Dunster Festival
On Whitsun weekend next year the Somerset market town of Dunster will host its own festival. The artistic directors have devised a rich and varied programme, making full use of this historic little town on the edge of Exmoor, which is complete with castle, working water mill, packhorse bridge and lovely sixteenth century church. A perfect weekend combination of imaginatively planned music and a unique setting. I shall hurry to get tickets as soon as booking opens in November.
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Contains Art
The quayside of Watchet, little harbour town on the Bristol Channel coast of Somerset, is home to Contains Art. This splendid venture has overseen the conversion of three shipping containers into a gallery space and four working studios, which are allocated for a period to different Somerset artists. There is a courtyard, bright with flowers, for community events and informal meetings. We enjoy a visit to the gallery and meeting artists, and I am frequently tempted to acquire some new print or other work.
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Elworthy Cottage Plants
West Somerset is where my family roots are, and where I most like to be. My daughter and I are addicted to Elworthy Cottage, which is both a garden and a specialist nursery. Idyllically sited in a fold of the Brendon hills, the garden is rich with spring flowers when it opens in March – narcissi, hellebores, pulmonarias – and specialises later in hardy geraniums. The nursery grows and sells most of the plants seen in the garden.
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Little Angel Theatre
The Little Angel Theatre in Islington is the flagship of puppet theatre. Small, intimate, and frequently electrifying, this is where generations of children have had their first experience of theatre. I took my own, decades ago, and later on a succession of grandchildren. I’ll never forget their absorption, their amazement.
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The Marian Consort
The Marian Consort is a now internationally renowned early music vocal ensemble, its members drawn from the best young singers on the early music scene today. Their main repertoire runs from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, but they are also committed to contemporary music; they have released four CDs. Maybe I should declare a (proud) interest: the director, Rory McCleery, is married to my granddaughter Rachel.
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The National Garden Scheme
I have been enjoying garden visiting under the National Garden Scheme for many years – the Yellow Book. Yellow Book gardens can be grand, or a few square yards behind someone’s house, and that is the joy of them. You see every possible manifestation of gardening skill, you see how other people garden – you learn, you admire (sometimes you don’t) – a marvellous insight into the practices of a gardening nation. Back in the nineteen eighties, we were Yellow Book openers ourselves, as part of the group opening of gardens in an Oxfordshire village, and I remember what fun it was; masses of people trooped round the garden, friendly, interested, immaculately behaved.
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Royal School of Needlework
The Royal School of Needlework perpetuates an intricate and valuable craft – teaching, exhibiting, promoting. My interest stems perhaps from having had a grandmother who did superb embroidery; her sampler of her house and garden is Victoria and Albert Museum standard (I know – I have looked at their collections). So I admire the artistry and creativity that goes into the various complex forms of Needlework. The Royal School of Needlework should be valued for its crucial role in preserving this and training those who will keep the skill alive.
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