Our Northern Ireland project worker Patricia Canning fills us in the ongoing progress of Get Into Reading Northern Ireland, highlighting the powerful impact words and literature have amongst a wide range of people:

Every Wednesday afternoon I read with a group of women who tell me that being a part of this Get Into Reading group makes them feel relaxed, ‘chilled’, less stressed, and on the whole, liberated. The irony is, that this GIR group is in Hydebank Prison, Belfast. Reading an extract from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol a few weeks back, the women talked about how his depiction of the biting cold had made them all feel very chilly: ‘he really knows how to describes things, doesn’t he? I’m freezing here!’

Being able to ‘feel’ what the writer is describing – even if it is the cold – is a testament to the power of words, and of the benefits of reading good literature. These women, like everyone else who benefits from attending Get Into Reading groups across the mainland, enjoy that liberating feeling of being able to identify with other characters, with events and with feelings and emotions that they might otherwise struggle to understand, articulate, or even acknowledge. Words can do that – as Ferdinand Pessoa puts it:

To express something is to conserve its virtue and take away its terror. Fields are greener in their description than in their actual greenness. Flowers, if described with phrases that define them in the air of the imagination, will have colours with a durability not found in cellular life.

Reading a difficult Shakespearean sonnet recently, one of the women read the line, ‘I all alone beweep my outcast state’, and proclaimed, ‘it’s about depression, isn’t it?’ In our group, Shakespeare has helped us understand that depression is a timeless phenomenon and can chance upon the best of us.

Thankfully, these benefits are reaching further afield because people are attending to the positive effects of shared reading here, as Health In Mind’s recent poetry and prose event at Coleraine library so wonderfully demonstrated. We now have a fantastic Get Into Reading group in Queen’s University, Belfast, every Thursday afternoon, which is well attended by a spirited bunch of people who read, chat, drink tea, chat, read, and marvel at the ways in which reading together enriches both the reading experience and our day in equal measure.

The Reading Revolution has begun in Northern Ireland, but we need passionate people who believe in the power of reading to help take it even further. We are hosting an open Read To Lead training course at Holywood Library over three weeks: Friday 3rd, 10th and 17th February 2012. If you want to share the joys of shared reading in your community, there are a few places left on the course. For further details and to book your place, please contact Jessica Reeves for more information: jessicareeves@thereader.org.uk

If you want to have the real-life Nellibobs reading experience, there’s still plenty of time to sign up to Brian’s Dorset Delights course  at Birkenhead Central Library. The course takes place each Thursday morning, 10.30am-12.30pm for the next nine weeks, exploring literature inspired by the county. Places on the course cost £60; £50 for pensioners, students and those on income support; £40 for Get Into Reading members and £30 for GIR members receiving income support.

To book your place, download a booking form here or e-mail Jessica Reeves: jessicareeves@thereader.org.uk

Over the next couple of months, open Read To Lead courses will be coming to Northern Ireland, Barnsley and London – any individual is eligible to sign up and take part. So if you want to share the joys of shared reading in your community or perhaps if your New Year’s resolution is to do something different to make a difference then being part of Read To Lead and becoming a trained shared reading facilitator is  for you.

And if you want to celebrate Dickens’ bicentenary in unique but what would surely be Dickens-approved style, there could be no better way to do so than to embark on a  Read To Lead course. We could all take a tip from the young David Copperfield:

This was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it, the picture always arises in my mind of a summer evening, the boys at play in the churchyard, and I sitting on my bed, reading as if for life.

On a Read To Lead course you’ll find that reading is indeed for life and full of life.

Read To Lead Northern Ireland
Holywood Library, BT18 9AE
3rd, 10th, 17th February; 10am-4pm
(This course takes place over Dickens’ bicentenary, so there may just be some Dickens on offer to read…!)

Read To Lead Barnsley
Barnsley Digital Media Centre, S70 2JW
8th, 15th, 22nd February; 10am-4pm

Read To Lead London
Central Venue TBC
12th, 19th, 26th March; 10am-4pm 

For more information on any of these courses, please contact Jessica Reeves on 0151 207 7221/jessicareeves@thereader.org.uk or Casi Dylan on 0141 357 1738/casidylan@thereader.org.uk . You can also download a booking form in Word or PDF formats.

I’ve been running a group for two years at the Plymouth MIND drop-in centre. One of the core group of committed regulars, M, had a social phobia and would never have dreamt of reading in front of others. She is now one of our best readers:

 ”I have come to learn the power of words in our lives…the group has become the highlight of my week and I clear the calendar to ensure I can make the sessions.”

