Summer is here and for thousands of young people that means heading off to music festivals.

At several music festival events teams of Festival Angel volunteers will be on hand to offer welfare and support to ensure that those attending have a safe and fun festival experience.

Festival Angels started life as a Prayer Cafe, run by local church communities, at Leeds Festival in 2011. The Prayer Cafe at Leeds is now one of the most popular spaces at the festival with a £5 mug deal giving festival-goers a souvenir mug and free tea, coffee and hot water refills for the duration of the event. The Leeds team also run the Lost Property and Left Luggage tent, with a success rate of around 60% items returned to owners. Detached teams,very much like Street Angels in town and city centres, offer support and welfare across the massive festival site.

The success at Leeds has meant that other coordinators wanted Festival Angels at their own festivals. This year Festival Angels will be at over 12 music festival events including Boardmasters, Royal Ascot, Eastern Electrics and, for the first time this year, Kendal Calling where teams will run campsite safe hubs.

Festival Angels will also include the trendy ‘Jesus Loves Festivals’ banner design which is a great conversation starter and ‘selfie with Jesus’ opportunity! The teams are also promoting ‘Jesus calls will you follow’ banner plane flypast that will pass over all the festival sites.

To find out more about the work of Festival Angels or to sign up as a volunteer checkout festivalangels.org.uk or search Festival Angels on Facebook and Twitter

Join the Pennine Prospects archaeological team between the 16th and 29th July in the excavation of a series of First World War practice trenches located within the Calderdale Countryside and Woodlands Team Long Wood,Copley, Calderdale.

The site was initially recorded during their woodland survey in Winter 2017 as part of the Pennine Prospects National Lottery Heritage Fund project.

However, very little is known about when the trenches were formed, and who excavated them. This is your chance to learn some archaeological skills and help us to explore the history of this site.

Booking is essential so please contact:Chris.Atkinson@pennineprospects.co.uk

No previous experience is necessary and all children must be accompanied by a responsible adult.

Access to the woods can be found via various routes including: Birdcage Lane, New Lane and Springwood Drive.

Please be careful parking on these residential and country roads.

Find out more at facebook.com/events/2245383428859922/

No apologies for my subject being Anne Lister again this month.

Last month I was speaking to a local lady who had recently returned to Calderdale from Los Angeles.  She told me that, high up above Sunset Boulevard, she had seen a billboard inscribed ‘Gentleman Jack – The Story of Anne Lister.’  Like her or loathe her, our Anne Lister of Shibden Hall is becoming an international star!   You may heard that visitors to Shibden Hall were up massively in May.  Likewise, visitors to Halifax Minster, at which Anne was baptised, where she attended church regularly, and lies buried, have significantly increased.

At the time Anne Lister was conceived in 1790, her parents were in Ireland, where her father Captain Jeremy was serving in the army at Galway.  His wife Rebecca Battle was sent back to Halifax as her pregnancy advanced.  And here in Halifax on 3^rd April 1791, Anne was born.  We do not know where the event took place, but the baptismal record indicates it was in the town, and not at Shibden.

When Anne was two years old, and following the birth of her elder surviving brother Samuel in 1793, her parents left Halifax to live in the East Riding.  In 1790, Captain Jeremy inherited some money, which he invested in a small estate just west of Market Weighton.   He built three houses, the largest of which he called Skelfler where Anne lived until 1806.

I visited the Market Weighton area to view the church where Anne’s mother was buried in November 1817.  The burial took place there because Captain Jeremy was again living in that district, in one of his smaller properties near Skelfler, called Low Grange.    I visited both Skelfler, now known as Skelfrey Park Farm, and Low Grange farm both of which are private property, though because of my interest, the owners were happy to allow me to look at the exteriors of the buildings and take some photos.  It was most interesting to see these properties, considering their past links with Halifax and the Listers. The countryside around is open and very flat, and there are some plantations of trees nearby to shield the farms. At Skelfler, Anne’s younger brother was born in 1795; and her only sister Marian, in 1797.

In the church of All Saints, Market Weighton, is a memorial to Rev. George Skelding, who, before she was sent to school at York, tutored Anne Lister at his vicarage, being the first to introduce her to the Classics. On 6^th December 1819, Anne recorded in her diary:

“My aunt had a letter from Marian (Market Weighton) giving an account of the rather sudden death of Mr. Skelding. He had had a little cold and fever with it, but this had quite left him; he walked out, and was even out only a short time before his death – only a few minutes before it… Thus died my first Latin preceptor with whom I had the rudiments of my classical education… and studied about eleven months. He was not a man of general science or literature, nor a profound Grecian; but a well-grounded Latin scholar, considered a sound divine, and a most worthy good man, who performed all the duties, public and private, of his situation with exemplary uprightedness, and who was beloved and respected by all who knew him.”

