Category: Events

Fractal Light Show at St. Laurence’s

They met by a sacred oak tree:
The Celtic-British church delegates,
And Laurence and Augustine from Rome;

A sacred oak near to a great river near here:
At Cricklade on the River Thames perhaps,
Or Arlingham on the River Severn;

The wind soughed through the branches
Silver light stippled the water,
A coracle cast its steady shadow,
In the year of our Lord,
603.

A millennium and more later,
A scintillant refulgence,
A dazzle of artful light;

There, in Saint Laurence’s in Stroud,
Fractals of illumination,
Stained glass manuscripts;

They met by a sacred oak tree:
The Celtic-British church delegates,
And Laurence and Augustine from Rome;

A sacred oak near to a great river near here:
At Cricklade on the River Thames perhaps,
Or Arlingham on the River Severn;

The wind soughed through the branches
Silver light stippled the water,
A coracle cast its steady shadow,
In the year of our Lord,
603.

A millennium and more later,
A scintillant refulgence,
A dazzle of artful light;

There, in Saint Laurence’s in Stroud,
Fractals of illumination,
Stained glass manuscripts;

The numinous and the mundane,
Paradise lost but regained,
Heaven and Earth conjoined,
In the year of our Light,
2018.

A celebration of our world,
Music, song and spoken word too,
A spectacle of the senses;

And over there, by the altar,
The Venerable Bede and Caedmon,
Smiling gentle smiles of approbation.

Bristol And The Spanish Civil War

24 March BRISTOL
24/03/2018
IBMT’s annual Len Crome Memorial Conference, with historians Professor Tom Buchanan and Dr Emily Mason speaking about:

Aid Spain: the mobilisation of support for the anti-fascist cause among the British people during the Spanish Civil War

Venue: Colston Hall, Colston Street, Bristol BS1 5AR.

Time: 11am (registration from 10.30am) to 4pm.

Plus: Music from Amanda Boyd & David Nash, Ewan McLennan and the Red Notes Choir, and films, exhibition and stalls.

Entrance: £20 (£15 students).

Booking: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/len-crome-memorial-conference-2018-t… or send cheques (include email if receipt is required) to: IBMT Treasurer, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R0DU.

24 March BRISTOL
24/03/2018
IBMT’s annual Len Crome Memorial Conference, with historians Professor Tom Buchanan and Dr Emily Mason speaking about:

Aid Spain: the mobilisation of support for the anti-fascist cause among the British people during the Spanish Civil War

Venue: Colston Hall, Colston Street, Bristol BS1 5AR.

Time: 11am (registration from 10.30am) to 4pm.

Plus: Music from Amanda Boyd & David Nash, Ewan McLennan and the Red Notes Choir, and films, exhibition and stalls.

Entrance: £20 (£15 students).

Booking: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/len-crome-memorial-conference-2018-t… or send cheques (include email if receipt is required) to: IBMT Treasurer, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R0DU.

Terminalia Festival February 23rd 2018

Well that was a walk, that was,
For we explored boundaries,
Spatial, temporal, linguistic, social, spiritual, rational,
By exploring Jon Seagrave’s Stroud map of the subjective,
Of the emotional and the affective,
Rather than the conventional topography:
The boundary between landscape and experience;

We explored the archaeology of industry:
Rusting capstans and a forgotten railway turntable,
John Seagrave was talking of how the turntable
Could accommodate one wagon at a time only,
For the winch down to the gasworks,
And, oddly, in true time-shift fashion,
I noticed a notelet recently dropped
On the ground nearby:
‘DO NOT DOUBLE STACK’;

Pleased by this coincidence of time and space,
This damp leaf typescript revenant,
Our quickening pace took us back
To 1920s guides to London walking,
Gordon Maxwell and HV Morton;
We planned a Captain Swing memorial walk,
Along the old Tetbury branch line,
To the Trouble House Inn;
We talked of walking the 1839 Newport Rising.

We dropped down Time’s wormholes n so many ways
At the Roman villa at Woodchester,
Where Robin Treefellow transported us
With his fictive account of a servant’s life there,
Druid mistletoe shrouding the lime trees;

Thanks to Deborah Roberts for the above photos – www.deborahroberts.biz

Well that was a walk, that was,
For we explored boundaries,
Spatial, temporal, linguistic, social, spiritual, rational,
By exploring Jon Seagrave’s Stroud map of the subjective,
Of the emotional and the affective,
Rather than the conventional topography:
The boundary between landscape and experience;

We explored the archaeology of industry:
Rusting capstans and a forgotten railway turntable,
John Seagrave was talking of how the turntable
Could accommodate one wagon at a time only,
For the winch down to the gasworks,
And, oddly, in true time-shift fashion,
I noticed a notelet recently dropped
On the ground nearby:
‘DO NOT DOUBLE STACK’;

Pleased by this coincidence of time and space,
This damp leaf typescript revenant,
Our quickening pace took us back
To 1920s guides to London walking,
Gordon Maxwell and HV Morton;
We planned a Captain Swing memorial walk,
Along the old Tetbury branch line,
To the Trouble House Inn;
We talked of walking the 1839 Newport Rising.

We dropped down Time’s wormholes n so many ways
At the Roman villa at Woodchester,
Where Robin Treefellow transported us
With his fictive account of a servant’s life there,
Druid mistletoe shrouding the lime trees;

We walked an ancient track-way,
Courtesy of Bob Fry,
Up a fern filled holloway,
Over iron brown stained springs,
To a Neolithic long barrow,
And subsequent Saxon meeting place,
And boundary marker for the Hundreds,
Where Stuart Butler led us through a linguistic boundary,
To the world of the sacred and the profane;
We toasted Faunus with spoons and wine,
Our libations and offerings to the god,
Bubbling and oddly foaming in the soil’s fissures,
While sky larks ascended with a song;

We discussed how wood anemones could be a palimpsest,
A signpost to forgotten woodland and forest,
As we descended to Selsey Church,
And William Morris stained glass windows,
The early spring light, lustrous,
Streaming over the snowdrops.

