I had the sheer pleasure last week of talking to David
Ridehalgh of Burnley Library about the Burnley Literary
Festival and other things like disembodied flying witches, of which more
later ...
Unusually for a small town with such a wide ethnic mix,
Burnley has a thriving literary festival which has been going on for three
years. If you drive into the town at the moment, as I did, you’ll see signs for
the festival, which is fantastic. The local radio station is also up for
publicising it and so everyone in the town is at least aware of it, giving it a
reach normally beyond that of a library service. And this shows in attendance.
Events get 30 or 40 people coming to them, which is brilliant, with such
visitors often not being library users to begin with.
And there’s a need to attract non-library users. There are
real pockets of poverty and poor literacy in the town. Those two so often go
together. A lot of people just don’t go to cultural events, especially if they
have to travel, and so the festival brings the events to the people, as things
should be. The events are free as a way of reducing barriers – experience shows
that locals are often put off by charged events – and are open to all. The
library works closely with local schools and has regular class visits, with the
idea being that “if you work together, you can achieve more”.
Stemming from an idea from Burnley Council, the library service
jumped at the festival as a way of boosting library usage, and have been keen
partners from the start. There is funding from Arts Council England and also
from the local Stocks
Massey bequest. This means that the library events are free, with
Lancashire offering the building and staffing as its contribution in kind. As
is common with free events, there is some non-attendance but a good 80% do come
to the library when they say they will. Oh, and what a building, it’s gorgeous,
with an impressive pillared façade leading into wood-lined rooms with an awful
lot of stained glass.
"... there’s a need to attract non-library users. There are real pockets of poverty and poor literacy in the town. Those two so often go together."
David sees the point of the festival, and other events put
on, as ways of providing – and this is important – high quality events
to local people. This encourages them to come back as well as attracting people
from outside of the area. The events also need to be fairly individual and not
mirroring something happening just miles away. Moreover, the library has learnt
to taylor events for the local audience. What works elsewhere does not
necessarily work locally.
An example of this is the
Light Parade. The Library is involved in doing craft workshops beforehand,
creating lit props like umbrellas shaped as jellyfish and encouraging the
lanterns to be created locally rather than shipping them in. And, wow, what a
result. 1500 attended the last parade.
"1500 attended the last parade"
Cater the event to your audience. The same does not work
everywhere. Learn My Way works well here., not so much in more affluent
areas. Unemployed needs email address. Vital for universal credit.
And now, finally, for the flying witches. David has a
background in graphic design and this shows. There have been some lovely displays,
with the one that (literally) stood out for me being a witch flying in the area
as a result of a projector (only £70 apparently - see in "the technical bit" below) shining on a gauze cloth. It
was the most impressive display I’ve seen in a library and is an idea
that’should be adopted more.
So, Burnley Library is working hard to be an important part
of the local community. All of the local community. And it does that by working
with partners and the public to put on individual and high quality events.
"Burnley Library is working hard to be an important part of the local community. All of the local community. And it does that by working with partners and the public to put on individual and high quality events"
The technical bit
The projector usef is an Excelvan 3D
DVB-T Theatre projector. It is an LED projector – the picture quality is better
– and is capable of projecting 3D movies/images and can also be used for
Virtual Reality. It was available on eBay for around £70-£80
but they can be pricey from places like PC World. They also allow for HDMI input
too which means you don’t have to use a PC/Laptop. I have attached a video of
what it looks like this year.
The website where the
'illusions' were purchased from is here - https://atmosfx.com/.
There are some absolutely amazing scenes on there and they can all be purchased
via download reasonably. YouTube have a good collection of
videos and effects and there are quite a few cheap DVDs or Blu-Rays that have
holiday scenes on… it appears to be a growing market. Netflix also do have a
few 'atmospheric' shows called moving wallpapers, there are tropical,
underwater and winter scenes that do work really well when projected. The
Christmas one is especially good and I think I may be using it this year.
We think we know Narnia. Lots of talking animals and something to do with a sailing ship with a cool name. But that's the Hollywood version. The original series is way darker and meaningful than that, even for an atheist. Here, Lizzi Hawkins from The Writing Squad, explains why ...
