My Lynn News story about the return of Ray of the Antarctic
and in Suffolk Norfolk Life
'A head in the lenticular clouds' of South Georgia (see Lynn news article)
Showing posts with label Lynn News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lynn News. Show all posts
March 05, 2016
Welcome home Ray!
100+ view for this post
My Lynn News story about the return of Ray of the Antarctic
My Lynn News story about the return of Ray of the Antarctic
June 17, 2015
February 25, 2015
Ray of Hope 3: How West Norfolk News Gets Delivered To South Georgia
Shackleton's Grave - facing the south Pole as the great man
requested (though there are conspiracy theories)
gotcha! A seal gets a bite of Ray's boot
South Georgia
Smile :) You are the 100+ reader of this post
Some people will do anything for publicity. And not always with a story to tell. Not so ex-NHS electrician Ray Thirkettle late of this parish.
When Mr Thirkettle went to the British Antarctic Survey's Halley Station on Antarctica for four months in 2013, he and his BAS 'widow' Pauline kept it pretty much to themselves. This photo of the mature OU Science graduate in summer snow was strictly for the family album.
Not to mention that it's inappropriate for BAS employees engaged in state of the art research on the other side of the world to be shouting Hello Mum, Look at Me!
Ray likes a quiet life. Even quieter than the ones we get in village West Norfolk. And in recent years he has certainly gone that extra mile - or 7000 - to get it!
Grytviken - former whaling station
But when November 2014, Ray gave up his career and returned to the South Atlantic for 13 months, even TV was interested and the story threatened to snowball. I happened to be reviewing his BAS talk about Halley Station for the Lynn News just before he embarked and I suggested (without much expectation) we do an interview about his latest expedition.
Luckily he liked my take on his talk. And he knew me from our involvement in SHARP, the Sedgeford Archaeological and Historical Research Project. So he vouchsafed his whole amazing story to one trusted freelance - me! Thanks, Ray.
The EDP put the feature on the front page. (Read it here). Now it has become part of the story.
A couple from Nordelph, West Norfolk read it with more than usual interest. They were going on an intrepid sea adventure in the South Atlantic Ocean in December 2014 and on the strength of a shared local paper and a do-different Norfolk attitude, decided to call in on South Georgia and ask for Ray.
They did. And had a whale of a time! Among other South Georgia adventures, they explored Grytviken the old whaling station.
And guess what newspaper they took with them! Nothing like a print copy, eh, Ray?
Ray's Nordelph visitors later managed a (rare) landing on Elephant Island, and were lucky in the lottery for the 18 places available to camp on the snow overnight to see in the New Year at a special place I'm not allowed to say!
They're back home now in a very dank and damp Norfolk and it all couldn't be further removed from Grytviken.
But they have photographs of their brilliant memories. They sent them to Ray and here they are!
Happy New year Ray! And keep reading that EDP in Nordelph folks!
February 20's Ray of Hope 4 (rat eradication on the island) is here
November 22, 2014
Lynn News review of Great Massingham Social Club/ West Norfolk Radio
Great Massingham calling… and introducing West Norfolk Radio
http://www.lynnnews.co.uk/what-s-on/lifestyle-leisure/review-massingham-folkspot-night-1-6429876
Lexie Green
Last Sunday night I saw three hours of live variety
entertainment. THREE great bands; quality floorspots, recorded CDs and
interviews; a big friendly bar and a happy end-of-weekend crowd to share it all
with.
I felt very smug that as a reviewer I was getting all this for
free. And then I found out everyone was!
I don’t know how Vic Cross, manager of Great Massingham Social
Club, and Jane Knights of West Norfolk Radio (formerly Folkspot) can afford to
mount this collaboration every Sunday night. But it’s definitely worth driving (or
moving!) to Massingham for –if you’re not lucky enough to live there. Or at least
tuning in.
Lexie Green and the Indigo Blue, a Marshall-amped, female-fronted
country rock band from Cambridgeshire, served up a top set of self-written
songs, some of which have won international awards. If Lucinda Williams’ guitar
met John Paul Jones’ drum, this might be the love-child!
They had a great range. Lexie’s vocals swooped from tender to
rocking and back again and her warmth and sense of fun lifted the audience.
Trio
Norfolk’s very own Trio sustained an attractive and ambitious
set of classic harmony-rock. (Stealer’s Wheel, CSN &Y, Crowded House, ELO,
Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac, Tracey Chapman…) Just when you
thought Phil, Mark and Dawn’s voices couldn’t get any more exciting than their ‘Eleanor
Rigby’, they hit us with a hopping 5 string bass-thumping tribute to Stevie
Wonder’s ‘Hotter Than July’ that had my wife and me all but bopping around the
bar.
Gospel-tinged Norwich country-folk duo Joe & Mary gave us a
set of alternative intimate love-songs alone worth going out for. Fortunately,
like Folkspot house-performers Mike Prior and Dave Cooper, they’ll be back.