We discussed our next two walks,
Both Romano-British in outline,
Sapperton, Oakridge, Bisley and Stroud;
Painswick, Stroud and Rodborough,
With readings from The Mildenhall Treasure,
To entertain and inform,
And studies of Roman maps –
Details to follow.

But as for today,
That was a walk that was,
A magical mystery tour through time and space and language:
That was a walk that was.

Feb 23rd 2018 – Terminalia Festival of Psychogeography

The below has been sent to the Walking Artists Network. Good to see us headlining above London!

‘Here are more details about the events across the UK currently planned for Terminalia: Festival of Psychogeography 2018 held on Friday Feb 23rd 2018

http://terminaliafestival.org/#events

  • 10am, Stroud. Radical Stroud: Terminalia Festival Walk
  • 11am, Seasalter, nr Whitstable, Kent. Elspeth Penfold: Walking with The Waste Land
  • 1pm, Aberystwyth. Roger Boyle: Terminalia – An Aberystwyth Celebration Walk
  • 5.30pm, Leeds. Beating the Bounds Walk – Circular walk around our boundary of Leeds
  • 6.30pm, London, Nathania Hartley: Tapping Into The City: Group Walk – Stratford

Many thanks and I hope you have a Happy Terminalia!

Tim Waters

The below has been sent to the Walking Artists Network. Good to see us headlining above London!

‘Here are more details about the events across the UK currently planned for Terminalia: Festival of Psychogeography 2018 held on Friday Feb 23rd 2018

http://terminaliafestival.org/#events

  •  10am, Stroud. Radical Stroud: Terminalia Festival Walk
  •  11am, Seasalter, nr Whitstable, Kent. Elspeth Penfold: Walking with The Waste Land
  •  1pm, Aberystwyth. Roger Boyle: Terminalia – An Aberystwyth Celebration Walk
  •  5.30pm, Leeds. Beating the Bounds Walk – Circular walk around our boundary of Leeds
  •  6.30pm, London, Nathania Hartley: Tapping Into The City: Group Walk – Stratford

Many thanks and I hope you have a Happy Terminalia!

Tim Waters

———————-

10am, Stroud. Radical Stroud: Terminalia Festival Walk

The folks at Radical Stroud have a walk planned for Stroud involving three very different interactions with boundaries and landmarks: spatial, temporal and linguistic.

1. Meet at the Upper Lockkeeper’s Café at 10am when Jon Seagrave will explain how the shadowy operatives of Stroud & District Psychogeography and Deep Topography Commission are attempting a ‘subjective remapping’ of the town, asking for YOUR assistance in locating the unseen energies that shape and guide our everyday actions here in the bosom of the Five Valleys. Where did YOU have your first kiss? Where do YOU go when you want tranquillity, or fancy a fist-fight? Help identify Aggression Hotpots, Enlightenment Nodes and Knee-Trembler Clusters! Ritual Pilgrimages and Fertility Dances may result!

2. Robin Treefellow will take us on a guided walk to Woodchester Roman Villa where we will slip through all manner of wormholes of Time.

3. We will then walk up Water Lane to the long barrow at Selsley where Stuart Butler will take us on a brief history of swearing: the boundaries between the sacred and the profane; the elemental and excremental; the physical and the psychical; by Janus and …
Robin Treefellow will also talk of the two names of this barrow: The Toots and the Blacklow – it was the site of the old Saxon hundred moot called Blacklow Hundred. Folk still like to gather there!
We will finish with a toast to Faunus.
Please bring food and drink to share….And so to home.

———————-

11am, Seasalter, nr Whitstable. Walking with The Waste Land

On Friday the 23rd of February, members from the walking group Walking with The Waste Land and their friends will be conducting a walk from the Sportsman Car Park in Seasalter, near Whitstable, in Kent. We will meet at 11a.m. in order to catch the low tide at 11.47.

On this walk we will walk to “Mick’s post” from here we will experiment with some low tide mud walking, using knots in ropes to record the experience.
We will then return to Mick’s post where where we will tie the knotted ropes to Mick’s post in a symbolic ritual of the celebration of Terminus.

Mick’s post is a white post in Seasalter which has been erected near the sea wall to indicate the boundary for the digging of bait in the estuary.
Images from these walks will be posted on Twitter @womenwhowalknet @elspethpenfold, using the #Terminalia hashtag. To find out more about Elspeth’s walking as research please visit her website blog: http://www.elspeth-billie-penfold.com

If you would like to attend this walk please contact Elspeth: elspethpenfold@yahoo.co.uk

———————-

1pm, Aberystwyth. Terminalia – An Aberystwyth Celebration Walk

There will be a celebration of Terminalia in Aberystwyth. Terminalia was celebrated in Aberystwyth in 2017 http://www.rogerdboyle.eu/Terminalia/terminalia17.html by a select group, and will be again in 2018. The town map is very clear to this day, and various historical sources confirm the course as:
Castle Point, South to Tan Y Cae, Along to Heol Y Bont, Dan Dre, Chalybeate Street, Baker Street, Alfred Place, Crynfryn Row, Marine Terrace, King Street, Y Ro Fawr, Castle Point
While the walls are no longer visible, their route is easy to trace. There were gates at Heol Y Bont, Great Darkgate Street, Eastgate and Pier Street, which will be noted as part of the tour. http://www.rogerdboyle.eu/Terminalia/Aberystwyth_2_w.jpg

Meet at 1pm, Castle Point (at the sea wall). The tour takes less than 30 minutes. This year we will travel clockwise, in opposition to last year. More details about the walk.
Some words of wisdom are available, http://www.rogerdboyle.eu/Terminalia/walls.pdf that enthusiasts might read in advance. Organised by Roger Boyle.