At 7.30 pm on Friday 5^th July, Sally Wainwright will be at Halifax Minster, for a Q&A evening.  Much emphasis will be placed on the Gentleman Jack TV series, but Sally’s other TV series’ filmed locally will also be topical. Anne Choma who wrote the tie-in book for Gentleman Jack will also be present, and participate.  Tickets are £10.00, available from Eventbrite or via the Minster Office.

More  Halifax Minster Summer Festival event information can be found at halifaxminster.org.uk

David C Glover

Please find further details of my July Talks on page 59 of the directory.

Last month was really busy with a lot of projects on the go and coming to completion. The Cap Stories project I’ve been working on as Associate Artist for Welland Festival launched with over 800 individually illustrated rubbish caps made by myself and other people in workshops at schools, preschools and at the festival. I’m now looking for a permanent home for the collection in Elland and also potentially developing the project in other areas such as Queensgate Market in Huddersfield as part of my work there with Parley by Parlour – part of Temporary Contemporary.

https://capstories.home.blog/

https://www.facebook.com/wellandfest/

https://www.byparley.co.uk/

This month I’m excited to be co-curating a Dwell Time exhibition at Huddersfield Railway Station which is kindly supported by a YVAN microgrant. Dwell Time is a publication of art and writing reflecting on mental wellbeing that I co-curate with Vanessa Haley and Lenny Szrama. Our exhibition in July is a showcase of art from our Issue 1 launch and will also double up as a launch of the Issue 2 open call. We will be showing prints of our Issue 1 publication in the station’s main waiting room alongside prints of Bob Clayden’s pinhole camera portraits that he made on Platform 2 for our launch event. The pinhole camera portraits are long exposure and require the sitter to remain still for around 10 minutes ‘dwell time’ otherwise they appear in the photograph as a blur of motion. Come along to our exhibition opening on Thursday 18 July, 6:30-9pm at Huddersfield Railway Station.

https://dwelltimepress.wordpress.com/

In last month’s issue I mentioned my writer’s residency with Yorkshire Visual Arts Network and Corridor8 mapping the visual arts sector in Yorkshire. This has now completed with a publication entitled Resilience is Futile launching on Thursday 1 August, 6-8pm at The Arthouse in Wakefield. Please do come over to for that if you can and join in the conversations on the visual arts in Yorkshire.

https://www.yvan.org.uk/

https://corridor8.co.uk/

https://the-arthouse.org.uk/

As this writer’s residency comes to a close with the publication launch, I start an artist development project with Compass Live Arts. I’m paired with one of their artists in residency and will be undertaking some research and development around the idea of ‘talking about talking’ and dialogical learning (perhaps this will be a talking rubbish project too!) with lots of interviews planned. This is a self-directed project within a supported programme and I’m keen to make some form of printed outcome for it – I am a huge fan of publications! As well as accessing some free research material online I’ve treated myself to some new art books. It’s times like this undertaking research that I really miss having access to a university library. I love our libraries in Calderdale and use them a lot but access to a university library is on another level. I’ll probably be blogging about my project and will share more stuff about this next month. If dialogical practice is your area of interest please get in touch via the links below – I would love to talk to you about it.

https://compassliveart.org.uk/

Alice Bradshaw https://www.alicebradshaw.co.uk/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/alicebradshawartist/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/alicebradshaw.co.uk/

Twitter https://twitter.com/alicebradshaw

Many people visit me with anxiety issues, each one of them going through similar experiences.

If you’re a sufferer, initially you may feel strange, a kind of ‘unreal’ and not with it.  You may tremble, feeling a rapid heartbeat and breathing irregularly.  These symptoms can lead to bigger issues like depression, a racing mind and tiredness, which may eventually render you disconnected from people and the world around you; Ruminating, trying to pluck up the courage to simply ‘live life’ whilst plunging deeper into the crevasse. Eventually feeling panicky then leads to the next stage – mental exhaustion. Being hyper aware of feelings can make you think you are going crazy!   Both mind and body become super-tired.

Overthinking and over-analysing is exhausting work which rapidly leads to the final stage in this battle – emotional exhaustion.  If you’ve missed days off work, and any chance of a social life feels like climbing Everest in summer sandals, then you’ve potentially reached the finish line.

