Mixed events start Hastings Week

Hastings Town Hall

Michael and Elaine Short

We're now into Hastings Week - a series of local events, commemorating the skirmish that occurred nearby on October 14, 1066, and culminating in Bonfire Night this Saturday.   Last Saturday we had "Books Born in Hastings", a mini-bookfair in the neo-Gothic splendour of the Town Hall's Council Chamber, where local authors and publishers peddled their wares.  Michael and Elaine Short were there, dressed appropriately in a Mad Hatter's hat and what looked like a velvet fez, to publicise their slim volume Utter Nonsense in Hastings about the Hastings connections of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll.  This is published by the enterprising Circaidy Gregory Press, a sister company of the Earlyworks Press, run by Kay Green.  Also present was Victoria Seymour, who has created an industry of local social history and writes a weekly column in the Hastings Observer.

Philip Terry

If you're at all interested in poetry you come across small publishing companies all the time.  They are usually run by idealistic and highly-motivated individuals, more for love than money.  Volumes are slim and print runs are short.  It's all the more pleasing when one of their products hits the jackpot.  This has happened to my neighbour Ken Edwards and his company Reality Street, with Philip Terry's book Tapestry, which also featured strongly in last Saturday's event.  Ken describes his company as specialising in "left-field poetry".  This means it is not always immediately accessible to the general reader.  Philip Terry has produced a book written in prose rather than poetry, which is written in what he describes as faux-mediaeval English.  It is about the making of the Bayeux Tapestry by a small convent of nuns, who each have their own story to tell.  The faux-mediaeval spelling conventions took a bit of getting used to, but once into the book I enjoyed its originality enormously.  I was delighted to hear that it had been shortlisted for the newly-established Goldsmiths Prize.

While we were sampling literary delights, classic cars had massed on the Stade for an audience of motor buffs.  Nostalgia hung heavy in the air.  Fortunately the sun also shone from an almost cloudless sky, so that the assembled vehicles glittered.  Everyone likes a bit of reminiscing, and there were lots of people for whom the gathering brought back memories of parents and grandparents: leather seats and walnut fascias, running-boards and chrome radiator grilles, picnic hampers in the boot and a rose in a silver holder on the dashboard.  Lovely stuff.

Antony Mair

Hastings Old Town - centre of creativity

 Works by Jo Redpath 

When we told friends in France that we were moving to Hastings, there were mixed reactions.  The usual one was "Why Hastings?" asked with an air of perplexity.  That was easily dealt with - it had happened entirely by chance.  But one friend followed it up with - "but there won't be any cultural life there".  I know what she meant: there's no theatre to speak of and precious little in the way of classical music.  But I am constantly struck by the way in which we are surrounded by creative people of one sort or another.  This impression was reinforced by a visit to the studio of Jo Redpath, who recently moved to our street from Santiago de Compostela.  She acquired a house sandwiched between a converted hall belonging to Roland Jarvis, a rather distinguished artist who is also a master horologist, and a house belonging to a couple known to me only as Bob and Clare, whose artistic efforts are most in evidence in the costumes they put together for Jack-in-the-Green, the annual festival celebrated in Hastings at the beginning of May.

This little clutch of artists is at the other end of our street.  But from my study windows I look onto the back of a house belonging to Ken Edwards, poet, publisher and bass guitarist with local group The Moors.  And just round the corner is the home of Polo Piatti, composer and founder of the International Composers' Festival. 

Across the valley, against West Hill, we look out on the home of artist Gus Cummins RA.  At the Peasmarsh Festival recently we met another eminent artist, Laetitia Yhap,  

The town is awash with media folk, whether photographers such as Grace Lau or stylists such as Alastair Hendy.  In short, creative energy abounds.  These are all people I've become aware of over the past twelve months.  I have little doubt that there are many more we still have to come across.  Nice though it would be to have theatre and classical music on our doorstep, there's something very satisfying about being in close proximity to creators in the arts, not just performers and consumers.

Antony Mair