Finchley Literary Festival: Day 1 continued

Diary of a festival organiser: Day 1 continued Saturday 24th May - Poetry and Music Palooza

I imagined that after the CliFi event Mike (events coordinator) and I would nip home and have a rest, which we did, for 10 minutes well actually it turned into half an hour after tea and cake by which time we were late and people were texting: 
Where are you?
A wee bit embarassing as we'd told everybody to be early!
As we drove past I said, 'OMG, the place is packed'.
Good for Helen Michael, proprietor of Cafe Buzz, but slightly awkward for us as we had to organise space for the performers.
Once inside it didn't seem to matter, Mike ordered us around, get this, do that, move this, plug that in. And once again we put up posters, bunting and moved furniture around.

People started to arrive and Anna Meryt welcomed us all and got the Poetry & Music Palooza underway. 


Greg Mayston has been a Blues guitarist/singer for many years. He plays authentic 1920s, 1930s and contemporary sounds from the Mississippi Delta to the Thames Valley.

Peter Sellars on violin and Chris Harper on rhythm guitar, played lively and warm-hearted jazz in the style of the 'Gypsy Jazz' sound of Paris in the 1930s and 40s.

Miriam Halahmy 

My favourite moment:
Listening to Miriam Halahmy's poem about her daughter who went travelling and hearing how her fears never subsided until she was finally back home. It doesn't seem to matter how old your children are, mothers never stop worrying! 

To listen to some more poetry from the evening click here

*Thanks to Lucy Nowell for the photos

Finchley Literary Festival: Day 1

Diary of a festival organiser: Day 1 - Saturday 24th May 2014

We packed the car with posters, bunting and Greenacre Writers Anthologies, hot off the press. Event Coordinator, Mike, put the key in the ignition and it wouldn't turn. We were going to be late.

'I'll just spray some WD40 into the ignition surround and hope that does the trick.' 
I was trying to stay calm, not to swear and frantically running through the list of people on the FLF Steering Committee who would be available to help. It couldn't get any worse than last year's grand piano fiasco, could it? I couldn't think of anyone.
'We'll have to get a cab,'
'One more try...the lights have come on.'
The engine coughed a few times and stuttered into life. We were late but finally on our way to East Finchley Library for the first festival event.

We set about rearranging the children's room in the library. Mike set up the musical equipment and we decorated the room with posters and bunting to a background of Brian Wilson which the library staff seemed to enjoy!

I phoned Sarah Holding, who was running the workshop, CliFi for Kids at 3pm, she was travelling from Surbiton having finished a lunchtime musical session - she plays saxophone as well as writing. She's the author of a children’s eco-adventure series The SeaBEAN Trilogy, writing in the new genre of CliFi aka climate change fiction. Here's a Guardian article that discusses this new genre. 

I couldn't get through to Sarah, so I guessed she was still underground. Children and parents had started to arrive and I was beginning to get a little worried. The Northern line that black line/hole in the underground often swallows people whole (pun intended). At 2.45pm, Mike said he would drive to the station and wait for her there and I was to keep phoning. At 2.50pm, I got through, Sarah and her publicist Seb Cole, had arrived. The afternoon was a rip-roaring success with children and parents transfixed by the very creative writing workshop. Afterwards, we packed up our bits as quickly as possible, the library staff were waiting to go home and we only had half an hour before the next event, the 'Poetry and Music Palooza'!

My favourite moment:
When Sarah asked the children what they thought would happen beyond our lifetime, the daughter of Greenacre Writer, Mumpuni Murniati replied: 'We'll invent the fountain of youth' and 'learn to speak to animals'. (I wonder which animals she means!)

Finchley Literary Festival - Stephens' Ink

For my birthday treat this week, I visited an Arboretum. And, no, I didn't have to travel hundreds of miles. There is one here in Finchley, in Stephens House and Gardens, one of the sponsors of this year's literary festival. Renamed the Finchley Literary Festival, it seems apt that this year the Main Speaker Event, Saturday 31st May 2.00-6.00pm, takes place in Stephens House and Gardens. Formerly known as Avenue House, it has had links with literature since the Stephens family purchased it back in 1874.

There are hundreds of trees in the arboretum, many planted when the house was owned by Henry Charles Stephens, manufacturer of the famous Stephens' Ink, invented by his father, also Henry Stephens (1796-1864). Stephens senior, conducted experiments to improve writing fluids and wood stains. In 1830 he invented an indelible blue-black writing fluid patented in 1837 and later formed the Stephens' Ink company which grew into a worldwide brand with the famous inkblot image.