———————-

5.30pm, Leeds. Beating the Bounds Walk – Circular walk around our boundary of Leeds

5.30pm Route planning, dowsing and map browsing for a strict 6pm departure from the bar at Wharf Chambers Co-op Club . 2 hrs (easy). Bring treats to share, flowers to leave and alcoholic or soft drinks to keep you warm! With events, interventions, and special performances from local artists. Led by Tim Waters

A slightly different format to past years, we will find, in addition to the medieval stones, our own boundary markers of the city. Using crystal dowsing techniques over maps in the bar beforehand participants will plot out a route to follow within the city centre. Walkers will then head out to explore the divined places and examine whats there and uncover boundary indicators. Once done (or after a set amount of time), examining our new boundary markers and the map, we will head inwards to find the centre. At each newly found marker, we shall celebrate the boundary with snacks, drinks and flowers, do please bring some to share!

We’re happy to report that 2018 finds all the medieval boundary markers of Leeds, the bars, marked with blue plaques and/or uncovered. Our actions over the years has been successful! This year we will seek in addition to explore the city by finding new boundary places. The medieval boundary stones marked out the limits of the medieval city, and the entrances and toll booths for animals and trade. Terminus is also the god of non physical boundaries such as time and seasons and relationships. How has the city changed from ancient times – can we ask our unconcious minds where these new marks would or should be?
Beating the Bounds: Additional Interventions and Performances

Simon Bradley http://hud.academia.edu/SimonBradley will perform a guided tour of his “Pocket Museum of Displacements” at a location along the walk.

Anzir Boodoo https://twitter.com/anzrboo will perform a traditional Roman blessing at a suitable spot along the walk – possibly including an invocation to a Roman river god.

Meet 5.30pm at Wharf Chambers bar http://www.wharfchambers.org/ to be part of the essential dowsing, divination and route planning activity. We will leave the bar at 6pm sharp.
Event is free, just turn up. Tickets would be nice, they are not required but help us plan numbers. Tickets via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/397708697352784

———————-

6.30pm, London, Tapping Into The City: Group Walk – Stratford

Tapping Into The City looks at our movements through private-public space in the city, the impact of urban surroundings on us and our relations with each other.
Come and join in this live art piece – a group walk around Stratford – one of London’s most overtly regenerated areas and centres of privatised-public space (Westfield Stratford City, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and East Village are all within walking distance).

Friday 23rd February, 6.30pm. Meeting point – at the bottom of the Meridian Steps (the stairs leading up to Westfield, next to the bus and underground station and opposite Stratford Centre).
Nathania will explain the piece and then we’ll walk together for an hour or so, simply moving as one through the city space, listening to its sound and the sound of our feet. Afterwards we can retreat to a warm pub nearby. Ideally we’ll wear shoes with pennies stuck to the soles.

All welcome! Free, but please book on Eventbrite to secure your space – https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/terminalia-festival-tapping-into-the-city-group-walk-stratford-tickets-42866867956

Further info and updates on event page https://www.facebook.com/events/1700941356611797/
Tapping Into The City Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/tappedcity. Also view the project video on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/186335190
Contact info, project and other works – nathaniah@gmail.com / www.nathaniahartley.com

—–

Other Participations

Direction South West: Ursula Troche will be celebrating Terminalia, moving from London space into Torquay space, presenting her work at The Art of You Exhibition at the Artizan Gallery in Torquay, you can read more about her work for the show on Ursula’s blog: https://colourcirclesite.wordpress.com/2018/02/09/its-in-the-south-west/

—–

Call for events is still open so if you wish to run an event or participation for the day, let me know

—–

Terminalia is a one day festival of walking, space, place and psychogeography. Terminalia is the festival of Terminus, Roman god of boundaries and landmarks so if there was ever a god and festival for psychogeography this would be it! Events have been run on this day since 2011, and is programmed by you and website hosted by Tim Waters.

Read more: http://terminaliafestival.org/

Swearing Through Time

I have to confess that I’m not loath
To swear the occasional oath,
To utter an imprecation,
Or a shocking execration;
Swearing comes naturally to me,
A semantic field of obscenity,
A lexicon of profanity:
A logorrhea of filth,
A diarrhea of diction;

But let us stop for a moment and ponder
On these two words:
Obscenity and profanity;
Obscenity and profanity –
The different sides to swearing:
Swearing the truth, an oath –
For Christians, not taking the Lord’s name in vain,
Not profaning His name,

And then, the other side of the debased coin:
Obscenity – downright vulgar, bad language,
For just as cleanliness is next to Godliness,
So filth and obscenity are cheek by jowl with the Devil,
And these two tropes, the profane and the obscene,
Dance a pas de deux , a dialectic of truth and falsehood,
In a Song of Innocence and Experience,
And Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained,
Where Heaven and Hell are conjoined
In a history of swearing and cursing:
The marriage of the elemental and the excremental,
The celestial and the scatological,
A state of beatitude, a harmony of opposites,
OMG, FFS,
God Damn It,
In short:
Holy Sh*t.

But none of these expressions are to be taken literally,
Of course; the agreed meanings are not shared
In a dictionary denotative way,
Instead, associatively, connotatively,
Figuratively,
I hope you agree, you bunch of w*nkers,

Sorry, I mean walkers.

