Frank will read excerpts from the book and talk about his inspiration for writing it and his love of storytelling, as well as answering questions from the audience – so if you want to know more about this brilliant book then why not go down and ask the man himself!

The event takes place at 6.30pm on Tuesday 29 November in London’s Southbank Centre, and is suitable for ages ten and over. Tickets cost £8 – you can find more information here.

Jane Davis joins Lord Graham Tope, Judy Friedberg (Guardian), Jonathan Douglas (Director, National Literacy Trust) in a panel discussion chaired by the New Stateman‘s Spencer Neal about how changes to the literacy landscape under the new Coalition Government could enable us to rise to the literacy challenge.

This event is one of a series of fringe debate events the National Literacy Trust are holding at each political party conference this autumn. The events, kindly supported by Starbucks, will give the panellists the chance to explain their ideas for how we can create a more literate Britain. Given the wide range of specialisms among the speakers the discussion will focus on a number of areas surrounding the literacy landscape including libraries, schools and early years settings.

For further information about these events, click here.

THE LIVERPOOL PREMIERE OF A BOY CALLED DAD

Starring Liverpool actor Ian Hart
Friday 30 April 2010, 7.00p.m.Crosby Plaza Cinema, 13 Crosby Road North, Liverpool, L22 0LD

Tickets: £5 and £10
Box Office: 0151 474 4076

Directed by award winning Liverpool director Brian Percival (Much Ado About Nothing, The Old Curiosity Shop, Gracie!) written by Julie Rutterford (Teachers, Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes) and starring Liverpool actor Ian Hart (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Neverland), A BOY CALLED DAD tells the story of Robbie – a 14 year old boy who has just become a father.  Abandoned by his father, Joe, Robbie snatches his baby son and goes on the run. As Joe joins the search for Robbie, they are each forced to face up to the past and what it really means to be a father.

A BOY CALLED DAD is an emotionally stirring but ultimately uplifting ‘coming of age’ drama which marks the acting debut of Kyle Ward and the feature film debut of award-winning director Brian Percival and producers Michael Knowles and Stacey Murray. It received its world premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 2009 where it was nominated for the Michael Powell award with its young lead actor, Kyle Ward winning a Trailblazer award. The film was also voted an audience favourite at the festival.

Ian Hart:

The opportunity to work on Merseyside is one I always relish and I think this film captures some of my feelings about the area.  Liverpool is a great city but most people don’t realise that it is also surrounded by some outstandingly beautiful countryside and beaches.

Clapperboard UK Director Maureen Sinclair:

I’m delighted that we are screening A BOY CALLED DAD at the Plaza Cinema in Crosby, my home town. Ian Hart is a great supporter of Clapperboard and I’ve known the film’s director, writer and producer for many years and I’m very proud of all their achievements

A Question and Answer session will take place with Brian Percival (Director) and Julie Rutterford (Screenwriter) immediately following the screening.

Tickets can be obtained directly from Plaza Cinema (0151 474 4076) for £5. Please note there are a limited number of £10 tickets available which include an invitation to the post reception event at Esperanto’s Restaurant, Waterloo.

This event is sponsored by Esperanto’s Restaurant, Forward Culture, EventSinc, Bill Elms Associates Ltd, Banana Fish Management, and the Dutch Flower Shop. Income raised will go to the Plaza Cinema and Clapperboard Youth Project.

More information can be found at www.plazacinema.org.uk

The Mourning Tree: an autobiography and a memoir of prison, by Mohamed Barud Ali

Kayd Somali Arts and Culture in collaboration with redsea-online.com is proudly inviting you to the presentation of new book: Weerane (The Mourning Tree), autobiography by Mohamed Barud Ali. Join them to discuss this new autobiography with the author and also mark and commemorate with us, the students protest (20 Feb 1982, erupted 28 years ago in Hargeysa) demanding justice and the release of UFFO members.

This prison memoir will not only give first-hand information of the experience of the brutalities of Siyad Barre’s Somalia but also of the life of a nomad child who is brought to the city to live with his aunt because there was no work for him due to the fact that his father did not own any camels to be looked after. In the city while growing up, hunger was never far away. That motivated Mahamed to perform well at school which gave him the opportunity to go to the United Kingdom.  After he earned his university degree, he went back to his home town Hargeysa where he met young professionals’ like him. They decided to volunteer for their community, what became to be known by the international community as Hargeysa Self-help group and locally as UFFO. For their noble acts, Mahamed and his colleagues were imprisoned and what followed were eight long lonely years, where the studying of insects was the main entertainment of the day.  The reasons why they were freed, while at the same time the rest of their community had been destroyed, were as strange and surprising as the reasons why they were jailed in the first place were bizarre. There was no time in Mohamed’s life to get depressed or discouraged when he and his group were freed as the reconstruction of the country had to start immediately.

