Swindon in the Past Lane

The 20th Swindon Festival of Literature was well and truly launched today at The Old Reference Library, Swindon with masterful words, music and just a little mayhem. The Swindon Festival of Literature was homegrown at Lower Shaw Farm in 1993 in collaboration with Book Auctioneer Dominic Winter and today remains a Swindon based enterprise with local designers, printers and organisers.  Festival guru Matt Holland looked back over a score of literature festivals with pride, affection and a rhyming couplet before embarking upon a Think Slam!  challenge  with Sara-Jane Arbury. Matt touted for support with the promise of complimentary tickets but Sara-Jane won by 253 points to 235 as she questioned the need to wear clothes and declared 'body freedom's no crime.' Next came Linda Lee, choir mistress extraordinaire, founder of the Swindon Scratch Choir, and Lower Shaw Farm volunteer Kelly, who sang The Wandering Aengus by W.B. Yeats. Rod Bluh, long serving Leader of Swi...

Jean and Tuc surrounded by young members of their family   August 31st Wind still in the right quarter and blowing fresh. Passed Madeira today leaving it about 120 miles to the eastward. The weather is beginning to feel hotter every day and one or two of the 2nd cabin passengers have taken to sleeping out on the deck. It is generally predicted that we are in for a 4 months voyage at least. I most decidedly hope not, seeing that we are beginning to long for land already. Progress 175. The Rev Henry Tuckey and his young bride Frances had been on board the SS Ashburton barely three weeks when he made this entry in his diary. Unfortunately Henry's fears were confirmed with the passage from Gravesend to Nelson, New Zealand taking a total of 109 days in 1859. Henry led an eventful life, serving as parish priest, sheep farmer and classics master, but it was his Wiltshire roots that found Jean Tuckey undertaking some long distance rummaging about in Rodbourne Cheney parish register...

If an Englishman's home is his castle, what message is conveyed by these front doors on Bath Road? Pull up the drawbridge or welcome - step inside and stay awhile, let me take your coat and sit by the fire, I'll put the kettle on. Building on Bath Road took off in around 1830 when property such as the elegant Apsley House was built for Charles Axford  Fox.  The development rapidly became an area for wealthy inhabitants of the genteel Old Town in contrast to the industrial clamour for housing at the bottom of the hill. Perhaps a candle lit chandelier once hung behind the fanlight at Fairview where James Fearnley Carlyle, a civil engineer, lived with his wife and three young children in 1881.  Whose task would it have been to sweep away that carpet of golden autumn leaves I wonder?  Not Miss Adkins the governess, nor Emma Augore the cook; another job for housemaid Florence Tonkin maybe. At number 33 Alice Deacon and her daughter Mary had thei...

Swindon Central Library celebrated International Women's Day with poetry, dancing and art in a day packed full of activities. In the morning Bea Menier shared her colourful journals and showed us how to make every day count in her Creative Journaling workshop while  Juliet Platt  introduced us to reflective journaling in her afternoon workshop. Other contributors included  Hilda Sheehan , writer, performer and arts events organiser, who read from her newly published book The Night My Sister Went to Hollywood and encouraged members of the audience to read some of their favourite poems. Dance teacher and director of Bollywood Dreamers Dorothy Clarke talked about her work in Swindon's twin town of Ocotal and gave a demonstration of a dance she taught on a visit to the Nicaraguan capital. The International Women's Day extravaganza was the inspiration of historian, writer and campaigner for women's education and empowerment Rosa Matheson. In 2011 Rosa published ...

Today's Covent Garden is a very different place to where my 3x great grandfather George Ruthven used to pound his beat in 1810.  Or is it? Once a 'convent' garden, the Italianate development was the brain child of the Earl of Bedford in the 17th century. Initially home to the rich and influential, by 1670 a number of sheds and stalls selling fruit and veg had pitched up along the south side of the square and the demographics of the area promptly changed. At the end of the 18th century it was better known for its brothels. Samuel Derrick, failed actor and smelly poet, compiled Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies: Or, Man of Pleasure's Kalender.  Originally thought to have been the work of John Harrison, head waiter at the Shakespeare's Head, it is now believed that Harrison merely loaned his name to the best seller, earning a commission for so doing. In 1810 seventeen year old George Thomas Joseph Ruthven joined his father and elder brother as an offic...

Fans of live music will be looking anxiously at popular venue The Vic as news broke this week that it is up for sale. Licensees David Young and Anna Spawson have decided to call it a day after eight successful and extremely busy years. The Old Town pub on the corner of Victoria Road and Union Row was built in 1845 and quickly proved popular with the punters.  In 1847 landlady Emma Pike was prosecuted for opening after hours at what was then a humble beerhouse. In 1867 the property was rebuilt and let to Oxfordshire brewer Clinch & Co of Witney on a yearly basis. By 1907 the pub was known as the Victoria Inn where Mark Applegate was behind the bar.  Later owned by Wadley Brothers of the Sun Brewery, Highworth the pub was acquired by Trowbridge brewers Ushers when they took over Wadleys in 1918. David and Anna told the Advertiser that business is booming, which is part of the problem.  After eight hectic years the couple are in need of a break, although David...

National Libraries Day celebrations didn't end on Saturday.  Well not at Penhill Library they didn't where youngsters got down and sticky making musical instruments. With glitter as far as the eye could see and more lentils then you could shake a stick at, the children transformed the humble Pringle pot into a shaker ahead of yet another fun day on Friday. Neil Mercer will be joining the budding musicians at Penhill 11-12 on Friday for a nursery rhyme mash up. Don't be put off if you missed out on making a shaker, there are plenty of instruments to go around.