But what of swearing on the Holy Bible,
Taking an oath,
The boundary between God and Lucifer:
By God’s Bones,
Jesus Christ,
Go to Hell,
Malediction, blasphemy,
Truth and Falsehood,
Lies:
The Devil’s Work,
The Devil Take it,
Do not bear false witness,
Are you telling the truth?
Would you swear on the Bible?

The New Testament can be ambiguous
About this whole matter of swearing,
Of swearing a holy oath –
Here’s the Gospel according to Matthew:
‘But I say to you,
Do not swear at all,
either by heaven, for it is the throne of God,
or by earth, for it is his footstool …
anything more than that comes from the evil one.’
Which is why, in Medieval times,
Obscenity was acceptable,
But not ‘Zounds’, ‘God’s wounds’,
‘By the blood of Christ’,
‘By God’s arms’,
‘By God’s nails’, and so on,
Profaning the sacred could harm God Himself,
It was believed,
In a reversal of the Eucharist and sacrament,
Which is partly why the Lollards – associates
Of John Ball and the Peasants’ Revolt,
Found swearing on the Bible problematic,
And, later, the Quakers, too, rejected all pledging of oaths.

But with the decline of feudalism,
The rise of capitalism,
The consequent increase in legal contracts,
Litigation and oath taking,
The increasing secularization of society,
So obscenity replaced profanity
As the devil’s work,
With euphemism and bowdlerization,
To cap it all in the nineteenth century,
Until the demotic tongue of twentieth century war:
In the First World War,
‘F***ing’ was used so often, that it lost all
Associative or literal meanings,
And merely meant that ‘a noun is coming’,
As in ‘Get your f***ing rifles’,
A real emergency would entail
A succinct and expletive deleted,
‘Get your rifles’,
And a good job, too –
Imagine Wilfred Owen and Dulce et Decorum Est
With the line,
‘F***Ing gas! F***ing gas! A f***ing ecstasy of fumbling.’
Iambic pentameter goes right out the window,
Although there is a new and emphatic repetition,
I suppose …

And so to the Second World War,
And the end of our story,
This is a history,
Not a modern commentary,
So we will not be addressing social media,
Hate speech,
Or the reported first use of the f-word on the BBC:
The mythology surrounding Ken Tynan in November 1965:
‘I doubt if there are many rational people in this world to whom the word “f***” is particularly diabolical or revolting or forbidden’ –
In passing, note how he used the adjective ‘diabolical’,
He knew what he was talking about,
But no, we end with

‘F*** ‘em all!
F*** ‘em all!
The long and the short and the tall;
Fuck all the sergeants and W.O.I’s,
Fuck all the corporals and their bastard sons;
For we’re saying goodbye to them all,
As up the C.CO.’s they crawl,
You’ll get no promotion this side of the ocean,
So cheer up my lads, f*** ‘em all!”

And so we end with the voice of the working class male,
And of George Formby and Vera Lynn,
Voices that helped bring socialism in 1945,
But today, the lesson is over,
No more History today,
No more psycho-geography on the timetable,
The bell is ringing for us to go home.
Thank Christ for that,
I hear you say.

Inspired by HOLY SH*T
A BRIEF HISTORY OF SWEARING
Melissa Mohr
OUP

Counter-Heritage Weekend Programme

STROUD COUNTER-HERITAGE WEEKEND FEBRUARY 3rd-4th

The Centre for Science and Art,
Lansdowne,
Stroud

SATURDAY
10am Doors open

The following events are timetabled, but there are events running throughout the day. Scroll down until you see the heading

EVENTS RUNNING THROUGHOUT THE DAY

10.30: The People History Forgot to Remember: tour of Stroud cemetery with Angela Findlay, artist & cemetery resident
Using poetry, diary extracts and performance to explore attitudes to death from the 1850s onwards, the hidden symbols used in gravestones, the fate of those deemed ‘paupers’ & workhouse life.

Meeting point: Lower Cemetery Lodge, 114 Bisley Road, GL5 1HG, just inside the gates of the cemetery
Tickets available at location – some parts of the walk are not wheelchair accessible, but many parts are.

STROUD COUNTER-HERITAGE WEEKEND FEBRUARY 3rd-4th

The Centre for Science and Art,
Lansdowne,
Stroud

SATURDAY
10am Doors open

The following events are timetabled, but there are events running throughout the day. Scroll down until you see the heading

EVENTS RUNNING THROUGHOUT THE DAY

10.30: The People History Forgot to Remember: tour of Stroud cemetery with Angela Findlay, artist & cemetery resident
Using poetry, diary extracts and performance to explore attitudes to death from the 1850s onwards, the hidden symbols used in gravestones, the fate of those deemed ‘paupers’ & workhouse life.

Meeting point: Lower Cemetery Lodge, 114 Bisley Road, GL5 1HG, just inside the gates of the cemetery
Tickets available at location – some parts of the walk are not wheelchair accessible, but many parts are.

10.30 The Soldier & the Snaggles: Children’s story time with John Bassett
A lively interactive story-telling session from Spaniel in the Works featuring one of Stroud’s best-loved landmarks.

The Snaggles are coming!! But what is a Snaggle?  How can they beaten? Only the soldier knows how but can he stop them in time?

This lively 30 minute interactive storytelling session for under 7’s explores the five senses using lots of participation including music and dance.    Suitable for everyone, perfect for under 7s.

