Litfest 2015 Senhouse Roman Museum Friday 13 – Sunday 15 November
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Tribal Voices LitFest 2015 Senhouse Roman Museum Friday 13 – Sunday 15 November Patron of the festival: Melvyn Bragg, Lord Bragg of Wigton 1 2 Now in its eighth year the Maryport Literary Festival is an initiative of, and takes place at the Senhouse Roman Museum. The festival is unique in having a theme inspired by the internationally significant collections that can be discovered at the Museum. This year the inspiration for the theme is the Museum’s collection of native sculpture. This collection includes a small, enigmatic representation of a native armed warrior god believed to be Belatucadrus. This deity appears to have been popular in the Hadrian’s Wall frontier zone. He is depicted naked, brandishing sword and shield with horns sprouting from his forehead. Experiencing the collection is an opportunity to get close to our own tribal past. Tribal Voices explores aspects of tribal identity, how ancestral voices have influenced our culture now and in the past. These ancestral voices are heard from the shepherds and huntsmen of Cumbria, the tribes of Africa and Canada, and our own Early Medieval past. The audience can expect an eclectic mix in a festival that host, Angela Locke, describes as ‘boutique’. The festival is special in its opportunity to interact with the speakers, who are very generous with sharing insights into the creative process. This year the festival will be launched by Melvyn Bragg, Lord Bragg of Wigton who will be talking about his new book inspired by the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Lord Bragg is also the patron of the festival. 3 The Senhouse Roman Museum The Museum is operated by a charity (Charity no. 516491) and opened to the public in 1990. The Museum is housed in the Victorian Naval Reserve Training Battery and is found at the western end of the Hadrian's Wall World Heritage Site. The Museum's collections include one of the most significant discoveries of Roman Britain: a cache of 17 Roman military altars, which were recovered from the adjacent Roman fort and civil settlement by the Senhouse family in 1870. The collection is the largest collection of Roman altars and inscriptions from a single site in Britain and dates back to 1570 when John Senhouse started to recover material from the site. This collection has provided the inspiration for creative writing for over ten years. In 2003 the Museum hosted a writer-in- residence as part of the Writing on the Wall project. That writer was 4 Angela Locke and this collaboration was the beginning of a long association and the development of a number of creative writing initiatives for Museum users of all ages. Since 2008 the Museum's collections have been an inspiration for the Festival themes including the enigmatic Serpent Stone, discovered in 1880 by local bank manager and amateur archaeologist Joseph Robinson. The Venus stone provided the inspiration for the 'Venus at the Gate: Aspects of Love' in 2010 and in 2013 a small altar dedicated to Neptune, the god of the sea was the inspiration for 'Neptune and his Realm'. Although the Museum is relatively small the Trustees, mindful of their charitable aims, continue to support research into Roman West Cumbria. In 2000 the Trust commissioned a programme of geophysical survey for the entire site, in total 150 acres of farm land. This was followed in 2011 by a five year programme of excavation on the site of the discovery of a cache of 17 altars and the discovery, in 1880, of two buildings by Joseph Robinson, which he interpreted as temples. During this excavation a new altar was discovered (in 2012), this discovery confirmed the context of the original deposition of the altars by the Romans as packing stones for at least two massive timber structures on the top of the hill to the north-east of the fort. 5 Friday 13 November, 7pm for 7.30pm Festival Launch with Melvyn Bragg, Lord Bragg 0f Wigton Melvyn Bragg has very generously agreed to become Patron of Maryport Literary Festival. Melvyn Bragg, created Lord Bragg of Wigton in recognition of his huge influence on Britain’s artistic and cultural life, has had a long and distinguished career as a broadcaster and author. Born in Wigton, Cumbria, Melvyn Bragg was educated there and at Wadham College, Oxford. He has retained a deep sense of connection with his birthplace in Cumbria, which has greatly influenced his work as a novelist. His broadcasting career began at the BBC in 1961 and soon afterwards he published his first novel. He worked on the arts programme Monitor with Huw Wheldon in the mid-1960s; and during this time he began writing novels, set mostly in his native Cumbria. He