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NEXT HULF TALK: Festival of Words

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Saturday 22nd April (10.30am-5pm)

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The first HULF Talk of 2023 will be a new departure for us: an all-day event at the parish church of St Mary the Virgin, Hawkesbury, situated in the delightful ancient hamlet just down the hill from Farm Pool, Hawkesbury Upton.

All profits from the day will be donated to the Friends of St Mary’s, which exists to maintain this beautiful part of our local heritage for the enjoyment of present and future generations.

The event will be provide a wonderful assortment of talks and readings to celebrate the rich delights of English language and literature, including:

  • the influence on the English language of William Tyndale (whose monument is in nearby North Nibley) – said to have had as much impact as the works of Shakespeare – by art historian and churchwarden Lisa Overton
  • jargon in literature, eg the language of boxing, from Dickens to the present day, and the secret jargon of the Suffragettes, by historian and historical novelist Lucienne Boyce
  • putting words in other people’s mouths – how ghostwriters work, by professional ghostwriter John Lynch
  • the art of the aphorism, with Michael Macmahon, author of Brevity is the Soul of Wit, a collection of memorable quotes
  • the use of codes in the Second World War, with a talk about Engima by William Fairney and another about the secret language of Colditz prisoners by Sir Ian Macfadyen
  • the language of bells (with a demonstration by Hawkesbury Ringers and a talk by Tower Captain Colin Dixon
  • the language of the church, a discussion of ancient and modern service forms by Hawkesbury’s Reverend Richard Thomson and Reverend Trevor Stubbs of Keynsham
  • the violent language of the Old Testament – an interpretation for the 21st century by Tina Stubbs
  • poems and readings that celebrate words and language, performed by Gerard Boyce and Michael Macmahon, including Thomas Hardy, John Betjeman, and Brian Friel
  • a calligraphy exhibition of pieces celebrating words and language

Chairing the afternoon will be HULF Director and local author Debbie Young.

REFRESHMENTS

As ever, tea, coffee, cake and biscuits will be included in the ticket price of £5 per head.

There will be a one-hour break for lunch when guests are welcome to picnic in the church and its grounds, and to enjoy the calligraphy exhibition.

An optional sit-down lunch of home-made quiche, salad, and fruit, served in the historic setting of the ancient Malthouse opposite the church, by kind courtesy of Lisa and Christopher Overton, will be bookable in advance for £10 per head. Wine and soft drinks will be available to buy on the day for a small extra charge. With just 30 seats available, early booking is advised.

BOOK YOUR TICKETS HERE – PLEASE NOTE: SEPARATE TICKETS ARE REQUIRED FOR ADMISSION TO THE FESTIVAL AND FOR THE MALTHOUSE LUNCH

PARKING

There will be ample free on-site parking in the adjacent field on the day.

Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival is a series of not-for-profit book-related events run by Debbie Young. This is a HULF Mini event. For more information about HULF, please visit www.hulitfest.com.

Our stunning venue: St Mary the Virgin, Hawkesbury – photo by Sir Ian Macfadyen

NEXT HULF TALK: Christmas Special

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Saturday 26th November 2022 (2-5pm)

CLICK HERE TO BOOK YOUR TICKETS NOW

The final HULF Talk of 2022 will be a lighthearted Christmas special, featuring guest authors of books that make great Christmas presents for all the family, such as:

  • A A Abbott‘s Lies at Her Door, a crime thriller set in Bristol in which a dead body is discovered in a sinkhole that opens up in the middle of community carol singing
  • Steve Berry‘s memoir Straight Up! – Himalayan Tales of the Unexpected
  • Kate Frost‘s wintry romantic escape novel, The Amsterdam Affair
  • Michael Macmahon trio of books on three timely topics: how to get your bank balance into the black and keep it there, how to make effective wedding speeches, and memorable quotes (a great stocking-filler!)
  • Alice Rosewell with her Little Book of Encouragement
  • John Ruthven‘s The Whale in Your Living Room for everyone interested in wildlife documentaries
  • Betty Salthouse‘s delightful chapter books for children including Mother Koala Knows Best
  • Trevor Stubbs‘ novels for young adults, including his Flip! and White Gates trilogies and anthology Stardust
  • Debbie Young‘s Murder in the Manger and Sinister Stranger at St Bride’s, entertaining cosy mystery novels set in the run-up to Christmas

There will also be heartwarming readings from Christmas classics by our guest readers Gerard Boyce and Michael Macmahon.

