WHAT A GREAT DAY AT SUNDAY'S FIRST FOOD AND DRINK FESTIVAL AT BILLERICAY

 

More than one thousand folk turned up at the Billericay's Town Football club at Blunt's Wall Road on Sunday and it was a pleasure to join them as the place to be on a fabulous summer's day. Here we have Basildon mayor David Dadds sampling a little champagne, and we all enjoyed tasters of familiar and exotic food including lovely cheeses and tastes from around the world.  Lots to see and enjoy the entertainment, as well as meeting many old and new friends.  

some of our visitors who travelled to Essex

It's many years since I visited Billericay Town Football Club when interviewing some of the players and many things have changed for the better since my visit.

Inspired by the talented pop-up catering, food and drink companies – many that launched just before or during the pandemic – and in association with Billericay Town FC, it was a chance to show case some very local talent and support the community.

As well as over fifty stands including Field Of Cheese, Lava Spirits, The Big Bear Cider Mill, WrapStars, East Coast Chili Company, Hugo’s Pie & Mash, SW Bakery and Ami Mehta’s Private Dining Club, there were outside entertaining ideas from Victrees and PL Tresor with fabulous floral creations by Zoe Hockton of Mrs H’s Decorative Delights.

So lovely to meet Bradley Wheate, the first mixologist I have ever met - but so brilliant at mixing cocktails - and looked after the Festival visitors all day - another up and coming young Essex professional - check him out at www.mixologist.com 

 The whole event was organised by Abby and Jodi Knight whose guest Stella Ralfini, life coach and anti-aging guru and best selling author came along to talk to Abby and Jodi's guests.  Stella will be out forthcoming guest on PhoenixFM's Book Club programme in August.

Stella Ralfini

Our VIP visitor Borough of Basildon Mayor David Dadds JP mingled with the crowds and was introduced to many of the local businesses and the crowds enjoyed a dj, mini golf and a charity football match put on my Everyman.

Supporting the Billericay Food Bank and British Heart Foundation with a generous charity donation, everyone enjoyed the best day out this July. 

Co-organiser Abby Knight says: “We’ve been amazed at the brilliant talent that’s sprung up over the last year. Hospitality is really working hard to keep going and growing with creative twists of their food and drinks offering which we hoped we helped promote the event and we were so lucky the rain held off, too!”

For further information and additional images, please contact abby@abbyknight.co.uk or call 07917 003695

 Good also to see our Billericay Pastors supporting their foodbank and dedicated shop in Billericay High Street, British Heart Foundation and other charitable organisations.

BRENTWOOD ARTS FESTIVAL 2021 - CHECK OUT THE HISTORY AND CURRENT INFO AT LOCAL THEATRE

 

Free Get Into ARTS Festival this Summer!

This summer we've teamed up with our friends Chicken and Frog Bookshop once again to bring you Get into ARTS 2021 - a free celebration of the arts right in the heart of Brentwood with events taking place outdoors on Crown Street as well as at the theatre. We're really excited to be able to offer over 20 events during the course of the week, all of them are free to watch or take part in, just turn up and have fun! For a full listing of events please download a Get into ARTS 2021 timetable below.

Download Timetabl

COME JOIN US AT BILLERICAY'S FABULOUS FIRST EVER FOOD & DRINK FESTIVAL - SUNDAY 25 JULY

 

MEETING MY HEROINE ENID BLYTON AND TWO BEAUTIFUL LADIES (SIXTY YEARS LATER)

It's perplexing and strange to learn how someone's books that you've had a link to all your life - even from early childhood - are now banned in some English schools. 

Way back in 1950, I met Enid Blyton in London at the Methodist Central Hall when I was a Brownie. The speaker attending that meeting was indeed Enid Mary Blyton, who at the time was around 50 years of age, but seemed very old to our little group of Brownies who received their new pack badges - mine was the writer's badge.

Enid Blyton's books are still enormously popular with later generations of children (including my own), most of which have been translated into 90 languages.  She wrote on a wide range of topics, but is best remembered, I suppose for her Famous Five, Secret Seven and little Noddy books. 

Enid's very first book Child Whispers was a 24-page collection of poems,  published in 1922. Following the commercial success of her early novels such as Adventures of the Wishing Chair and The Enchanted Wood, she went on to build a literary empire, sometimes producing fifty books a year in addition to her prolific magazine and newspaper contributions. Apparently, Enid's manuscripts were unplanned and sprang largely from her unconscious mind: she typed her stories as events unfolded before her. The sheer volume of her work and the speed with which it was produced led to rumours that the writer had employed ghost writer (which she denied).

Enid's work became increasingly controversial among literary critics, teachers and parents from the 1950s onwards, because of the alleged unchallenging nature of her writing and the themes of her books, particularly the Noddy series. Some libraries and schools banned her works, which the BBC had refused to broadcast from the 1930s until the 1950s, because they were perceived to lack literary merit. Her books have been criticised as being elitist, sexist, racist, xenophobic and at odds with the more progressive environment emerging in post-Second World War Britain, but they have continued to be best-sellers since her death in 1968.

Another series I adored was the famous 'Sunny Stories' and, together with  the books in my picture, had been best sellers  for decades before our meeting. Enid said she had felt that she had a responsibility to provide her readers with a strong moral framework, so she encouraged them to support worthy causes. In particular, through the clubs she set up or supported, she encouraged and organised them to raise funds for animal and paediatric charities.

The story of this author's life and times was dramatised in a BBC television film entitled Enid, featuring Helena Bonham Carter in the title role and first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Four in 2009. There have also been several adaptations of her books for stage, screen and television.