The company founded by Dr Stephens continued for more than a century after his death. Dr Stephens' eldest son Henry Charles Stephens (1841–1918), known to his friends as "Inky", ran the company until his death in 1918. He was an entrepreneur and philanthropist and also MP for Hornsey and Finchley from 1887 until 1900. His involvement in local affairs, and his nickname "Inky" Stephens have since remained familiar to several generations of Finchley people.

A letter written to the Finchley Press, June 11th, 1923 by Martha Stephens, explains how her brother, Charles ‘Inky’ Stephens came to bequeath Avenue House, ‘so spendid a gift to Finchley’. Martha explains in the letter how they were together one Thursday afternoon when Stephen called her over to the window. He was so taken with the children playing in the grounds that he said, “This is what I so do like to see,” and after a pause, continued “Do you know I have a good mind to leave Avenue House and the garden to Finchley”. Martha went on to write, ‘As we all know, he did so leave it in his will.' Stephens bequeathed the house and 10 acres of grounds to 'the people of Finchley' on condition that it should be 'open for the use and enjoyment always of the public under reasonable regulations'.

The Finchley Society, another of this year’s festival sponsors, have a small Stephens' Ink museum in Stephen's House. So, after I had finished hugging the trees, I popped into the museum. Peter Marsh, the curator, was very helpful and told me all about the history of the famous ink including the friendship between Stephens and poet John Keats.

Stephens senior, shared rooms with John Keats when they were at medical school in 1815. Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson recalls this anecdote:

‘One evening in the twilight, the two medical students were sitting together, Stephens at his medical studies, Keats at his dreaming, Keats breaks out to Stephens that he has composed a new line:

“A thing of beauty is a constant joy”
“What think you of that, Stephens?”
“It has the true ring, but is wanting in some way” replies the latter, as he dips once more into his medical studies.
An interval of silence and again the poet:
“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever”.
“What think you of that, Stephens?”
“That it will live for ever".'

'A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,' is the first line of Endymion, the poem first published by Keats in 1818. As we know, unfortunately Keats died in 1821, before he could try the blue-black writing fluid but we can imagine he would have enjoyed writing his poetry with this new thinner ink.

Nobody can be sure who did or did not use Stephens' Ink, but it is probable that many of the great novelists did, for example Dickens, Trollope and Thackeray almost certainly did and they all spent time in either Finchley or Barnet.

Stephens' ink is renowned for its non-fading ability and to this day Stephens' indelible Registrar's Ink is one of the official inks that Registrars of Births, Marriages and Deaths throughout the United Kingdom are required to use for their register entries.

The Stephens Collection is housed in the conservatory of Avenue House, and is open Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, 2.00-4.30pm


See Finchley Literary Festival for details of a Literary Walk about writers and artists in Finchley.


1. H.Smith, Keats and Medicine, Cross Publishing, Newport 1995, p. 51.

Finchley Literary Festival

What's it like organising a literary festival?

That's what somebody asked me the other day.

It felt quite odd to actually think about it, for so long I have just been doing. The words that come to mind are 'exhausting', 'hard work' and 'exciting'. I'm supposed to be a writer. I have become a festival administrator, a creative director, a social media-person, and general woof woof - just get the bloomin' thing done. 

Up until a couple of years ago, I had no experience of organising festivals and this got me thinking. How on earth had we known what to do? I remember using google a lot and learning from what other people had done as well as attending festivals and pinching ideas. It’s the same as being a writer. Want to write a good book? Then read at least a thousand books before you begin.

Paolo Hewitt at the first festival

The first year was a small affair, a mini literary festival that was held in a church hall. I approached a few writers I had got to know via Facebook and Twitter, both excellent tools for networking. The second year the festival grew and included a Spoken Word event, a sort of organised open mic at the renowned Friern Barnet Community Library, organised by the extremely efficient Allen Ashley.

And this year? The festival has expanded. Did I say expanded? I meant exploded! A week-long festival with loads of writerly events taking place throughout the week. So, what's it like organising a literary festival? It's like, it's like, panic-panic, having a never-ending list of things to do:

• Raise money (it's so important to have cash and wine - lots of it, to bribe pay the writers)
• Book events/venue/speakers
• Set up a Facebook page/Twitter account and remember to use them
• Email lots of people all the time
• Set up online ticket booking system (Eventbrite is brill)
• Design and print pre-printed tickets for people who don't have computers or who don't want to use them
• Get lovely local people to sponsor you. This year we are very lucky to have Stephen's House & Gardens, Finchley Society, Waitrose via their community matters project, and Squires Estates.
• Design posters/programme/blog/website
• Advertise online, offline, in a library, local newspapers, shops etc
• Publicity stunt? (naked girls covered in books written by the speakers?)
• Signposting at the venues
• Write articles/press release like this one about the festival line-up
• Don't forget the programmes for the chairs (like I did last year)
• Have a driver handy in case you have to go home for programmes or even vases for the flowers

Finally make sure each event has a liaison person, someone to welcome the speakers and audience, preferably not still in your old clothes with one trouser leg tucked in a sock as I did in the first year.