Chairing the afternoon will be HULF Director Debbie Young.

Once the formal part of the programme is over, the authors will be pleased to sign and sell copies of books and to chat informally to members of the audience.

The ticket price of £5 includes coffee, tea, cakes and biscuits, plus a £2 discount voucher valid against a book bought at the event.

CLICK HERE TO BOOK YOUR TICKETS NOW

IMPORTANT NOTE: Capacity of our beautiful historic venue is limited, so advance booking is essential to avoid disappointment.

Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival is a series of not-for-profit book-related events run by Debbie Young. This is a HULF Mini event. For more information about HULF, please visit www.hulitfest.com.

save the date graphic for HULF Talk 27 Nov 2021

New HULF Talk Event

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(Saturday 27th November, 2-5pm)

This will be the first in a new occasional series of informal afternoon talks, each on a different, interesting theme, bringing authors of all kinds to Hawkesbury to share their books and interests via readings, talks and audience Q&A.

Come and explore the world with our guest authors

The inaugural HULF Talk will be a fascinating afternoon on the theme of WORLD TRAVEL & ADVENTURE, in the peaceful, light-filled Bethesda Chapel, spend a fascinating afternoon travelling the world through the books of four local authors.

Author and historian Lucienne Boyce will set the scene with a brief talk about the mythical and idyllic undiscovered country still sought by explorers as recently as the eighteenth century, including an evocative reading from her historical novel, To the Fair Land.

HULF Founder and Director Debbie Young will chair a panel of three real-life adventurers, who will share their experience of travel at some of the highest and lowest points on Earth, including readings from their travel memoirs:

  • Steve Berry, renowned yeti hunter, author of Straight Up: Himalayan Tales of the Unexpected
  • Mark Horrell, mountaineer, author of Seven Steps from Snowdon to Everest
  • John Ruthven, marine film producer and cameraman, author of The Whale in Your Living Room

After the panel discussion, the authors will be pleased to sell signed copies of books (perfect Christmas presents for any would-be or actual adventurers in your life) and chat informally to members of the audience over coffee and cake, which will be for sale throughout the event from the pop-up Bookshop Cafe in the Bethesda Chapel’s Schoolroom.

Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival is a series of not-for-profit book-related events run by Debbie Young. This is a HULF Mini event.

IMPORTANT NOTE: ADVANCE BOOKING REQUIRED

Guest numbers will be limited for social distancing purposes, so advance booking is essential to be avoid disappointment. The £5 ticket will entitle you to a free coffee or tea and £2 off the price of any book bought on the day. Admission on the day will depend on advance ticket sales and cannot be guaranteed.

ORDER YOUR TICKET HERE

Please click this link to order your ticket via Eventbrite.

If you have any questions about the event, please don’t hesitate to message us via our Contact page.

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MORE ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

LUCIENNE BOYCE

Lucienne Boyce is an award-winning historical novelist (To The Fair Land, the Dan Foster Mysteries), women’s suffrage historian (The Bristol Suffragettes), biographer (currently writing a biography of suffrage campaigner Millicent Price), speaker and blogger. 

Website: www.lucienneboyce.com

STEVE BERRY

Born in Shillong, just south of the Bhutanese border, Steve has returned to the Himalaya many times as leader of numerous treks and expeditions. His main passion is the Himalaya and he has trekked extensively throughout the entire range, including Bhutan, Ladakh, the kingdom of Zanskar, Nepal, and Tibet. In recent years he has been seeking the whereabouts of the Yeti and has appeared in two films on British television. The search continues!!

Website: www.mountainkingdoms.com

MARK HORRELL

For nearly 20 years Mark Horrell has been exploring the world’s greater mountain ranges and keeping a diary of his travels, as well as writing one of the most credible Everest opinion blogs on the net. He writes about trekking and mountaineering from the often silent perspective of the commercial client. As a writer he strives to do for mountain history what Bill Bryson did for long-distance hiking.