The other speakers are Jama Musse Jama; director of Red Sea online (publisher of The Mourning Tree), Rashiid Sheikh Abdullahi; Author  and expert on Somali culture,  Martin Hill; the former director of Amnesty International Somalia desk and researcher who was involved in this case, Judith Gardner; author Somalia–the Untold Story: The War through the Eyes of Somali Women, Adan Warsame Said; the author’s friend and fellow prisoner, Fawzia Yousuf H Adam; The Director of Raad, I.M Lewis; Emeritus  professor at The London School of Economics and Political Science (TBC) and others…

The Mourning Tree: an autobiography and a memoir of prison, by Mohamed Barud Ali is the first of “Rag & Dumar” series, which is a selected list of biography books, published and distributed by Ponte Invisibile Ed.

Mahamed Barud Ali is civil right activist, Hero to some, the prisoner of conscience under the brutal regime of Somalia; he lives in Hargeysa, with his wife and children and works on issues relating to human rights and civil liberties.

Join us to discuss this new autobiography with the author and also mark and commemorate with us on Saturday, 20 Feb. 2010, 4pm at Oxford House, Derby Shire Street, E2 6GH. For more information call 07903712949; or email: ayan_mahamoud@kayd.org; website: www.kayd.org

Join in the conversation about Get Into Reading at the Conference on Friday 8th Jan and take part in a fun and inspiring Readers’ Day with guest authors on Saturday 9th Jan  – plus, don’t forget the Friday Night Supper: ‘The Value of Reading in a Life’ (with Clare Allan, Brian Keenan, Dr David Fearnley and Jane Davis)

Confirmed speakers over the two days are:

• Clare Allan (author, Poppy Shakespeare)
• Susan Blishen (Mental Health Foundation)
• Dr Jane Davis (Founder and Director of The Reader Organisation)
• Dr David Fearnley (RCPysch Psychiatrist of the Year; Medical Director and Deputy Chief of Mersey Care NHS Trust)
• Brian Keenan (author, An Evil Cradling)
• Blake Morrison (author, journalist and Chair of The Reader Organisation)
• Stuart Smith (Executive Director, Children’s Services, Liverpool City Council)
• plus, Reader Development Librarians, teachers and health professionals, involved with Get Into Reading from across the UK.

… and there are a whole series of workshops to choose from over the two days.

Tickets cost £120 for the whole New Beginnings Experience (£80 for the Get Into Reading Conference, £25 for the Friday Night Supper, £30 for the Readers’ Day) and are going fast, so book your place as soon as possible! Click here to book.

For more information, please contact Claire Speer, Conference Administrator: clairespeer@thereader.org.uk.

Brian Keenan with Vanessa

Brian Keenan is best known for being taken hostage in Beirut in 1985, a strange thing to be know for, but nonetheless, the reason we know him – this and An Evil Cradling, his account of the time taken from him.

An Evil Cradling is not just an account of being held hostage, it is a profoundly moving book, a story of one man’s emotional journey through the turbulence; the harshness and depravity is there, but along with it is a wondrous humour and vitality. It is a story of the intense connection with his fellow captive John McCarthy, they shared a hilarity and love which fed their spirits and spurred them on in spite of the worst imaginable circumstances.

It is an extraordinary account of humanity, humility and humour, a remarkable book which has helped me in my life. Quite frankly Brian Keenan is one of my heroes, so when I heard he was doing a reading at the Bluecoat (Friday 16th Oct), I knew I had to go.

He read from his new book I’ll Tell Me Ma, not so much an autobiography as a collection of memories from his childhood. Memories that for him led on to stranger and long-forgotten memories, thoughts of a young boy now interpreted by an adult mind, connections made as skeletons gently revealed their secrets.

Brian Keenan was rather sweetly nervous at the beginning, saying that the audience were more threatening than a bunch of Arab terrorists(!), but relaxed as he read to us, then happily answered questions from Jane Davis and the audience.

He is a charming man and spoke from his heart, he said that his emotions are always close to the surface, he lives through them – a lesson to us all.

He did a book signing after the event, and took time for everyone. He very kindly agreed when my friend asked if I could have my photo taken with him (I was too in awe of him to ask!), and seemed delighted to show his human and rather mischievous side.

Whoever said that you should never meet your heroes was wrong. It was an honour to meet Brian Keenan, he is a truly lovely man.

— — —

Jane Davis, Director of The Reader Organisation, hosted this event with Brian Keenan and she says this of her experience:

Anyone who has read An Evil Cradling will know that Brian Keenan has written  one of the most extraordinary books of the twentieth century, giving voice to key experiences and fears of our time. The book is a moving testament to a courage and resilience which seems to arise from but also be greater than the individual.

I’ll Tell Me Ma, his new memoir (not at all miserable)  is an account, to use an old fashioned phrase, of the development of a soul, the soul that became the man who survived the brutal captivity described in the first book. The book is a series of vivid memories and meditations, a rather Wordsworthian account of a lonely and deeply felt childhood.