I love both the variety and stimulation the weekly groups provide.

Plymouth City Council are funding Get Into Reading for community-building and recovery at Plymstock Library. It is an open group which also invites GP referrals.

In the isolated village of Newton Ferrers, I’ve begun a community group in an Edwardian ‘Fisherman’s Reading Room’. It was an all-male snooker club until TRO entered the premises! This is the first step in a big South West project to restore old reading rooms in hard to reach places to their original purpose. The aim is to get reading happening again, training up local people to take over and help spread the Reading Revolution across the village.

Have you thought of becoming a shared reading facilitator?
The next South West 3-day Read to Lead open training course is at Dartington, Monday 23rd January – Wednesday 25th January 2012, 9.30am -5.30am. For more information, ring Sarah Hopkins (SW) on 01364 653994 or Casi Dylan on 0151 207 7207/e-mail casidylan@thereader.org.uk .

Three women recently told me what had made them join shared reading groups. All three had moved to the area suddenly due to their husbands’ retirement and consequently had left families and friends behind. They came to shared reading because they felt lonely, isolated and depressed. This is what they had to say about attending the group:

 ”This has been my lifeline.”

 ”I don’t know what would have happened to me if I hadn’t had this each week.”

If you’d like to become a shared reading facilitator, our next 3-day Read To Lead open training course takes place in Dartington from Monday 23rd January – Wednesday 25th January, 9.30am-5.30pm. For more information on booking a place, ring Sarah Hopkins (SW) on 01364 653994 or Casi Dylan on 0151 207 7207/e-mail casidylan@thereader.org.uk .

However if you missed out then there’s no need to fear because Part Two begins in the New Year, in the very same place. Brian will continue to illustrate Dorset’s various strong literary connections by reading a selection of works from authors who lived, loved (in the case of Sir Thomas Wyatt, Dorset was his final resting place, being buried there) and were inspired by the picturesque county.

Jane Austen frequently holidayed in Lyme Regis and the resort figures large in Persuasion, which would be her last completed novel, and which will be read during the course. Wordsworth wrote his earliest poems in Dorset and T.F Powys and John Fowles both lived there – to signal this, the course will also feature poems and short stories by these three writers.

This selection of literary works will be read over a ten week period, and promises to be relaxing, illuminating and immensely enjoyable. The course will start on Thursday 19th January at Birkenhead Central Library and all texts will be provided. Funds will go towards supporting The Reader Organisation. For more information on booking, call 0151 207 7207.

Also, you can get a taster of what to expect from the wonderful Mr Nellist here…

I currently run Library Memory Groups in Exeter Central and Tiverton. These groups are for people living with dementia and their carers. A range of different materials are read together, from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge to Trebetherick by Betjeman. Bonds have formed quickly; several members now see each other socially outside of the group at other times during the week. Lots of them report gains that go beyond the reading sessions:

“We talk to everyone about it! Friends, family and other carers.” – Exeter carer.

“It’s really stirred up my memory.” – Exeter participant

“I’ve never read poetry before because I’ve never understood it. I like the poetry but we also come because it’s a positive group and we can chat and be social as a couple. You can’t always do that.” – Tiverton carer

The new groups running at Russell Clinic and Exeter Library are a pilot for a recovery model that TRO South West wishes to develop, in order to bridge the transition from treatment to independence.

Do you live in Devon or the South West and have an interest in helping to develop the Reading Revolution?
The next South West 3-day Read to Lead open training course is at Dartington, Monday 23rd January – Wednesday 25th January 2012, 9.30am -5.30am. For more information, ring Sarah Hopkins (SW) on 01364 653994 or Casi Dylan on 0151 207 7207/e-mail casidylan@thereader.org.uk .

I facilitate a group in a primary care mental health setting attended by men and women aged 45 to 80. Personal relationships and trust have developed quickly within the group – one man came to the group three days after the death of his wife and took great comfort and support from the other members.

The Memory Cafe group in the village of Lostwithiel is for people with memory loss and their carers. Following Moniza Alvi’s I Would Like To Be a Dot in a Painting by Miro, one member said:

 ”That poem describes me in my dementia. My poetry folder has pride of place at home.”

I love the groups I run; the time spent reading together each week acts as rejuvenation for us all.

