Patrick Comerford
Stony Stratford has a full calendar of cultural events and activities throughout the year – one I had never expected when I moved here almost two years ago. They include music on the streets, the annual Lantern Parade in the weeks before Christmas, a monthly cinema club, an annual folk festival on Horsefair Green, a Greek cultural festival and StonyWords, Stony Stratford’s very own literary festival that attracts leading writers, academics and critics.
The StonyWords festival is now in its 20th year. This year’s festival begins on Friday (19 January 2024) and the full two-week programme continues until 4 February.
StonyWords is organised by 18 different organisation and takes place in seven venues around the town, including Stony Stratford Library and Saint Mary and Saint Giles Parish Hall, both on Church Street, the Crown in Market Square, the Cock Hotel and York House on London Road.
StonyWords offers something for everyone, including events for children, drama, film, readings, storytelling, talks, workshops, live music and talks by a series of visiting writers.
Saturday afternoon (20 January) is devoted to history and history writers. Professor David Carpenter of King’s College London discusses the reign of Henry III and the year 1265, when a parliament with a ‘house of commons’ and England’s current political framework first saw the light of day.
Neil Younger of the Open University looks at Sir Christopher Hatton of Kirby Hall, Northamptonshire, a courtier during the reign of Elizabeth I.
With ‘The Blazing World,’ Jonathan Healey, Associate Professor in Social History at Oxford University, offers a and a fresh assessment of 17th century revolutionary England. For a brief period, England was a republic, and he asks whether this period marked beginning of modern England.
The ‘Bardic Trials’ in York House on Saturday evening include the election of the Bard of Stony Stratford for 2024. The Bard represents the voice of the community for the year.
This year’s festival also marks the birthday in January 1884 of the writer and journalist Arthur Ransome. Next week, Joe Laredo introduces Arthur Ransome, the author of Swallows and Amazons, who was a journalist and secret agent, and who was caught up – almost fatally – in the Russian Revolution in 1917 and its aftermath.
In an online event, ‘Deep Are The Roots,’ Stephen Bourne looks at the impact of Black people in the theatre on British culture today. His celebration of Black British theatre begins in 1825, when Ira Aldridge was the first Black actor to play Shakespeare’s Othello. The 20th century trailblazers included Paul Robeson, Florence Mills and Elizabeth Welch.
The fiction writer Victoria MacKenzie looks at the parallel lives of two great mediaeval women: Margery Kempe, whose visions of Christ alienated her from her husband, children and neighbours; and Julian of Norwich, who lived 23 years as an anchorite in a cell attached to a church.
On Saturday 27 January, Professor Robert Gildea of Oxford University revisits the miners’ strike in 1984-1985, an era-defining moment with a legacy that is still being felt today.
Professor Caroline Knowles of Queen Mary College, University of London, takes a critical look at present-day London – ‘a plutocratic paradise where money is swallowing up the city.’ She takes her audience on virtual walks from the City to suburban Surrey to show how the wealthy shape the capital in their image with gated communities and luxury developments. She also goes behind those closed doors in Westminster where power is concentrated in gentlemen’s private clubs.
In English Food (29 January), Professor Diane Purkiss of Keble College, Oxford, looks back over the centuries at the development of recipes and of the rituals for mealtimes, and the ways food has reflected and inspired social change.
Other speakers include the playwright Caryl Churchill, Catherine Hampton of the University of Warwick, Professor Abigail Williams of St Peter’s College, Oxford, Leah Broad of Christ Church, Oxford, and author of Quartet, Sophie Duncan of Magdalen College, Oxford, the writer Annabel Abbs, Kirsty Sedgman of the University of Bristol, textile artist and writer Lynne Stein, and David Tonge, the Yarnsmith of Norwich.
Stony Scala Film Club is screening 1976, a Chilean-Argentinian film about an elegant and prosperous woman drawn into the anti-Pinochet resistance in Chile. It is an engrossing an dramatic story of suspense and political intrigue.
There is also music from the local band, Living Archive, a lunchtime with the women poets of the romantic period, writers’ workshops, children’s story times, and evenings of popular song and music.
In between, there is a photographic adventure travelling down the Danube, visiting Prague, Vienna, Budapest and Belgrade; a play by Sheila White about James Hooten, a stable lad at the Bull Hotel who was transported to Van Diemen’s Land in 1822 for theft, and performed by the Stony Playreaders; a lecture on Louise Boursier, one of the founders of modern midwifery in 17th century France; and a taste of La Chandeleur, the French equivalent of Pancake Day.
The final Saturday focuses on the importance of walking, the art of being unreasonable and the role of textiles in health, well-being and change.
Leaflets and programmes are available around the town and posters can be seen everywhere. Full details of all events and how to get tickets is available HERE.
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