Location: Centre for Science & Art, Lansdown – Blue Room

11.30 Be a part of the new film Days of Hope: Call for extras

A NEW film telling how a 5000 strong mob descended on Selsley Hill for a mass Chartist rally in 1839 has been awarded funding (with thanks to Stroud Festival)

  • 11.30 Signing the Chartist petition as part of the film
  • 1.30 – 3.30 for the centre filming of petition paragraphs – “Be a part of Days of Hope – the Chartists in Stroud”
  • ALSO SCROLL DOWN TO SEE A CHARTIST WALK FOR THE FILM ON SUNDAY – MEET AT THE CAFÉ ON THE CANAL AT WALLBRIDGE 10a.m.

11.30am Wild Boar Gin Lounge totally preposterous family quiz about Stroud
Do you know your adjustable spanner from your elbow?  Can you name every single one of the 5 valleys? In Spanish? The WBGL ladies will lead you a merry dance with music, history and general knowledge. As well as questions that only children will be able to answer.

Some light-hearted family fun, which promises to be based almost entirely on actual facts. Probably. And wonderful prizes too!

Location: Centre for Science & Art, Lansdowne – Blue Room

12.30 Children’s story time with Tracy Spiers: The tale of Uley Blue
Talented author and illustrator will be reading the wonderful tale of Uley Blue – a little hare with a big imagination who turns a visit to Museum in  the Park into a magical adventure.

Tracy will enchant a family audience with tales of tea with ammonites, riding mammoths across Cainscross roundabout, paintings coming to life, and dancing statues.

Location: Centre for Science & Art, Lansdowne – Blue Room

12.45 Conscientious Objectors WW1 Walk with Jon Seagrave
A short walking tour linking war memorials in town with a presentation about the forgotten history of the area’s conscientious objectors.

Questions to consider: How should this forgotten history remembered? Have you got stories to share?

Accessibility: There are steps up into the church from Lansdowne, but wheelchair users can reach the church via the High Street and the Shambles.

Meet at Centre for Science & Art, Lansdowne

12.45pm – 2.15pm (in Woodchester) Roman Villa walk – Robin Treefellow

A walk to the site of the Orpheus Mosaic & Woodchester Villa along the cycle track (no arduous slopes, a possibility of mud) where Robin will explain what life would have been like in the valleys when it was inhabited with wealthy Roman families.

There were temples to Roman gods perched on top of local hills, and up to a down other villas, which are buried beneath our feet.

Robin will point out areas of historical interest, answer the questions you’ve always wanted answered (What did the Romans ever do for Stroud?) plus there’ll be snacks passed around that would have been typically eaten by wealthy families at the time.

2pm Alice Jolly reads from her new book
Centre for Science & Art, Lansdowne

3pm – 4.30pm The Dangerous Woman of Stroud walk & talk 

Discover the women that helped shape our town, and our political landscape. This gentle stroll around the town centre will touch on some of the key figures, and locations, from the suffrage movement.

Our very own ‘Dangerous Woman’ Margaret Hill will take centre stage!

And of course, your guides Chas Townley and Jacqui Stearn will be on hand to recount key moments in history, answer your questions and encourage you to look at the familiar streets and buildings in a whole new way.

Stroud Alternative Histories – After Dark (Not recommended for children under 14 – parental discretion advised.)

7pm – 1am – Jonny Fluffypunk MC’s our after dark activities – Not recommended for children under 14 – parental discretion advised.

7.45 Uta Baldauf – counter heritage poetry performance 

8.30 Little Metropolis Adam Horovitz and Joe Reeve

9.45 Muddy Summers & the DFWs

11 – 1 Ben Vacara & Mr Mulatto of Situation Sounds 

EVENTS RUNNING THROUGHOUT THE DAY

Deborah Roberts & Stuart Butler – A People’s Museum – Blue Room – How to make your own museum – Collect fun counter-heritage tasks for the streets of Stroud

Jonny Fluffy Punk – An alternative memory map 

Wild Boar Gin Lounge Presents: Alternative Family Fun

    • Colouring and family quizzes throughout the day
    • Dress up as a suffragette and have your photo taken (male or female)
    • Family friendly treasure hunt and selfie tour of Stroud
    • Games of “consequences” about Stroud
    • Films of raves, protest etc of Stroud
    • Prizes for all the above will be a lucky dip.

Blue Room (1st floor) Centre for Science & Art, Lansdowne

Tickets available from the Centre for Science & Art, Lansdowne

Sunday 4th February 

A two to three hour performative Chartist walk to Selsley Common, meeting at the Lock-keeper’s Café at Wallbridge at 10 o’clock. The walk will be filmed for the Days of Hope Chartist film.

North and South

There, on the one hand, St. Pancras and Paris;
And there, on the other, Kings Cross:
Gateway to the LNER,
And night mails crossing the border,

And gateway to a world we have lost:
Pit heads and winding gear, tram-roads and collieries,
And curling smoke chimney stacks:
The world of the North,

The canvas telling the truth,
Up there in the Mining Art Gallery,
At Bishop Auckland:

A terrible beauty down there in the dark depths,
And a beautiful harmony up there in the streets
And homes and chapels and clubs and pubs:
The stippled mist-light of the pit village,
The twisted sinews in the eighteen inch seam,
Ears keening with the creak of each pit prop,
The mind tracking the echo of dripping water,
And the whisper of each rock –

There, on the one hand, St. Pancras and Paris;
And there, on the other, Kings Cross:
Gateway to the LNER,
And night mails crossing the border,

And gateway to a world we have lost:
Pit heads and winding gear, tram-roads and collieries,
And curling smoke chimney stacks:
The world of the North,

The canvas telling the truth,
Up there in the Mining Art Gallery,
At Bishop Auckland:

A terrible beauty down there in the dark depths,
And a beautiful harmony up there in the streets
And homes and chapels and clubs and pubs:
The stippled mist-light of the pit village,
The twisted sinews in the eighteen inch seam,
Ears keening with the creak of each pit prop,
The mind tracking the echo of dripping water,
And the whisper of each rock –