Have you thought of becoming a shared reading facilitator?
The next South West 3-day Read to Lead open training course is at Dartington, Monday 23rd January - Wednesday 25th January 2012, 9.30am -5.30pm. Ring Sarah Hopkins (SW) on 01364 653994 or Casi Dylan on 0151 207 7207/e-mail casidylan@thereader.org.uk for more information.

The South West office has been operating for ten months with a relatively small but passionate and dedicated team working across the peninsular. Get Into Reading in the South West focuses on adult mental health and reducing social isolation in rural areas. There are currently 13 groups running across Cornwall, Devon, Plymouth, Dorset and Somerset – with more in the pipeline.

A primary aim of our work is to help people overcome various social difficulties – such as loneliness, boredom and exclusion. Members experience highly personal benefits as a result of attending; Plymouth MIND and Yeovil Community Reading Group being amongst those taking something extremely positive away from sessions:

“It’s an effort to get motivated but once in the group, my spirits are lifted”

“I could not read very well. I have been reading out loud.”

“I think sessions may offer more choice and control in my life, but more notable is a sense of achievement and worth.”

Library Memory Groups for people with dementia and their carers have been set up as a direct response to the high proportion of over 50’s in the region. Groups run in Somerset, Dorset, Exeter and North Devon, with more being requested. The Exeter group is proving particularly successful and is overloaded with 14 participants. Many people have reported positive effects that extend beyond groups:

“We talk to everyone about it! Friends, family and other carers” – Exeter carer

“It’s really stirred up my memory” – Exeter participant

“I’ve never read poetry before because I’ve never understood it. I like the poetry but we also come because it’s a positive group and we can chat and be social as a couple. You can’t always do that” – Tiverton carer

“My husband has been reading poetry at home all week; he loves this group. He always gets the folder of poems out to show his sitter” – Tiverton carer

One particularly noticeable benefit the Library Memory Groups has is upon members who have withdrawn from speech; reading aloud can significantly help with fluency. Professionals who have observed at selected sessions have witnessed the remarkable effects of the Reading Revolution in action.

Other sessions take place in medical settings, in GPs surgeries – with a 100% attendance of 8 people over 10 weeks; The Haldon Clinic for Young People with Eating Disorders, a hospital day centre in Dorset; and Russell Clinic for Rehabilitation at the Wonford Hospital, Exeter.

“Two of those who are very withdrawn and find it hard to trust people and engage with them would, previously, find any activity that could lead to any kind of intimacy, a total no-no. At the final session the worst of these spoke fluently and for several minutes about how important the sessions had been to her and how she had been enabled by them to begin a journey of trusting others. She now takes that confidence to another group she attends.”- Co-ordinator of Kingscare, Devon

An important local initiative is to research and open up disused nineteenth century Reading Rooms, which will be taken over by community volunteers trained and supported by us. The first, a Fisherman’s Reading Room in the remote and library-less village of Newton Ferrers, opened in May.

There is no shortage of people wanting to Get Into Reading in the South West. What is needed is the help of philanthropists and corporate sponsors to join as partners, as well as people with a passion for reading who want to become trained shared reading facilitators, to ensure that the net can be spread as wide as possible.

TRO South West is holding its next 3-day Read To Lead Core Training Open Course at Dartington, Monday 23rd January – Wednesday 25th January 2012, 9.30am -5.30pm. Interested? Ring Sarah Hopkins on 01364 653994 or Casi Dylan on 0151 207 7207/e-mail casidylan@thereader.org.uk .

The first part of the novel describes the Mellstock church band making the rounds of the village on Christmas Eve, and last week Brian treated us to a hearty rendition of the Christmas carol ‘Remember Adam’s Fall’, as sung by the choir to the comely new schoolmistress Fancy Day. Unlike Adam, Hardy’s rural idyll remains intact so far in this early novel, which contrasts with the darker tone of later works such as Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure.

We’ve discovered a lot about the background to the novel and Hardy’s early life and career – including his false start as a failed satirist of London high society – thanks to Brian’s boundless energy and enthusiasm, which you can see for yourself here.

There are still seven weeks of the course remaining, so if you’d like to come along then contact Mike Butler, Communications Intern: mikebutler@thereader.org.uk, or you can find more information here - discounted prices are available for latecomers!

Alternatively, keep a look-out for details of Part Two of the course which will start in January, when we’ll be exploring works by Austen, Wordsworth and John Fowles.

All proceeds support The Reader Organisation.