During that summer in 2009, I had the pleasure of meeting Helena Bonham Carter in London. There she was with her beautiful mother at the Royal Horticultural Society's Chelsea Flower Show. It was lovely to chat with them both and, bearing in mind the film she had made that year about Enid's life, she was interested in my strange little meeting with the author sixty years earlier. Our meeting place was appropriate, too, in the Wendy Hut on the children's flower stand at Chelsea and this amazing meeting (along with hundreds of other interviews)  is recalled in my own life story.

NEWS FROM PHOENIXFM ON BOOK CLUB DAY WEDNESDAY 14 JULY

Maxine Dalziel 

Yesterday, Michelle Ward, a good friend and my favourite presenter at PhoenixFM community radio interviewed Maxine Dalziel, Head of Community South for InYourArea via Reach plc. Listeners were treated to a slice of Maxine's life and times over the last couple of decades within the changing and challenging world of the British print industry. The interview will soon be posted on PhoenixFM's website www.phoenixfm.co.uk

Also included today were up-to-date news of local reading groups and writing organisations' events, plus the upcoming Food & Drink Festival which will be taking place at Billericay Town Football Club on Sunday 25 July from 11.00am - 6pm. 

Local charities will benefit including Billericay Food Bank, British Heart Foundation and Essex Wildlife Trust.

We can also look forward to meeting people behind local brands and favourite eateries and sampling a fabulous array of food and drink from more than 50 stands showcasing their wares.  Entertainment will include summer-themed demos, a DJ, hog roast, and a chance to meet author of Sensual Sorcery, Stella Ralfini and plant-based cook Hedi Heart and so much more.

Co-organiser Jodi Presswell says: "We've been amazed at the brilliant talent that's sprung up over the last year. Hospitality is really working hard to keep going and growing with creative twists of their food and drinks which are will be available at the event."

The Billericay Food & Drink Festival will be held at the Billericay Football Club, Blunts Wall Road, Billericay CM12 9SA. 

Tickets are £5 on the door, with a goodie gift for the first 100 visitors, under 12s free. Only assistance dogs. Limited free car parking on the day. Tickets on sale now at Eventbrite, £5.

For further information, photography and competition to win tickets, please contact abby@abbyknight.co.uk or ring 07917 003695.

MORE NEWS FROM OUR ESSEX BOOK FESTIVAL - CHECK OUT THIS AMAZING EVENT - 29 AUGUST 2021

 

Mark Your Diary - Essex Book Camp @ Cressing Temple Barns

With Dr Hilary Jones (Good Morning Britain), leading East Anglian Storytellers Glenys Newton, Paul Jackson and Shane Ibbs, and Explorer Belinda Kirk in the mix, plus a cornucopia of children's workshops led by acclaimed children's publisher Scallywag Books, and Essex Cultural Diversity Project's Global Village, featuring circus, dance and African drumming workshops, and more, Cressing Temple Barns will be bursting with fun and creativity on Sunday 29th August. Free entry, excluding ticketed events.  www.essexbookfestival.org.uk MERCURY THEATRE BOX OFFICE Tickets can be ordered online or by phone until the Mercury Theatre reopens on Saturday 26th June. Telephone Box office opening hours: Tuesday-Friday 11.00am-3.00pm Book by phone: 01206 573948 Book online: by following the booking link on each event page on this website Book via email: tickets@mercurytheatre.co.uk Book in person: Not currently possible

CONGRATULATIONS TO AUTHOR NIHAL PAUL ON THE LAUNCH OF HIS NEW BOOK

 So many of my colleagues and members of writing  organisations are now seeing their books in print and what a joy this is after long periods of research and hard work. Today is the birthday of Nihal Paul and we wish him a very happy day with the extra lovely news of the release of his book THE DANGERS OF KNOWING IT ALL (From the Diaries of an Outsider), copies of which can be obtained from Amazon.

Because of the pandemic, Brentwood Writers' Circle members have not been able to meet at Bardswell Social Club. This photograph was by top presenter, Michelle Ward more than twenty months ago following Nirhal's broadcast on Book Club at Phoenix FM community radio studio in Brentwood.  

HOT OFF THE PRESS! TONIGHT I MET THE FABULOUS LIZ TRENOW AT EBF'S FIRST LIVE EVENT THIS YEAR

 

Essex Book Festival - The Secrets of the Lake: Thursday 1 July 2021 at Billericay Library, Essex

www.essexbookfestival.org.uk

Yes, tonight's socially-distanced and masked gathering at Billericay Library made a little Essex history in these times of covid. Most of the talks and walks that have taken place so far in the 2021 Essex Book Festival have been digital or in the open, so we were delighted to meet our superb guest novelist Liz Trenow in the flesh (so to speak).

Liz is the bestselling author of In Love and War and other novels linked as most are to her East Anglian roots and tonight we learnt of her latest title The Secrets of the Lake which is a gripping wartime tale inspired by a local legend of a scary dragon said to live in a supposedly bottomless lake on the Essex/Suffolk border.

Pat Gaudin, our Trustee this evening

In conversation with one of our popular EBF Trustees, Pat Gaudin, Liz gave her audience a fascinating glimpse of how she researched and created this latest storyline, linked as it is to her youth set in a small rural Suffolk village and featuring a dark secret hidden below the waters of a mysterious lake. Oooh - can't wait to read it. ISBN13: 9781529036619 Pan MacMillan - Pan Books.

'Masterful storytelling, immersive locations, and characters that inhabit your heart from the first page' - Gill Paul, author of The Secret Wife.