The unspoken fear of entombment,
The threat of explosion;

Eyes quick and darting,

The scent of fire damp,
Methane in the air;

And then there, on another broad canvas,
The women in the kitchen, curlers in the hair,
Stoking up the fire, preparing the bait,
Eyes smarting in the washday steam;

Out there,
Pigeons and whippets and ponies in the field,
Spuds for sale with the Christmas wreaths,
Communal allotments and shared apple trees,

The colliery football teams,
Like West Auckland,
Winners of the first World Cup in 1908 –
They beat Juventus and all,
But didn’t get paid while they were away,

But at least their wives and mothers and sisters
Weren’t grieving at the pithead though,
Grieving for their menfolk,
Trapped down there below,
Bodies trapped and wrapped by the black gold,
The black gold that heated the homes and mansions,
The factories, warehouses, palaces, stations and offices,
The black gold
That powered the smiths, and forges and furnaces,
That powered the trains and shipping lines,
The battleships and the dreadnoughts.

But we were now gazing at a sunset smelted sky
Flaming out over drystone walls and snow capped hills,
And the tumps of old lead mines,

While Christmas lights blazed in the villages,
While pub windows glowed orange in the twilight,
Beyond the nail parlours and tattoo shops,

While we tracked the paths of Charles Dickens,
Wackford Squeers, Smike and Nicholas Nickleby,
Through Barnard Castle and thence to Durham,
Where men and women swopped tales of football,
And where three pints cost six quid,
And where we were allowed to serve ourselves,
While coal, not dole, fires roared in Victorian grates,

Until we went to the People’s Bookshop,
Where books to inspire and educate and value
All line the shelves,
Not priced, but there for a donation,
What you could afford –

And where we talked of a divided ruling class,
And where we talked of victory,
Victory for the working class,
Victory at the next election,
As the sun once more sank in the west;

And so to the Pitmen’s Parliament,
Where a vast audience gathered
Beneath the banners of past struggles and victories,
For a class struggle film of Dennis Skinner,
And talk not just of class,
But of race and gender, too,
Where the ghosts of Socialism past,
Embraced those of Socialism Present and Future,
A world not so much as lost,
As a paradise waiting to be regained,
A union of North and South:

‘Oh, Jeremy Corbyn.’

‘In the bar room, in the bar room,
That’s where we congregate,
To drill the holes, shovel coals and shovel up the slate,
And for to do a job of work,
Oh, I am never late,
That’s provided we can do it in the bar room.’

Bristol: Clichéd Football; Radical History

Temple Meads via Swindon, 14 quid?
Temple Meads via Gloucester, only 7?
Well, that meant a ride through the warehouse edgelands,
And the buddleia rusting railway lines to Gloucester
(‘YES MATE’, as it said under the bridge),
But there was time enough for a trip down football’s memory lane
With a Swindon fan at Stroud:
‘No football at Ebley, now, look.
Nothin’.
Nothin’ at Ebley anymore’
I said I was off to watch Derby at Bristol City,
And he recalled
Swindon beating Derby one nil,
November 5th 1968:
‘Best Bonfire Night I ever had.’
We talked of FGR:
‘You be careful at Forest Green on Friday.
I know about 200 Swindon fans will be at the FGR end.’
‘I know mate. I’ll be one of them. With my red and white scarf.’
He looked at me with new and slightly befuddled admiration.
He slapped me on the back:
‘Fair play on ya, mate. Fair play.’

Temple Meads via Swindon, 14 quid?
Temple Meads via Gloucester, only 7?
Well, that meant a ride through the warehouse edgelands,
And the buddleia rusting railway lines to Gloucester
(‘YES MATE’, as it said under the bridge),
But there was time enough for a trip down football’s memory lane
With a Swindon fan at Stroud:
‘No football at Ebley, now, look.
Nothin’.
Nothin’ at Ebley anymore’
I said I was off to watch Derby at Bristol City,
And he recalled
Swindon beating Derby one nil,
November 5th 1968:
‘Best Bonfire Night I ever had.’
We talked of FGR:
‘You be careful at Forest Green on Friday.
I know about 200 Swindon fans will be at the FGR end.’
‘I know mate. I’ll be one of them. With my red and white scarf.’
He looked at me with new and slightly befuddled admiration.
He slapped me on the back:
‘Fair play on ya, mate. Fair play.’

I watched the world go by at Gloucester for a while,
A goods train trundled through:
60091, Barry Needham,
Named after a coal train controller:
Barry died tragically in a railway accident,
Giving his time freely, on a day off –
His mates paid for the nameplate …

I read some Ian Sinclair through the Severn Vale
(Old trainspotting terrain with my brother),
Thinking I could divine Ian Sinclair’s style:
Minute description; simile; recent fact; historical fact;
Slightly occult reference; minute description …
OMG,
Is this what we all do?

We rattled through the suburbs of Bristol
To reach Temple Meads,
Middle class pasty at Harts,
Then a ferry to Hotwells, by the Nova Scotia,
To walk past the beer-fuelled Derby fans:
‘We are Derby, Super Derby, Super Derby, Super Rams’,
And so a tryst at the John Atyeo statue,
A sight of police with guns (Parsons Green),
And an open end to end game of two halves
(‘May the best team win!’),
0-1 after 45 minutes,
4-1 after 90 –
Sometimes the clichéd games are the best:
There’s a reason for a cliché, isn’t there?

