card
bearing the Edis embosure. Price: 400 GBP.
Packing and shipping are at cost.
Sincerely
John Benjafield
2 Balderston Court, Calvert Street, Norwich, NR3 1BJ, UK
+44 (0)7976 255041 : ben@photo-uk.co.uk
Dorset School's Feature Film Far From The Madding Crowd
Dorset Comprehensive The Gryphon School in Sherborne screened the world premiere of its full-length feature film "Far From The Madding Crowd" on Saturday 4th July 2009 at the school.
The 140 strong cast and crew, all students at the school, and their guests, saw the culmination of ten months filming work.
Rosita Clarke, Head of Drama informs us 'all screenings at the Gryphon were sold out. The film has received interest from everywhere including Australia and America and we have been asked to enter it for multiple categories for the youth film awards, backed by BAFTA in October'.
Visit www.farfromthemaddingcrowd.org.uk
BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour - Hardy Walks
During the Spring and early Summer 2008 BBC Reporter Fiona Clampin met members of The Thomas Hardy Society for a series of Hardy Walks around the country of 'The Mayor Of Casterbridge', 'Tess Of The d'Urbervilles', 'Return Of The Native’,’ Far From The Madding Crowd’ and 'Jude The Obscure'. The series explores the women in Hardy's novels and is being broadcast over the Autumn/Winter.
Listen again at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/04/2008_48_wed.shtml
Thomas Hardy Society Promotion With OUP
Oxford University Press is pleased to offer members of the Thomas Hardy Society 20% off Thomas Hardy's 'Poetical Matter' Notebook edited by Pamela Dalziel and Michael Millgate. To claim this discount visit www.oup.co.uk/sale/WEBSOCHAR
Claire Tomalin
On 24th April 2008 Claire Tomalin visited The Exchange in Sturminster Newton. www.stur-exchange.co.uk
The Dorset based performing arts outreach charity responsible for taking live entertainment to the County's rural outposts, has its latest season's listings at www.artsreach.co.uk
Thomas Hardy - The Time-Torn Man
On Thursday 23 September 2010 at 5.45pm BBC Radio 4's Book Club will be recording an interview with Claire Tomalin at Bush House, Aldwych, London WC2. Apply for tickets via the BBC Radio 4's web site.
Cross-in-Hand, Dorset
The stone pillar has received some significant attention. It is on the road, which runs south of High Stoy over Batcombe Hill to Holywell, Evershot.
Tony Fincham visited the site and found:
'Instead of being submerged in the hedge and grassy overgrowth, it now has its own protective enclosure. Whilst it is unfortunate that the farmer has seen fit to grub the hedge - this ancient monument (Pevsner suggests that it is pre-Norman) is now more clearly displayed than it has been for a long time.’
The pillar has been considered by some as an ecclesiastical boundary stone or may 'mark the site of a miracle or murder, or both'. The miracle associated with the stone is the subject of Hardy's poem 'The Lost Pyx' Alec d'Urberville insisted that Tess place her hand on the stone and swear never to tempt him again.
National Trust News Dorset Evening Echo April 2008
Plans to offer Hardys Cottage as a holiday let have been dropped for the time being
at least.
The charity announced that it was dropping the proposal after more than a third of those who responded to the consultation objected. Helen Mann, National Trust Property Manager said:
"The most contentious issue was our proposal to offer the cottage as a basic holiday let in the winter. The National Trust has considerable experience of sensitively converting protected buildings and managing them as holiday cottages. However we want to ensure that we reflect the breadth of views of those taking part in the consultation in our decision-making process. We have therefore, decided not to move forward with the holiday let proposal at this juncture. In the long term, however, we do want to leave open the possibility of considering whether to offer winter accommodation for specialist retreats at the cottage".
Norrie's Tale
This is the Autobiography of Mrs Norrie Woodhall, a remarkable lady who is the last surviving member of Thomas Hardy's 'Hardy Players' of the 1920's. Norrie's Tale gives an account of life in Dorchester where she was born at the beginning of the twentieth century, and of her's and her sister Gertrude's part in Hardy's plays at that time. The book is now on sale as a not-for-profit publication for £6.95.
Alan Hodge, 7 Holland's Mead Avenue, Owermoigne, Dorchester, DT2 8HX is running a mail order service for Thomas Hardy Society UK members who are not local to Dorchester. The post and packing charge is £1.20. Two to three weeks should be allowed for delivery. This is a Lullworde Publication.
Find out more about the Hardy Players...
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