Website: www.markhorrell.com

JOHN RUTHVEN

John Ruthven is the only producer to work full time on both ‘Blue Planet I and II’ series. His career highlights range from producing iconic images of blue whales to directing drama inside a WW2 U boat or following venomous snakes throughout Asia. Multi-award winning, with most recently a BAFTA for ‘people’s must-see TV moment’, one that he wrote and produced with the Blue Planet team, and an Emmy for the best environmental film in USA.

LinkedIn profile: linkedin.com/in/johnruthven

painting of White Cliffs of Dover with VE Day dates and Hawkesbury Upton

Happy VE75 Day – from HULF’s Authors of WWII-inspired Books

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Before Covid-19 scuppered Hawkesbury Upton’s plans for a special commemorative  event of VE75 Day in and around the village hall, we had booked a stall to stage a mini-festival of books inspired by World War II. 

Six HULF authors were looking forward to sharing their books and their experience with visitors. Although they now can’t be here in person, we’d still like to share their books with you, which would all make great reading as we mark this special day.

Young RAvens by Celia Boyd

Celia Boyd’s children’s story will also be enjoyed by adults

Celia Boyd‘s Young Ravens  tells the story of a young girl and her little brother during the Second World War, When her parents divorce, Sheila and her brother are sent by her solder father (who has custody of the children) to live with her grandparents in Sheffield, Sheila must adapt fast and learn to accept and thrive in her new circumstances.

Click here to order a copy.

Uncle Walters Secret by Will Fenn

“A thrilling tale of intrigue, history, passion and covert operational planning based on real events around World War 2” – reviewer on Amazon

Hawkesbury author Wiliam Fairney, best known for his books about engineering and engineers, as diverted from the usual engineering theme of his books to pen a history book called Uncle Walter’s Secret (published under the pen-name Will Fenn), an exciting tale of intrigue, espionage, torture, loyalty, betrayal and retribution based on true events.

Click here to order the ebook or paperback.

cover of Collateral Damage by Edward James

A personal memoir in prose and verse

Edward James, who has previously brought his historical novels set in Tudor times to HULF (read his guest post for the HULF blog here.), was planning to bring Collateral Damage, his personal memoir of growing up during the Second World War. It is a short collection of five short prose pieces and two poems, which, Edward says, “are not about the horrors of war but about growing up in a world which seemed normal at the time and was quite mad by today’s standards”.

A limited private print run means that copies are only available directly from the author, so if you would like to buy a copy, please contact HULF and we will pass your order on to Edward.

image of covers of Rosalind Minett's trilogy

Like Edward’s memoir, Rosalind Minett‘s war-time trilogy, series title A Relative Invasion, is more about the characters than the events. Her compelling and powerful story of conflict and competition between two very different cousins is a psychological drama that just happens to be set during the war. However it brings vividly to life the experience of living in London suburbia and then being evacuated to the countryside during the war years. The three books in order are: Impact, Infiltration and Intrusion.

Click here to order paperbacks or ebooks.

Through the Eyes of a Teenage Girl

Bombweed cover

The Second World War through the eyes of a teenage girl

The story behind Bombweed is an interesting one. It was originally written in 1957 by Margaret Smith, the mother of Gillian Fernandez Morton and Maureen Armstrong, drawing on her own experience of being a teenager during the Second World War. However in the aftermath of war, when the nation’s focus was on building a bright new future, publishers declared they were not interested in books harking back to those dark days. In 2018, Margaret’s daughters decided it was time to share it with the public, and edited it for publication for a 21st century audience. It offers fascinating insights into the effect of the war on teenagers and on women in general.

Click here to buy it as a paperback or ebook.

In the Shadow of Hitler

Although Richard Vaughan-Davies‘s thriller In the Shadow of Hitler is mostly a story set in the immediate aftermath of the war, focusing on the affair of a British lawyer working in Germany with a local woman, but it tells a much wider story through flashbacks to the war, and also earlier, addressing the impact on one man, Adam, of the rise and fall of Hitler,  even into Adam’s old age. This compelling and thoughtful novel also provides one interpretation of the rumour that Hitler fathered a child by Unity Mitford, bringing the Cotswolds also into the story. A fascinating, evocative and intelligent read.