I've taken the week off work and I'm really looking forward to attending as many of the events as possible. I will be making guest appearances at the anthology launch and Spoken Word event as well as hosting the Main Event on Saturday 31st May 2-5pm at Stephens* House and Gardens, 17 East End Road, N3 3QE. 

This year's main speakers are: Alex Wheatle; Caitlin Davies; Rosie Fiore; Miriam Halahmy; Allen Ashley, Maggie Butt, Emily Benet, and A.L. Michael. 

There will be guest appearances, talks and workshops from Sarah Holding, Anna Meryt, Gina Blaxill, Lil Chase, Bettina Von Cossel, Liz Goes, Linda Dell, Theresa Musgrove, Matt Baylis, Ruth Cohen, Gillian Stern, Cari Rose, Mary Musker and Greenacre Writers.

The festival could end with a bang or at least fireworks as the panel discusses: When a Man Writes a Woman and When a Woman Writes a Man. We'll be discussing such issues as whether writing in third person opposite sex is really writing in a different gender or is just observation. 

Do join us at this year's Finchley Literary Festival it promises to be the best one yet.

If you're organising a festival, let us know via Twitter @finchleylitfest and we'll follow you.

Good Luck!

*Formerly Avenue House

World Book Night

I've been selected as a 2014 World Book Night Giver!! I've taken part before and it is fantastic to be involved in giving the joy of reading, the joy of imagination through 'new' books to people who can't normally afford to buy them or don't usually read.

It was with this in my mind that I chose my three books:

• Today Everything Changes by Andy McNab
• Short Stories by Roald Dahl
• Four Warned by Jeffrey Archer

I got my first choice:

Abandoned as a baby, Andy McNab's start in life was tough. He grew up in South London with foster parents, and poverty on all sides. Andy attended seven schools in as many years, disillusioned and in remedial classes. Before long his life was one of petty crime. By the age of sixteen he was in juvenile detention.

The book opens with a break in that goes very, very badly wrong and is even more shocking for the reader when we discover just how young Andy is. From there he tells the story of his tough youth till, in the army, he learns to read and everything changes. This is an incredibly powerful story of how important reading and literacy is, first hand from someone who knows what it's like to be an adult who struggles with reading and who has gone on to make his living as a writer. Today Everything Changes is the inspiring story of when life changed for the better for now bestselling author Andy McNab. 

This is quite an odd choice for me, and not a book I would usually choose because of the army connection. However, firstly I am not choosing a book for myself, I'm choosing a book for somebody who possibly may not have read a book for many, many years. Secondly, I know from personal experience just how important reading and literacy is and thirdly, I was aware of this book before World Book Night, as we have a copy in the library where I work. It is a Quick Read book and I have spent the last few years promoting Quick Reads.

1 in 6 adults of working age in the UK find reading difficult and may never pick up a book.  People’s reasons for not reading are varied but are often based in fear. Some people say they find books scary and intimidating, thinking they are ‘not for them’ or that books are difficult or boring.

Quick Reads sets out to challenge these beliefs and to show that books and reading can be for everyone. Each year we commission big name authors to write short books that are specifically designed to be easy to read.  They are the same as mainstream books in every respect but are simply shorter and easier to tackle for adults who are less confident in their reading skills. The books are then sold through major retailers, online booksellers and are loaned from libraries.

Quick Reads is making real, lasting changes to people’s lives.  Since 2006 they have distributed over 4.5 million books, registered 3 million library loans and through the outreach work hundreds of thousands of new readers each year, often in some of the hardest to reach communities, are introduced to the joys and benefits of reading. 

I thought about the people I would be giving the books to, some will be homeless, and some will be care leavers. There is scientific proof that children in care who are going through trauma find it very difficult to concentrate and this is often the reason why some children in care find it difficult to keep up with their studies. And this is the same trauma that a homeless person will be facing. Moved from placement to placement, living on their wits, no wonder it's so difficult to sit quietly with a book and feel safe enough to get lost in the wonderful worlds created by authors. So, it is was with this criteria that I chose my three books. Two Quick Reads and one set of short stories. And I love the title of my first choice, Today Everything Changes. I hope that when my WBN book receivers read the first page it will be the first step on a journey to a positive change in their lives.