The next day I walked past St. Mary Redcliffe
(Coleridge and Chatterton and Old Rowley –
And bells ringing to celebrate the defeat of a slavery abolition bill),
Past The Ship and Colston Parade,
To reach the Docks, the MSHED,
And the Bristol Radical History Festival
(‘Countering Colston’):
A wonderfully vibrant day where kindred spirits,
Like minded activists, historians, performers, walkers,
Artists, speakers, poets, writers and puppeteers
Presented a different view of the past:
History from below,
Authentic history,
History that goes beyond the clichéd:
For while a cliché might suffice
When describing a train journey,
Or a football match –
Real and Radical History
Takes you beyond the cliché of Heritage:
It cleanses your perception,
It opens doors,
To momentarily extinguish
‘The guttering candle’
Of clichéd Heritage;
Then illuminates the darkness
With a Captain Swing blaze of truth.

Bristol Doors Open Days

Bristol Doors Open Days
The Merchants’ Hall
indocilis pauperiem pati
‘One who cannot learn to bear poverty’

What did I learn about our ‘Island Story’
On a squally September rain-swept day,
At the Merchants’ Hall, and Redcliffe Caves?
Well, we formed an orderly queue at the Hall,
Bantering with the pinstriped beadle,
Before our guide escorted us to the hall,
Where our talk began.

It was informative, in a manner of speaking:
The chandeliers are cleaned every two years!
Sixty-eight people can sit at this table!
When a speaker addresses an audience here,
The chairs are moved to face the front!
Princess Anne likes the Merchant Venturers!
Here are pictures of the docks in the 18th century!
(No mention yet…)
Royal Charters galore!
Portraits galore!
One day there will be a woman on the wall!
And a female ‘Master’ of the Society,
And she shalt have the title of ‘Master’!
The voice went on about the Society’s charitable enterprises,
I glanced at a couple of their annual reports:
‘New Schools’ Trust Offers Diversity’
(Conventional trope of girl in a science lab.),
More stuff on academies, residential care for the elderly,
‘Social business’ (sic), almshouses,
The ownership of Clifton Downs,
‘Although some 460 years old, the Society
is fresh and full of vigour and purpose’;
‘ … The Society and Bristol prospered. Trading patterns changed
over the centuries, with the later years marked
by the appalling period of slave trading in the 18th century.’
It all felt a bit Kafkaesque,
An arcane, shadowy world of ruling class disinformation …
Where philanthropy and charity
Obscures the hierarchy of ruling class control…

Bristol Doors Open Days
The Merchants’ Hall
indocilis pauperiem pati
‘One who cannot learn to bear poverty’

What did I learn about our ‘Island Story’
On a squally September rain-swept day,
At the Merchants’ Hall, and Redcliffe Caves?
Well, we formed an orderly queue at the Hall,
Bantering with the pinstriped beadle,
Before our guide escorted us to the hall,
Where our talk began.

It was informative, in a manner of speaking:
The chandeliers are cleaned every two years!
Sixty-eight people can sit at this table!
When a speaker addresses an audience here,
The chairs are moved to face the front!
Princess Anne likes the Merchant Venturers!
Here are pictures of the docks in the 18th century!
(No mention yet…)
Royal Charters galore!
Portraits galore!
One day there will be a woman on the wall!
And a female ‘Master’ of the Society,
And she shalt have the title of ‘Master’!
The voice went on about the Society’s charitable enterprises,
I glanced at a couple of their annual reports:
‘New Schools’ Trust Offers Diversity’
(Conventional trope of girl in a science lab.),
More stuff on academies, residential care for the elderly,
‘Social business’ (sic), almshouses,
The ownership of Clifton Downs,
‘Although some 460 years old, the Society
is fresh and full of vigour and purpose’;
‘ … The Society and Bristol prospered. Trading patterns changed
over the centuries, with the later years marked
by the appalling period of slave trading in the 18th century.’
It all felt a bit Kafkaesque,
An arcane, shadowy world of ruling class disinformation …
Where philanthropy and charity
Obscures the hierarchy of ruling class control…

The clock chimed the hour.
‘Well, that’s the end of the tour. Any questions?’
‘Only the inevitable question about slavery:
How did the Society benefit from slavery?’
‘Well of course, it’s no secret that individual merchants were involved in the slave trade. But not the Society itself.’
Fair enough then.
Off we went into the rain,
Out past the pinstriped bantering beadle,
And down to Redcliffe Caves:
‘Contrary to rumour slaves were never kept in the caves …
slaves were never directly traded through Bristol itself.’

Outside, ignored by most of the throng,
A fenced site, tagged edgeland tumbledown,
Demolition awaiting,
And on the side,
A searing depiction of a slave ship,
A searing work of art,
With this message about our ‘Island Story’:
‘IN MEMORY
of the ones that were
TAKEN AWAY from their
Freedom, STOLEN from
THEIR FAMILIES AND
HISTORY’
I asked an official at the caves:
‘Is this a publicly sanctioned work of art
or a guerrilla memorialization?’
‘Not sanctioned.
It appeared mysteriously overnight about nine months ago.’

It had been an old school sort of day,
So I decided to do some homework back in Stroud,
Got Madge Dresser’s Slavery Obscured down from the shelf,
Leafed through the index to discover:
One:
‘By the beginning of the seventeenth century, Bristol’s Society of Merchant Venturers, first established in 1552, had re-formed and consolidated its position as the most exclusive voice of the city’s overseas merchants. This was the very time which saw the establishment of a British presence in the Caribbean and the mainland colonies.’
Two:
‘In 1690 John Carey acted as an agent for the Merchant Venturers in London and was appointed … along with others, to draw up a petition for Parliament for “letting the merchants of this City to a share in the African trade.”’
Three:
‘In 1692, he advanced the Society of Merchant Venturers £600 towards the building of a new quay and cranes on the Bristol docks, for which he was soon reimbursed.’
Four:
‘Much Clifton property was owned by the Society of Merchant Venturers , and the eighteenth century saw the progressive development in both bespoke and speculative housing … Clifton was awash with slave-based wealth.’
Five:
‘In Bristol, the Society of Merchant Venturers, which had organized a memorial against abolition in March 1788 went on the following year to organize a group of African and West India merchants and manufacturers with related interests to rally around the anti-abolitionist cause.’

