Monday May 14

MIRANDA DOYLE – on the truths and untruths of life.

What do we really know, about our own lives and those of others? What is ‘the truth’, especially about love, relationships, childhood, growing up, ageing, and events we either remember or forget? Are we the stories we tell of ourselves and the memories we shape and share? And if we are our own stories, how do we tell them and how do we build a sense of ourselves and our place in the world?.

A graduate with Distinction of the Creative & Life Writing Course at Goldsmiths, Miranda Doyle is author of A Book of Untruths, which explores the fallibilities and strengths of human beings and the way we are and relate to one another.

PAM AYRES – on The Last Hedgehog.

The common hedgehog is reckoned to be the most beloved inhabitant of the British countryside. And writer, broadcaster, and entertainer Pam Ayres is definitely one of the most popular poets on the British stage.

Her best-selling books include Surgically Enhanced and You Made Me Late Again, the most borrowed poetry book from libraries in 2016, and many of her poems are in school textbooks around the world.

Now, to mark National Hedgehog Awareness Week, Pam has written a poignant farewell to a spiky and wonderful creation, ‘the last hedgehog left on earth’.

FOUR QUARTETS with Flora Pethybridge and Ashley Ramsden.

Over a period of six years, at the time of World War II, T. S. Eliot published four poems, Burnt Norton, East Coker, The Dry Salvages, and Little Gidding. In 1943, they were published together as the Four Quartets.

The four poems are interlinked meditations, on our relationship with time, the universe, the divine, and a few other things too. Cultural references are many, as are wide-ranging allusions to philosophy, poetry, and human relationships.

Together, core-singer and choir leader, Flora Pethybridge, and storyteller and speaker of poetry, Ashley Ramsden, bring these extraordinary poems to life, enlivening the rich passages with new meaning. The speaking and presenting of the Four Quartets has become a life practice for them and a compass for daily living.

JUDY MURRAY – on Knowing the Score.

As a winner of 64 Scottish tennis titles, mother to Wimbledon tennis champions Jamie and Andy Murray, first female national tennis coach, a survivor to week eight on Strictly Come Dancing, and all-round can-do wonder woman, Judy Murray OBE is the ultimate role model for believing in yourself, giving your all, and achieving ambitions. As a parent, coach, and leader, she is an inspiration.

We all need a story of ‘yes we can’ to make us believe great things are possible. Judy’s memoir, Knowing the Score, is that story.