Reading and rereading the books was my prep for the Chapter and Verse event at Bluecoat last week, and they helped, but nothing had prepared me for the depth of feeling, wit, gentleness and deeply individual creature that  is Brian Keenan. I felt I was meeting someone who utterly become himself, crystallised, absolute. It was a great pleasure and an experience that will stay with me, and I think many members of the audience, for a long time.

Rita Tushingham from Garston in Liverpool, started her career as an actress at the Liverpool Playhouse Theatre; her film debut was at the age of 18 in Shelagh Delaney’s A TASTE OF HONEY (1961) for which she won a British Academy Award for Best Newcomer.

Rita has also appeared in The Leather Boys (1962), Girl with Green Eyes (1963), The Knack… and how to get it (1965), Doctor Zhivago (1965), The Stretford Wives (2002), Being Julia (2004) and Carla Lane’s, Bread (1986-1991).

In July this year she received an Honorary Fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University for her outstanding and sustained contributions to performing arts.

It has recently been announced that Rita is due to star in a documentary for Liverpool Football Club about their 2005 Champions League Victory.

Clapperboard Presents… is a new initiative by Maureen Sinclair to raise funds for the Clapperboard Youth Project. Maureen has known Rita for many years and has been a great admirer of her work. Rita said:

I always look forward to coming back home but this time it’s for a special fundraising event for the Clapperboard Youth Project. I think it’s very important that young people get involved in creating something wonderful as it can open up a whole new world for them. The whole process of filmmaking from script to screen stimulates their creativity and they can discover things that they may not have known they are capable of.

Rita Tushingham will participate in a Question and Answers session after the screening of A TASTE OF HONEY with the audience Chaired by Prof Roger Shannon, Professor of Film in the Department of Media at  Edge Hill University.

Income raised from Clapperboard Presents… will go toward the Clapperboard Youth Project. Tickets are £10 each, Concessions £7 – available  from FACT box office. Tickets include a complimentary after show drink sponsored by Alma de Cuba.

Mariella Frostrup will interview ten top authors on 18th and 25th October. Each author will pitch a classic book that they think has been unjustly neglected. Listeners will be asked to vote, with the winner being dramatised for the Classic Serial. Beyond that, though, Radio 4 are hoping to open up a big conversation about all those books and authors that somehow we’ve forgotten about, but which still provide a thrilling and memorable read.

More information soon on the Open Book website at Radio 4.

So, what forgotten classic do you feel’s been unfairly abandoned?

I am sick to death of hearing people spout on about their ‘dream’ or their’ passion’ or their ‘journey’ but from the moment that the small figure stepped gracefully on to the stage I was, I have to say, completely captivated and by the end, if she had said follow me to the top of a mast in an Atlantic storm, I would have thrown away my book and gone with her. Ellen MacArthur is five foot three of pure blood and grit. She is wonderfully articulate and speaks using her whole body. Speaking of sails she becomes a wind-driven sail; with the suppleness of a dancer she demonstrates the structural design of a trimaran and with wings she becomes the albatross that followed her boat in the Southern Ocean. With no notes and just a few slides her talk was divided into three parts. The first concentrated upon her childhood: how, living in landlocked Derbyshire, she saved something from her school dinner money every day for 8 years until she had enough to by a small dinghy. Having bought it she could not afford to put it onto the local reservoir so, she sat in her boat in the garden and fixed her eyes upon the horizon. And this single minded determination that drives her whole life took her, some thirteen years on, to the world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe. She told of approaching Kingfisher (her sponsor for her first round the world race) saying of course at that meeting they had a choice and they chose to back this 21 yr old to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds. But actually, I would think they did not. For you do not say no to this woman. She is instantly recognisable as humanly super special and not because of what she has achieved in the past but in the sheer dynamism of her very forceful presence.

The second part highlighted the work of The Ellen MacArthur Trust which takes young people aged between 8-18 sailing to help them regain their confidence, on their way to recovery from cancer, leukaemia and other serious illness. These children are her obviously her inspiration. The third was a surprise to her audience. A visit to South Georgia eighteen months ago impressed upon her the need for humanity to live in a more sustainable way. Her life now is dedicated to the reduction of her own and her company’s energy and resource consumption and to the promotion of this message world wide. To this end she declared, standing in front of us looking so impassable that even a bulldozer would crumple if it tried to move her, she has given up racing ‘ a sort of sacrifice’ she called it with a shrug. ‘Where do you get your inner strength from?’, someone in the audience asked. “ I don’t know’ she said simply, suddenly and briefly looking very small and alone.

What has all this to do with The Reader Organisation blog. Well nothing really except that in all our reading groups and teaching we say look for the passages in books and poems that move you; that mean something personal to you and put a mark beside them. And so it seems only natural that when in life outside books I have the privilege of coming across that rare thing, a truly inspirational human being, someone that in the pretty impersonal setting of a lecture hall can nevertheless cross boundaries and deeply move me, then I must somehow make my mark beside her.

(If you would like to know more, take a look at Ellen’s impressive website.)