Order your copy in paperback or ebook here.

painting of White Cliffs of Dover with VE Day dates and Hawkesbury Upton

Whatever you are doing on this special day, HULF sends you its very best wishes. 

photo of Debbie Young with the two boxes and a HULF banner

2020 HULF is a Festival in a Box!

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Photo of book boxes

HULF in a Box – now in full swing on Debbie Young’s front wall at Post Cottage, France Lane, Hawkesbury Upton

HULF Founder & Director Debbie Young writes:

Although we had no choice but to cancel the 2020 Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival its usual format due to coronavirus lockdown, we’ve come up with an alternative to at least mark the day and share great books by our Festival authors with anyone passing by as they take their permitted daily exercise.

Welcome to HULF in a Box!

What exactly is a Festival in a Box?

To mark our official Festival Day, I’ve filled both the Lttle Free Library boxes on my front wall exclusively with books by HULF authors.

Photo of interior of adult book box

Something for all tastes in the Festival Box for adults

photo of interior of childrens box

The Festival box for young readers includes books for all ages – plus the anthology for adults from our first ever HULF

What’s in the boxes?

In our Festival in a Box you’ll find something to suit all tastes.

For adults there are contemporary, historical and speculative fiction, poetry, and self-help, including books by AA Abbott, Ali Bacon, Lucienne Boyce, William Fairney, Clare Flynn, Mari Howard, David Penny, Michael Macmahon, Alison Morton, Stephen Oram, Alice Rosewell, T E Shepherd, Joyce Williams and Shirley Wright – and me, Debbie Young.

For young readers, there are picture books by Hawkesbury artist Caroline Mockford,  and chapter books for children by Hawkesbury author Betty Salthouse, and some gripping reads for young adults, including exciting novels by HULF Young Readers’ Director Kate Frost, HULF regular Trevor Stubbs, with his amazing FLIP! series, and two novels by teenage Gloucestershire novelist Alexandra Killworth.

I’ve also added  the few remaining copies of the anthology from the first HULF in 2015, which includes a sample from books by every author who took part.

Special thanks to those Festival authors who have kindly sent copies of their books specifically for this use. 

As books are borrowed, I’ll be filling the gaps with my personal copies of other Festival authors’ books.

I now declare the first ever HULF in a Box – and the sixth Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival – officially open!

Photo of Debbie Young with book boxes and banner

I even dressed the part to launch HULF in a Box, donning my book-themed earrings (a gift from Heidi Perry, who has helped so much with HULF each year), my book-print skirt, and my trusty HULF Author badge!

Now Help Yourselves!

As always with the LIttle Free Library, anyone may borrow them and to return them when they’ve finished – but I always say that if someone loves a book so much that they want to keep it, or to pass it on to a friend , they’re welcome to do that.

HULF usually lasts just one (very action-packed!) day – but HULF in a Box will remain open for as as long as I have enough Festival authors’ books available to fill it.

Who said we couldn’t have a sixth HULF this year? I think my HULF in a Box still counts!

Here’s to the 7th Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival on 24th April 2021 – and let’s hope we have the same glorious weather that we’re enjoying for the sixth!

Note: As with any item you collect from people’s front walls at the moment – and there’s a lot of it going on in Hawkesbury! – you’re advised to take sensible precautions, including wiping down the book cover when you get it home and washing your hands thoroughly. You may also choose to leave the book to one side for a day or two before you start reading it. All the books  in the HULF in a Box are new or in as-new condition. 

Background Information about the Little Free Library

For years I’ve hosted on my front garden wall a Little Free Library, inspired by the movement in the US to share books and encourage reading for pleasure in the local community. My father made the first box for me, and before long I was getting so many books donated that I had to ask my husband Gordon to make a second one. Now we have one box for young readers, (clear-fronted) and one for adults (with an opaque front). Earlier this year, Gordon gave both boxes a spring makeover – just in time for our HULF in a box!

Like to launch a Little Free Library of your own to share your love of reading during lockdown? Visit www.littlefreelibrary.org for inspiration!