However, you can recover from this, no matter what level of anxiety or panic you have reached.  Now here comes the ‘but’…… YOU WON’T GET BETTER UNTIL YOU STOP TRYING!

Spending time, analysing your condition and trying to find reasons for it, gets you more caught up in the trauma.

Accept the anxiety but put yourself out there; do the things that bring you out of your comfort zone, safe in the knowledge that you won’t die from a panic attack. Only then will you know that you actually could do it, and despite the adrenalin rush you didn’t die and therefore can do it again, only next time it won’t be as testing.

Anxiety is a particular kind of hell but don’t see it as the enemy. Let go and live alongside it for the time being. Allow it to be part of your day and you may begin to feel some inner peace, which in turn will help you to rebuild the missing bits of your life.

Who knows, maybe there’s a reason we’re all meant to do some paddling upstream against the tide?

Marica x

For more of Marica’s self-help blogs visit www.calderdalecounselling.com

maricawebley@gmail.com

07759 014131

Last year some determined Skircoat residents, supported by Holy Trinity and St Jude’s Church came together with the intention of holding Skircoat’s own Great Get Together in 2019. The group have been working hard to make this a reality involving West Yorkshire Police, Calderdale Council and West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue in the planning.

The Great Get Together is a movement started in memory of Jo Cox the late MP. The Skircoat Great Get Together hopes to bring the community together to enjoy a great day out!

Planning for the event was recently bolstered by a successful application to the Skircoat Ward forum which granted £491 to help cover some of the costs of the day.

Cllr Colin Hutchinson said ‘the Great Get Together planned for the Skircoat ward is absolutely what we should be supporting through the local ward forum grants. Bringing our community together, celebrating diversity and promoting community cohesion in such a positive way will be a great benefit to the residents of the Skircoat ward.’

The event is on Saturday 29th June, on the moor off Free School Lane and in the grounds of Holy Trinity and St Jude’s. The group hopes that the local community will join them during the three hours event.  Activities organised include the chance to explore a working fire engine and Police vehicle, an Indian dance taster session and a high energy, high stakes game of Imams v Clergy rounders match.

Visitors will have the chance to spend 5 minutes with various members of differing faith groups to learn more about the faiths of Calderdale. ‘Faith Dating’ helps to dispel some myths and explore faith in an open and fun way.

As a close friend of Jo, local MP Holly Lynch has been supporting the group and said ‘the planning of the event sounds to be coming along really well. I am grateful to the group for honouring Jo’s memory by organising such a fantastic event that reflects all that she was passionate about’.

More information about the day can be found on the group’s Facebook page @SkircoatTogether

– suggested by local poet Victoria Gatehouse

June has arrived with its promise of warm weather (fingers crossed) and many of us start to think about holidays. I love the sense of movement and sensual detail in this month’s seaside poem and know, from speaking with the author, Bob Horne, that it’s as much about growing up and self-discovery as it is about swimming.

The Raft

That summer I was strong enough

to swim out, haul myself from the water

on to the black wooden boards

as the tide smacked its sides.

From harbour to headland

chalk-cliff to shoreline

summer colour covered the sands,

spilled into the fringes of the sea.

I turned by back on the shallows

busy with the clamour of paddlers,

swayed on the ups and downs of waves

reeling in through grey-green emptiness,

balanced on the raft, still not adrift

but out of my depth, loving it.

Taken from Knowing My Place, published by Calder Valley Press.

Bob Horne founded the ward-winning Calder Valley Press in 2018, publishing books by talented local poets. Bob is also co-organiser of the wonderful ‘Puzzle Poets’ spoken word night at The Navigation pub in Sowerby Bridge.  I’m looking forward to reading there myself on 1^st July.  Knowing my Place is Bob’s first collection. More about Bob and Calder Valley Press can be found here https://caldervalleypoetry.com/about/

By the time you read this, you should have had the opportunity to watch the first two episodes of Gentleman Jack the screening of which began on 19^th May on BBC 1.  In this TV series, Sally Wainwright focuses on the romance between Anne Lister of Shibden Hall and Ann Walker of Lightcliffe during the early 1830s.  As you probably know, the series stars the excellent Suranne Jones as Anne Lister, while Sophie Rundle is ideally cast as Ann Walker.

Here is a brief account of a girl who lived in the old Master’s House at Heath Grammar School, who was a friend of Ann Walker for much of her life.