The clock chimed the hour.
‘Well, that’s the end of the tour. Any questions?’
‘Only the inevitable question about slavery:
How did the Society benefit from slavery?’
‘Well of course, it’s no secret that individual merchants were involved in the slave trade. But not the Society itself.’

Stroud Fringe Walk: Place, Space and Time

Beneath the pavement, the beach! For here we have a line of houses called Streamside, And up there, beyond the Fountain pub, Lies Springfield Road and a plethora Of constant, subterranean springs, Springs! The genius loci of Stroud …

We walked down Lansdowne, To cross the Slad Brook, at Mill House, In search of the edgelands, Puddles, brooks and panel beaters, Car dealers, buddleia, car parks and cinemas, Past the Dickensian Omar L. Cottle, Monumental mason, The nominative determinism of a park, Named after a Park, Past strange continuities in the street: The chemist’s on the corner, Where in 1872, A chemist by the name of Joseph Banks Campaigned for a farm workers’ trade union, And no more payment in truck: ‘In sterling money, not fat bacon …or a couple of swedes’,

Then to Badbrook and weavers’ riots, ‘We had been working ever longer time for ever cankered pennies all the year. Something needed doing. So we laid our shuttles and looms to rest and joined the Stroud Valleys Weavers Union. This is my true and faithful account. I cannot dissemble. The Good Book tells us that we should get our bread by the sweat of our brow. We had the sweat but no bread. What could we do?’

Thanks to Peter Bruce for the above images.

Beneath the pavement, the beach! For here we have a line of houses called Streamside, And up there, beyond the Fountain pub, Lies Springfield Road and a plethora Of constant, subterranean springs, Springs! The genius loci of Stroud …

We walked down Lansdowne, To cross the Slad Brook, at Mill House, In search of the edgelands, Puddles, brooks and panel beaters, Car dealers, buddleia, car parks and cinemas, Past the Dickensian Omar L. Cottle, Monumental mason, The nominative determinism of a park, Named after a Park, Past strange continuities in the street: The chemist’s on the corner, Where in 1872, A chemist by the name of Joseph Banks Campaigned for a farm workers’ trade union, And no more payment in truck: ‘In sterling money, not fat bacon …or a couple of swedes’,

Then to Badbrook and weavers’ riots, ‘We had been working ever longer time for ever cankered pennies all the year. Something needed doing. So we laid our shuttles and looms to rest and joined the Stroud Valleys Weavers Union. This is my true and faithful account. I cannot dissemble. The Good Book tells us that we should get our bread by the sweat of our brow. We had the sweat but no bread. What could we do?’

On past the culverted brook, Mcdonald’s, (Who owns the brook?) Edgelands car park signage, Underneath the dirty old town railway viaduct, Along the canal, past old turnpike gates, Behind Lodgemore Mill, past sluice gates and leats, Listening to the voices of the dispossessed, ‘I was baptized Josephine, but I call myself Joe now: I never felt comfortable in a woman’s clothes … a professional legger, An inland navigator of sorts, a sort of hybrid, My sex hidden by fustian, and the subterranean Depths, down there where the fossils remind us Of Noah, the ark, the deluge, and the dove of peace.’ Past old mill buildings – there a self storage centre – Past fences with endless toppings of rolled barbed wire, Past Springfield Cottage, along the Cainscross Road, Skirting the site of the toll house riots, Along suburban footpaths that could be Saxon, Or even prehistoric in provenance, Linking lines of hills and valleys, An edgelands liminal palimpsest … Past more streams and springs at Puck’s Hole, To reach Bread Street and hear of the 1766 food riots, ‘Many that are under sentence of death thought they were doing a meritorious act at the very moment they were forfeiting their lives’,

And so down dale and uphill to sit for study (A silent group gathered on the pasture) Randwick’s 1832 experiment of dispensing with money; Gazing up to the village’s labyrinth of footpaths, Built in exchange for raiment, food, bibles and tokens, ‘Personal Decency promoted, AND IMMORALITY CHECKED, Exchanging Men’s idle time for the Blessings of Food and Raiment. Randwick 1832.’ And thence past Callowell, (so many watery names!), More springs, And the ghost of a turnpike bar at Salmon Springs, Through Stratford Park, past its museum, And narrow gauge railway, To exchange addresses and reflect on Rebecca Solnit – The meaning of our pilgrimage: ‘We think space is about place, in fact it is really about time.’

Thanks to Mark Hewlett for the below image:

Edgelands and Industry: A Look at Hidden Stroud in Space and Time

Announcing “Edgelands and Industry: a look at Hidden Stroud in Space and Time” – A fringe-time walke:

We are a collaborative group unearthing the radical history of Stroud through walking and mapping the landscape, interpreting and re-imagining our local history. Following the huge success of our walk as part of last year’s Stroud Fringe we will be setting off again from The Fountain Inn, Slad Road at 4:00pm on Sunday. This year’s performative walk, ‘Edgelands and Industry: a look at hidden Stroud in space and time’ is approximately 3 hours long, (you can also join the walk at the Upper Lock Cafe at 4:30pm) ends at the The Fountain Inn at 7:00pm with some reflective performance about the walk and a well earned drink!