"Of all the questions surrounding reading and
writing, one that I find most difficult to answer is when I’m asked what my
favourite book is – there are too many good books, and it seems almost
impossible to settle on one. So perhaps it’s fair that instead of choosing one
book for this piece, I’ve managed, purely accidentally, to choose seven. We’ve
all probably seen, or maybe read, ‘The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe’, but
there’s so much more to the Narnia series than that single story, excellent as
it is. Last summer, I reread the entire series, made up of seven short books,
of which ‘The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe’ is, in fact, the second, and
was reminded how formative these stories had been for me. Sometimes myths,
sometimes more like fairy tales, often just excellent adventures, these stories
are a beautiful exercise in world-building.
My favourites (at the moment at least) are ‘The
Magician’s Nephew’, the very first story, where we see the creation of Narnia,
and learn how the magical wardrobe came to be, and ‘The Silver Chair’, where we
re-enter Narnia at a much darker time in its future to rescue a lost prince.
These two, along with ‘The Horse and his Boy’, one of the more frightening
books, set in the desert south of Narnia, and ‘The Last Battle’, the final
story, are the ones that inevitably never make it to the big screen, but which
remain really special to me, for their captivating storylines, and their
moving, often unexpected morals. They are the heavier books of the series,
carrying a biblical profundity that was unlike anything else I read as a child.
Reading them again as an older person, the
religious connotations are much more clear to me – I understand now that C.S.
Lewis wrote the collection of stories with the intention of introducing
children to Christianity in a more appealing format. Despite being an atheist
though, I relish the presence of these biblical undertones – they open the door
for Lewis to mine some of the most ancient and powerful tropes in storytelling:
death and resurrection, sacrifice, pilgrimage, return from the wilderness, the
battle between good and evil, sometimes for an individual, sometimes for the
whole of his magical world. I’d recommend these tales to anyone, not just
children, and not just Christians, because you can find everything in them – a
fleshed out fantasy universe to rival the best science-fiction, powerful
stories of love and revelation, delicate explanations of faith, and most
importantly storylines that refuse to let you go. I challenge anyone not to be
captivated by them."
Lizzi Hawkins is a poet from
West Yorkshire. She shares her time between her hometown of Leeds, and
the University of Cambridge, where she is studying for a degree in Engineering.
She has performed in venues across the north, most recently with Carol Ann
Duffy and Imtiaz Dharker at Ilkley Literature Festival.
Lizzi’s poems are published or
upcoming in The Rialto, The North, The Cadaverine, The Compass Magazine and
several anthologies. She is a winner of the 2017 Poetry Business New Poets
Prize and has been Commended in the Foyle Young Poets’ Award. Her pamphlet
Osteology is available from Smith Doorstop.
Libraries have played an important part in the lives of many of us. Here, crime-writer Patricia Dixon reflects on her memories of them.
"On
November 6th, I will take part in Tameside Libraries Mini Crime-Fest
and whilst I prepare for the event, my thoughts have travelled back in time to
somewhere that holds a very special place in my heart.
A
ghost from the future, hiding in the shadows, I observe my five year-old self,
holding the hand of my father as we visit Droylsden Library for the first time.
It became a Saturday morning ritual, the eager five minute walk from home that
always felt like five miles once I was loaded up with books.
Now
I am as a teenager, sitting at the polished wooden desk with my friends. The
library served a dual purpose, a warm and a quiet place to do our homework and,
if we were lucky, we might also meet boys.
Next I am a fashion student, an odd
looking girl with spiky-hair wearing home-made clothes, Dr Marten boots and far
too much make-up, a pile of reference books aid the search for inspiration. My
friend and I have a crazy plan to run away to London so scour the heavy
telephone directories, hoping to find the address of Bob Geldof or at least his
phone number.
Time has shifted and in this scene I have changed so much, a
young mother with two small children, listening to story time.
The
library is a sensory time bomb, the scent of books, the hum of voices, and the
smooth lines of an art deco building with its square glass windows that stood
the test of time. My ghostly self wishes the librarians still had the book
stamp. I longed to have a go and can still hear the sound as it prints the date
in ink. I smile, remembering how I often begged my mother to take back a late
book and pay the 2p fine; such was the shame of forgetfulness.
The
circle is almost complete so I return to the present, wondering if my five year
old self, the teenager or the student would believe that one day their books
would stand on the shelves of the local library. The name on the spine is
different now, but inside their words litter the pages, in print, forever. And
maybe two more ghostly visitors will pop by, my parents, who will see their
daughter’s books on display and if they do, I hope it makes them proud".
Patricia Dixon is speaking at Stalybridge Library on Tuesday 6 November 1.30pm to 3. She is the author of crime books "Over My Shoulder" and "They Don't Know" as well as a series of fiction based in France.