MIREHOUSE - WORDS BY THE WATER

Saturday 13/03/2010. Today's two events are off-site so to speak, being located in the country-house splendour that is Mirehouse as opposed to the Theatre by the Lake. Since last Monday's event - Jacob Polley/Matt Hilton/Amy Bloom, I have attended one other lecture in the Theatre featuring the writers (and birders) Tim Dee and Horatio Clare on the subject of "Observing Birds". Horatio Clare's book "A Single Swallow" is really a travelogue as he followed migrating swallows from Africa to his own home ground in South Wales. He was a strangely compelling speaker and had wonderful tales of his minimalist existance as he raced from one country to the next learning not only about the swallows but of life and human organisation as well, for instance he drew attention to the absurdity of national borders, but you have to be careful where you talk like that. Tim Dee's book "The Running Sky" tracked man's emotional, intellectual and social responses to birds and trys to discover why we are so fascinated by them. This was a very good show, but I bought no books.

To get to Mirehouse, the home of the Spedding family I had a four mile walk along the Carlisle road, timing it a bit neat given the trouble I had in finding the right building - poor signing Mirehouse! but I just made it and got one of the last available seats. John Burnside was here to talk us through the judging process and award the prizes, £350. for the winner and £100. worth of books for the nine runners up, good prizes for regional competition. The theme for this year's annural Mirehouse Poetry Competition was "The Bliss of Solitude" and the winning entry was from a local (though the 250 or so entries came from all over the country) poet called Jennifer Copley with her poem called "Now You're Gone" - The text of this poem can be seen on my Flickr page for Words by the Water. About half of the ten finalist were present and they read their poems witht the others being read by John Burnside all this made for a pleasant morning of poetry in a lovley setting, coffee and biscuits helped the thing along nicely. All attendees got a print out of each of the ten winning entries and I managed to get four of mine signed by their respective authors, I'll see if I can scan them in to my PC.

Before the poetry competition and John Burnside we listened to John Spedding reading from a collection of witty pieces which have been edited into a new publication called An Uncommonplace Book - The Wit of Nineteenth Century Mirehouse. Mirehouse famous throughout it's 350 years in unbroken ownership of the Spedding family has many connections with Thomas Carlyle, Tennyson and the Lake Poets and the sheer quality of the material linked to Mirehouse is stunning I could easily imagine it making a terrific TV programme (if it has not already been done). I bought a copy (£4.00) and had Mr. Spedding sign it, I have to say though that he was a poor reader and rather failed to get the best out of this treasure trove. But you can't argue with the man who owns the place.

In the evening my wife and I went to the Theatre by the Lake for our final event of the Literature Festival, to listen to the sharp-witted Jeremy Hardy which was very good indeed. We saw Jeremy, here, I think it was two years ago, and he was every bit as funny as then, though I think he swears a bit more than he did then. A good, if ireverant end to our Festival 2010. On Sunday we packed up and drove home to Ingleby Barwick.