Room, Holyer an Gof, and Talks

This is of a gorgeous pine tree near Durgan - any local walkers will recognise it - near the car park at Bosloe!

First of all, I went to see ‘Room’ last night - an incredibly powerful and brilliantly acted film about a young woman who was abducted, raped and kept locked in a garden shed. When her son was born this gave a new meaning to her life, and when he reached the age of 5 she launched a bold and desperate plan to escape. But what none of the reviews mentioned was the very clever look at the after effects - what happens when they tried to fit back into real life…..

Go and see it but be prepared. This is emotionally harrowing….

On a lighter note, I had an email from my publishers, Sigma Press, the other day. She said she had entered my book (Walks in the Footsteps of Cornish Writers) for the Holyer An Gof Publisher’s Awards 2016. There are 6 different categories of books, but basically it’s for books either written about Cornwall and/or in Cornish.

I was surprised, delighted - and then I read the different categories, and standards of excellence, and my hopes plummeted. Surely there will be others much better than mine? But anyway, I decided, it is great to be considered good enough to enter.

Last week I went to give a talk at Hayle WEA who were one of the best audiences I’ve ever encountered. And I have been fortunate in usually having very appreciative audiences for my talks.

This gathering of older, intelligent, lively minds, were a joy. With the exception of one elderly gentleman who snoozed through part of it, they all appeared interested, and had some wonderful tales of Cornish history to tell afterwards. Furthermore, they bought quite a lot of books…

One lady took me round a converted chapel in Hayle afterwards, introducing me to everyone who had a unit there (and there were a lot), including a lovely gentleman who has a Cornish bookshop, who would also like to stock my books.

So when presented with a gathering of older people, never underestimate them. This lot were solid gold!