To begin: on the north wall of Halifax Minster, near the porch door, is a memorial in Latin to Rev Robert Wilkinson who was headmaster of Heath Grammar School from 1789-1839.  He was also curate at Lightcliffe Chapel from 1782 onwards. It was Robert Wilkinson who baptised Ann Walker at Lightcliffe in 1803.

A native of Cockermouth, Robert married Sarah Robinson of Hipperholme at Halifax in 1782; four of their children died in infancy, the surviving children Mary, Catherine, Sarah and Lydia.  Lydia was born at Heath in January 1795 and baptised at Lightcliffe on 25^th of that month.  She grew up to be a close friend of Ann Walker.

In her diary for 21^st July 1818 Anne Lister recorded: “Met the two Miss Walkers, of Crow Nest, and with them two Miss Wilkinsons, of Heath, at the Library.”

A direct reference to Lydia Wilkinson appears in Anne Lister’s diary for 7^th December 1832, describing a visit to Ann Walker at her home, then at Lydgate: “Miss Parkhill was in the room on my going in – spoke or rather bowed to her formally …  She goes on Monday & Miss Lydia Wilkinson then comes to Lidgate, of which I said I should be glad.”

An entry in Anne Lister’s diary from a year earlier, 28^th October 1831 informs us: “[Heard] from Langton of a Miss Wilkinson, of Heath, going to be married to Mr. George Fenton.”  It was not till 30^th May 1833, aged 38, that Lydia married Rev George Fenton at Halifax Parish Church; he was then a minister at Ilkley Parish Church.

George and Lydia Fenton had two children, both of whom sadly died in infancy, being buried at Ilkley.  In 1836 Rev Fenton was appointed vicar of Royston near Barnsley; but he sometimes officiated for his father-in-law Rev Wilkinson at Lightcliffe Chapel. Anne Lister tells us in her diary for 23^rd August 1835: “Mr George Fenton did all the duty – preached 23 minutes tolerably but, unfortunately as to subject…”

Lydia Wilkinson’s husband George Fenton died in 1843, aged 48; he was taken to Lightcliffe for burial, near his father-in-law.  Widowed Lydia then moved in with her unmarried sisters, living at 2 Savile Row, Halifax.

From 1833, Anne Lister and Ann Walker attended services at Lightcliffe Chapel regularly, and the Lister diary makes many mentions of Lydia’s father Rev Robert Wilkinson.

Ann Walker inherited a life interest in Shibden Hall on Anne Lister’s death in 1840.  Sadly, in 1843 she was forcibly removed to an asylum near York. A few years later she was finally judged well enough to return home, to live at her own property of Cliffe Hill, Lightcliffe, under supervision.  We have no clear knowledge of her mental condition; no letters written by her after the early 1840s survive.   Ann’s affairs were taken into the hands of one of her Rawson cousins, who arranged for her to be looked after at Cliffe Hill by a housekeeper and an ‘attendant’.  But it is the housekeeper who interests us – she was the widowed Lydia Fenton, in charge of the building for the remainder of Ann’s time there.  Her suitability, given her friendship with Ann so well in her youth, may be imagined.

Following Ann Walker’s death in 1854, Lydia returned to Savile Row, Halifax, to live with her sisters. Lydia was the last survivor, dying on 24^th March 1865 at Savile Row aged 69.  At each of the sisters’ burials, Archdeacon Charles Musgrave, vicar of Halifax, presided, as indeed he had done at both the funerals of Anne Lister and of Ann Walker. You can see the Wilkinson family tombstones today in Lightcliffe Churchyard, not far from the last resting place of her friend Ann Walker.

I am most grateful for the splendid work of Helena Whitbread and Jill Liddington in transcribing Anne Lister’s Diaries.  Also, my thanks to The Friends of Lightcliffe Churchyard.

David C Glover

On Tuesday 25^th June at 7.30 pm, I am speaking at The Grayston Unity Bar, opposite Halifax Town Hall Porch about Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights and High Sunderland.  Tickets £5.00 must be booked in advance on 07807 136520 – seating is very limited.

On Thursday 27^th June at 7.30 pm, I am speaking at St Matthew’s Church, Lightcliffe about John Crossley & Sons of Dean Clough 1803-1982. Entry £5.00, tickets from Tony Hillam on 01274 675405.

My name is Samantha Wheatcroft I’ve lived in Skircoat Green for 19 years with my husband David & our two sons Finton & Toby.

When Gallery 339 closed last year it was a big loss for Skircoat Green. Myself, friends, friends of friends etc were constantly asking each other where to go to get a great card or a fabulous present?

