Binsted Arts Festival back on track, with fifth festival finally going ahead

It was all ready to go two years ago but had to be cancelled due to Covid-19. Now, two years later, it was felt it was 'just about safe' to go ahead and organisers rebooked for June 10 to 12.

It was still somewhat affected by Covid, with a few cancellations, including Mike Copley unable to lead his planned pottery workshop and Naomi Foyle, judge for the Binsted Prize poetry competition, unable to attend due to the virus.

Emma Hughes, who teaches creative writing at Chichester University, stood in for Naomi on the Friday and read her summing up. The competition is run alongside the South Downs Poetry Festival and the anthology of winning poems nearly sold out. The 13 prize winners were asked to read out their poems, along with those who had been commended.

Emma Tristram, Binsted Arts committee member, said: "It was lovely to meet and chat with so many poets from far and wide in Binsted’s quiet churchyard in the evening sun, surrounded by beautiful countryside with waving Oxeye daisies, and to listen to music from the ever-popular band Rattlebag."

Earlier in the day, Oliver Hawkins’ talk Dickens’ Women: Angels or Demons? demonstrated that the author's female characters fell into two categories, either young, beautiful and destined to die, or old and mostly disagreeable. Oliver related this to events in Dickens’ life, especially meeting the young Christiana Weller, who married his friend Tommy Thompson and became Oliver’s great-great-grandmother.

Tony Whitbread, president of the Sussex Wildlife Trust, led an unusual walk in Lake Copse, the private woodland at the back of Mill Ball, on the Saturday morning.