A thoroughly enjoyable evening at Buzzwords on Sunday with the poet and writer Maggie Butt reading and running a short workshop. I was especially taken with some of her poems about the "enemy aliens" imprisoned in Alexandra Palace during the First World War - and amused by some from "Sancti Clandestini - Undercover Saints". I can't say I've ever given much thought before to the patron saints of ugly towns or careless cyclists!
And it was lovely to see so many schools celebrating World Book Day last week, with lots of children going to school dressed as characters from their favourite books. I think I was so fortunate in having a childhood steeped in stories, a bookcase groaning under the weight of children's classics and a well-stocked local library to visit every Saturday afternoon. I still have many of the books from my childhood, read to my children in turn - and held on to perhaps for their children too! Fashions may have changed a bit in content, but many stories are timeless and still give as much pleasure now as they did decades ago - Wind in the Willows, the Beatrix Potter books, the Tolkien sagas (the latter given a tremendous boost of course by the film versions). With the breadth of the curriculum required of them now, some schools seem to find little time to encourage reading for pleasure, which is such a tragedy. I feel that we really impoverish children's lives if that opportunity is lost.
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