The team
Angela Hicken
Madelaine - the book thief
Penny- Rose Ratcliffe
Rachel the editor- Jane the Archivist
Cordelia Gray- Friday Next
- Jacky Percival
Other teams
Words & Walks Find!
Earlier this year Arts, Libraries and Countryside launched a writing competition, encouraging the public to gain inspiration from the Royal Victoria Country Park, its history and location, then put pen to paper to produce either a short story or poem. The winning adult poem was by Lynda O'Neill, an active member of the local writing community, who composed a beautiful poem evoking the history of Netley Military Hospital that once stood in the park's grounds and had housed an injured Wilfred Owen.
The competition embraced the very basis of the 'Made in England' project from which the Reading Detectives developed - art inspired by local landscape.
Lynda's poem is reproduced in full here ~
Embroidery
In the photo a soldier embroiders,
his one leg outstretched in a wooden wheelchair.
Therapy for splintered synapses,
eyes and ears and nostrils,
unblessed by amnesia.
In jolting hospital footage
men salute, march compulsively.
Agitated beyond torment, they groan and curse,
sing 'Pack up your troubles...'
hoot endlessly with unamused laughter.
Were you made to embroider, Wilfred,
by soft-voiced nurses who knew nothing of your poems?
Were you numb, compliant, or did you rage?
Did you think it pointless doing satin stitch and daisy chains
to reproduce flowers in quiet fields?
Other winning and runner up entries can be read at http://www3.hants.gov.uk/rvcp/words-and-walks
11 September 2009 from Angela Hicken
Finds
- And here is one we missed
- And, finally, one for Hallowe'en
- How did we miss this one?
- John Wyndham's Hampshire connection
- Reading the countryside
- New Milton's new Milton
- Heywood Sumner in South Gorley
- PG Wodehouse in Emsworth
- Walking In My Sleep
- Nicola Slade's Victorian Mysteries
- England's Lost Eden
- June Tate
- Bullington
- Speed The Plough: A Country Song
- A Hampshire scarecrow: Worzel Gummidge
- Queens Arms
- Haslar Hospital Memories
- Magical writing for children
- Inspired by the Tichborne Claimant
- Gypsy Girl Trilogy
- Rev. Gilbert White (1720-1793) and The Natural History of Selborne
- Coffee with Date and Walnut Loaf
- The Play Room
- Kipling's dislikes
- Deadman's Plack
- Netley Abbey Ruins
- Portsea Sagas
- Lilian Harry's Family Connections
- Crossing the Bar
- John Betjeman and Bevis Hillier
- Growing up in Portsmouth
- More Edward Thomas
- Two blokes and a shed
- In the shadow of the Cathedral
- Hampshire Days
- Mr Hardy Writes a Poem
- "Steep" is apt
- Thackeray in Fareham
- Forgotten Favourite?
- Daniel Clay's 'Broken'
- Pell and Tess
- Edward Thomas and Froxfield
- Betjeman explores hidden corners of Hampshire
- Rebecca Smith
- Right of Access
- Hampshire songs, poems, and ditties
- In this house
- Words & Walks
- England, Their England
- An Ode to a Road
- The story of a house
- Crime Connections to the City
- John Keat's Ode to Autumn
- William Lisle Bowles, poet
- Future Princes of Winchester
- Spike Island by Philip Hoare
- The marriage of souls
- Rural Rides: William Cobbett
- Elinor Brent-Dyer remembered
- Dornford Yates' Hampshire connection
- The Marlows, their maker and stealing a corner of Dorset
- Saint Cross: England's Oldest Almshouse
- Winchester the whole day through
- HOW TO BE A BETTER PERSON
- Otterbourne's Enid Blyton? Charlotte M. Yonge (1823-1901)
- Odo's Hanging is missing
- The Warden
- Charles Kingsley's Letters
- Owslebury Bottom
- See it My Way
- Introduction to Melesina Trench
- Some Hampshire road signs read Jane Austen Country
- Flora Thompson: published poet
Recent posts
- Virginia Smith remembered
- Mary Sumner
- A272: An Ode to a Road (by Andy)
- The hunt continues
- Winchester MP Mark Oaten to publish book
- Chalet School
- Bags of Books and Enthusiasm
- Chalet School author
- Poetry in the pub
- Wealth of words in Winchester
- Hampshire Gets Going
Help the team
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