collaborated with Ken Russell and wrote the screenplay for Russell’s 1970 film about Tchaikovsky, The Music Lovers. He also worked as a co-writer on Norman Jewison’s film of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar (1973). In 1977, Melvyn Bragg started LWT’s long-running arts programme The South Bank Show. The programme was de- commissioned in 2010, when Bragg took the format across to Sky Arts. ‘The South Bank Show lives again,’ he said at the time. Meanwhile, Melvyn Bragg has expanded his range, presenting arts and science programmes, chairing discussion shows on BBC Radio 4 (most notably In Our Time), and writing bestselling books about 6 history and the development of the English language, as well as continuing to write award-winning novels. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society and of The British Academy, and sits in the House of Lords. On Friday evening he will be talking about his new novel Now is the Time, published on 8th October. In this gripping novel, Melvyn Bragg brings an extraordinary episode in English history to fresh, urgent life. At the end of May 1381, the fourteen-year-old King of England had reason to be fearful: the plague had returned, the royal coffers were empty and a draconian poll tax was being widely evaded. Yet Richard, bolstered by his powerful, admired mother, felt secure in his God-given right to reign. Within two weeks, the unthinkable happened: a vast force of common people invaded London, led by a former soldier, Walter Tyler, and the radical preacher John Ball, demanding freedom, equality and the complete uprooting of the Church and state. They believed they were rescuing the King from his corrupt ministers, and that England had to be saved. And for three intense, violent days, it looked as if they would sweep all before them. Now is the Time depicts the events of the Peasants' Revolt on both a grand and intimate scale, vividly portraying its central figures and telling an archetypal tale of an epic struggle between the powerful and the apparently powerless. The launch will include an opportunity to mingle over a glass of wine. 7 Saturday 14 November, 11am Max Adams: The King in the North/In the Land of Giants Max Adams is the author of Admiral Collingwood, The Prometheans, and the bestselling The King in the North. An archaeologist and historian, he is a Consultant Fellow with the Royal Literary Fund, working with universities to improve the quality and impact of academic writing across Higher Education Institutions. Max has lived and worked in the North-East of England since 1993. he will be talking about his new book In the Land of Giants, part travelogue, part expert reconstruction. A beautifully written insight into the lives of the people during what we know as the 'Dark Ages', an enigmatic but richly exciting period of our island's history. The five centuries between the end of Roman Britain (410AD) and the death of Alfred the Great (899AD) have left few voices save a handful of chroniclers, but Britain's ‘Dark Ages' can still be explored through their material remnants: buildings, books, metalwork, and, above all, landscapes. Max Adams explores Britain's lost early medieval past by walking its paths and exploring its lasting imprint on valley, coast and field. From York to Whitby, from London to Sutton Hoo and several other iconic walks; from Perthshire to Canterbury by motorbike and from Cornwall to the Hebrides by sea, each of his ten journey narratives form both free-standing chapters and parts of a wider portrait of a Britain of fort and fyrd, crypt and crannog, church and causeway, holy well and memorial stone. 8 Saturday 14 November, 1.30pm Sue Allan: John Peel - the man and the song This will be a real treat for lovers of Cumbria and its cultural heritage. Born and bred in Cumbria, with John Peel as one of her forebears, Sue Allan has worked in local media and the arts and writes regularly for Cumbria Life magazine. She began singing in folk clubs at age 15, co-founded and performed with Carlisle and Throstles Nest morris teams and the Ellen Valley Band, and has been researching Cumbrian music for almost 40 years. John Peel: the man and the song Contrary to popular wisdom, Cumbria’s rich heritage includes music as well as literature and art - from fiddle tunes to folk dances and a wide repertoire of folk songs, including a particularly strong tradition of hunting songs. ‘D’ye Ken John Peel’ has to be the archetypal hunting song and has long been known as ‘The Cumbrian Anthem’, but who was John Peel and how did this particular song so capture people’s imagination it became a national favourite? Sue Allan traces the song’s journey through its 190 year history from local pubs to London, the world … and back again.