In conversation, Amanda Norton, the current owner of Nicholls Fashion and Beauty shop in Skircoat Green, mentioned that she was thinking of retiring from the fashion side of the business (the beauty rooms are staying open).  The Dress shop has been on Skircoat Green high street for 80 years, with just two families owning it (the first being Mrs Nicholls).  Obviously, this high street doesn’t have empty shops very often!  For me, it was an ideal opportunity to try & fill that gap that Gallery 339 had left behind.

Eesome Gift and Card shop won’t be a replica of Gallery 339 as I obviously want to put my own stamp on it.  However, customers will be able to select cards from some of the great companies that previously supplied Gallery 339 as well as some of the same products.  However, there will also be gorgeous candles, jewellery, homeware etc. from new and different companies too.  Most of the stock will be designed and made in Britain and where possible, from good old Yorkshire!

As this is a new venture for me, I’d like to say a huge thank you – to all my family and friends who have been incredibly supportive. Also, to Natalie Seager who ran Gallery 339. She has bravely chosen to forge a new pathway, practising restorative therapies.  Natalie has been a boon to me throughout this process so a huge thank you to her too.

Eesome will open in June 2019, the planned opening times are:

Tuesday to Friday 10am – 5pm

Saturday 9am – 4pm

If you’d like to get in touch then email eesomegifts@gmail.com or find the store on Instagram as eesomegifts or visit www.eesomegifts.co.uk  Otherwise, I’ll see you in June when the shop opens!

Last month I mentioned doing a printmaking workshop at The Artworks. The seven week course has come to an end and has been a really interesting exploration in technique and materials. I started off the course trying out etching with inscribed scribbles as illegible ‘writing’. I also tried drypoint and had the idea to bring in discarded plastic packaging (which I’ve used in various ways in my practice before) to treat as a drypoint plate. After several attempts and being dissatisfied with the results, I realised that the most interesting results had been a squashed plastic tray. It had unsuccessfully printed the inscribed words but what was interesting to me was every time it was inked up and went through the printing press it made a different flattened impression. Playing on words; this printing ‘plate’ (technically a collagraph) is also a flattened version of a ready-made food container which is a stand-in or a poor-substitute of a dinner plate. Therefore this series of prints is called ‘Plates’ which I’m showing in an exhibition in Leeds called Dualism (15 April – 5 May).

I also mentioned I’d been selected for a writer’s residency working with Yorkshire Visual Arts Network, Corridor 8 and artist Sarah Smizz, producing a piece of writing for publication later this year. My research methodology is using snowball sampling to interview artists about their practices in order to unearth hierarchies and challenge the uncritical use of the term ‘resilient’ to describe artists in the region. This project has really picked up pace over the last few weeks (literally snowballed!) and has been incredibly inspiring talking to so many (previously unknown to me) artists about their work and strategies of resilience.

In the midst of juggling everything and critically questioning what it means to be resilient, I took the decision to step down from my role as coordinator for Halifax Mothers Who Make. It’s a sad decision but something had to give. I felt the group needs more time and energy than I can currently commit to really develop it and hopefully I’ve found a brilliant successor to continue the work Lucy Simm started and I continued for 18 months after. This decision did not come lightly, as I really enjoyed the role, but I had to acknowledge I couldn’t maintain everything I wanted to do at current pace without serious risk of burnout.

As well as ongoing curatorial projects Art Lab at Dean Clough, Soundstripes and Dwell Time, I’m Associate Artist for Welland Festival 2019. Of course, this involves rubbish and it also involves talking in the form of collecting stories of past and imagined future Elland. I’m collecting discarded bottle caps/lids and stories of Elland through guided litter-picking, story-telling walks around a 1.2km route along the new imagined shoreline of Elland-on-Sea. Scientists predict that if all the ice caps were to melt, the sea level would rise by 80m. My walking route of Elland plotted around 80m altitude is where the future coastline would be. These guided walks will inform my research and bottle cap collection for a new installation for Welland Festival in June.

Find out more about how to get involved in walks, send in your stories of Elland and where bottle cap the collection points are below.

Welland Cap Stories https://capstories.home.blog/

Welland Festival https://www.facebook.com/wellandfest/

Alice Bradshaw https://www.alicebradshaw.co.uk/

Museum of Contemporary Rubbish https://museumofcontemporaryrubbish.blogspot.com/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/alicebradshawartist/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/alicebradshaw.co.uk/

Twitter https://twitter.com/alicebradshaw