West Norfolk Radio broadcasts every Sunday from 7-10 pm on www.westnorfolkradio.co.uk contact
Jane Knights on 07780977301. Enquire
about Great Massingham Social Club’s events and bookings on 01485 520387
January 15, 2014
Historical features written for The EDP and Lynn News 2013-14
The latest- SHARP Sedgeford Historical Archaeolgical Research Project 2014 season-here
http://www.lynnnews.co.uk/news/local/latest-local-news/a-season-of-discovery-for-sedgeford-archaeological-digs-1-5420824
http://www.lynnnews.co.uk/news/local/latest-local-news/lectures-at-marriot-s-warehouse-in-king-s-lynn-1-5489280
http://www.lynnnews.co.uk/news/business/business-news/new-era-at-green-quay-s-marriott-s-warehouse-1-5170771
http://garethcalway.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/historic-gem-set-for-bright-future-my.html (EDP but only online via my blog)
http://garethcalway.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/you-have-it-madam-boudicca-edp-cover.html (ditto)
http://garethcalway.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-meaning-of-christmas.html (ditto)
http://www.lynnnews.co.uk/news/local/latest-local-news/king-john-s-annus-horribilis-in-king-s-lynn-1-5884588
July 15, 2013
Been There, Done That, Got My Name On The T Shirt: Cromwell's Talking Head at Ely Folk Festival
'Cromwell's Talking Head' is a lively rehearsed reading of 30 minutes. It was the first ever spoken word hosted by Ely Folk Festival in July 2013, where it went down like a real ale in a hot marquee. It has an ongoing residency at Oliver Cromwell's House in Ely, bookings at Marriott's Warehouse Upstairs in King's Lynn and the Cromwell Museum in Huntingdon and tours pubs, clubs and storytelling venues.
Cromwell's Talking Head is in the horrible history genre and aimed at the naughty kid in all of us. But it's all true - Cromwell the king-killer really was dug up from his 'royal' grave at the Restoration, hung, drawn, quartered and his head stuck on a traitor's pole for 25 years. After centuries of adventures in freaks shows and dodgy museums, bits nicked by trophy hunters, and carrying a legendary curse, the head was authenticated by cranial detectives and in 1960 secretly buried at his old college in Cambridge University. Secretly in case drunken royalist students dig him up again! In the monologue, the head tells the ghastly story and the story of the Civil War to a young grave robber who has dug up more than he bargained for. It's funny, informative and not that comfortable for royal ears. You’ll laugh your head off!
'A triumph of narration and verbal colouring' (Radio Drama Reviews.)
To hear the Siren FM radio production, go to iTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-reading-room/id399470470
SEE ALSO: http://garethcalway.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/press-release-jan-15-2014-cromwells.html Cromwell's Talking Head winter tour 2014
At Ely 2013, I enjoyed the support of a youngster in the crowd named Ethan reminding me to hit the triangle at the head of each chapter and got lots of lovely feedback. Cromwell rides again!
CROMWELL'S TALKING HEAD ELY FOLK FESTIVAL
PRESS RELEASE JULY 2013
14 July is a great date for Republicans in France. But the French don’t have the monopoly on setting up republics and chopping off the heads of tyrannical kings. Our very own Oliver Cromwell might appreciate his story being told on Bastille Day at this year’s Ely Folk Festival, twenty minutes walk from his old stomping ground and national memorial at Oliver Cromwell’s House, and in the shadow of Ely Cathedral.
The great patriot – “we are English, that’s one good fact” - might point out that he headed up the English Revolution a ‘big hundred’ century before Robespierre and Bonaparte led the French. The humble gentleman farmer Cromwell, first as soldier and then as statesman, combines the positive qualities of both these French leaders. The English Empire he established in the 1650s held a position in the world higher than any other between Agincourt and Trafalgar – 400 years. English (round)heads were held high.
Until the Stuart Restoration in 1660. At this point, Cromwell’s body, preserved and buried (against his wish) in royal state in the tomb of soldier-king Henry VII, was dug up by vengeful royalists, hanged at Tyburn, drawn, quartered, beheaded, and its tooth-smashed, ear-torn head spiked on the roof of Westminster Hall: the punishment meted out by Charles II for beheading his father Charles I in 1649. Cromwell’s head remained on its spike for 25 years, surveying the Great Fire of London and enduring a quarter of a century of English weather, until finally removed by a thunderbolt .
Fire and smoke damage ensued as it was hidden up a chimney by an old soldier (one of the redcoats he and Sir Thomas Fairfax had formed during the Civil War into the victorious New Model Army) and then spent centuries in freak shows and dodgy museums, bits being broken off as souvenirs. The Curse of Cromwell’s Head was said to follow anyone who held it in his possession and gory tales bear witness to this so-called curse.
But the real story is gothic enough. As is the curse. Cromwell is not a great favourite with the royalist view of history and whenever kings were popular, Cromwell’s head was best kept secret. But when the English grew restless again under unpopular and self-indulgent monarchs - such as James II and even for periods of Victoria’s reign – this relic of our only republic became a focus for demands that Cromwell’s progressive politics be honoured.
The relic was validated ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’ as Cromwell’s actual head and buried in his old college at Sidney Sussex, Cambridge in 1960. A nearby plaque commemorates the fact but the actual whereabouts are kept secret for fear royalist students might dig it up again. And what a story the head could tell if it talked!
Well now it is. Gareth’s carefully researched dramatic monologue imagines the conversation when a grave robber exhumes the head at midnight. After two sell out performances at the House last year, it will be staged at this year’s festival in Marquee 3 between 2 pm and 2.50 pm on July 14.
April 15, 2013
Happy Birthday To Folkspot
http://www.lynnnews.co.uk/lifestyle/lifestyle-and-leisure-news/great-massingham-it-s-happy-birthday-to-folkspot-radio-1-4992392
The pictures are of Oliver's Army making our debut online, on air and onstage (never do things by halves) at Folkspot a week after the anniversary (on or about my 57th birthday) of Folkspot radio reported under my very own new byeline in the Lynn News. This is the article that made me a folk correspondent for my local community newspaper. And Oliver's Army are the band that heralded the beginning of my career as lyricist, lead poet, occasional vocalist - singing Green Shirt by Elvis Costello - backing vocalist and drummer in a folk-punk-prog band.
A big week! (We shouldn't have eaten that Pepper before we went out, though, judging by the first photo.)
That gig did for Margaret Thatcher anyway. She died the next day...
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