Saturday 12th June 2010

 

Annual Conference

 

At the Forum Theatre at

Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Hanley,

 

Clayhanger Trilogy

 

Click on conference link for application form

Saturday 9th October 2010

 

NOTICE AND AGENDA OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING TO BE HELD ON

AT THE SWAN BANK METHODIST

SUNDAY SCHOOL, BURSLEM, AT 2 P.M.

 

A copy of the 2009 minutes is now available

 

 Members are invited to meet informally for lunch at the George Hotel from 12 noon.

 

The AGM will, once again, be followed by the Annual Barlaston Study Weekend (co-ordinated by Martin Laux)

to make a full weekend programme. Dinner at The Wedgwood Memorial College will start at 6pm. 

 This allows members from outside the Potteries to attend both functions but make only one journey.

More details to follow.

 

Full day Seminar on Sunday 10th October 2010

 

Arnold Bennett Weekend Seminar at Barlaston

 

Wedgwood Memorial College was the first adult education college of its type. When it began in 1945, it was housed in Barlaston Hall. It now occupies two large houses in Station Road, The Limes and Estoril. It is a member of the Adult Residential College Association. The college runs a wide range of courses and full details can be found on the college's website. At The Limes there is an arboretum. Recently a new building, Esperanto House, has been erected on the Estoril site to house the library of the British Esperanto Association.

 

Arnold Bennett : London novels – Buried Alive, The Roll-Call, Riceyman Steps and Elsie and the Child

 

The Tutor: Martin Laux is a graduate of the Universities of Wales and Portsmouth. He spent 30 years as a public sector manager in Hampshire and is now a manager based in Caithness.  Martin has a long-standing interest in Arnold Bennett and regularly contributes to the Arnold Bennett Society’s Newsletter. Martin has organised these courses at Barlaston for the past six years.

 

The Course: Arnold Bennett was born in 1867 in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent and died in 1931 in London. Bennett left the Potteries in 1889 and thereafter spent much of his life living in London, the Home Counties and France. Bennett wrote over thirty novels and although most well known for his ‘Five Towns’ works he also produced a number of London based stories like his first novel A Man from the North (1898), his first pot-boiler The Grand Babylon Hotel (1902), Buried Alive (1908), his war novel The Pretty Lady (1918), The Roll-Call (1918), Riceyman Steps (1923) and a spin-off long-short story Elsie and the Child (1924), his first story of a film Piccadilly (1929) and his epic last completed novel Imperial Palace (1930).

 

Buried Alive was written as a holiday from writing The Old Wives’ Tale (1908) in January and February 1908 and was published that June.  

The Roll-Call is the fourth part of the Clayhanger trilogy (Clayhanger 1910, Hilda Lessways 1911, These Twain 1916).  Bennett considered a fourth novel as early as 1910 however it was not started until late 1916.  Riceyman Steps is Bennett’s middle-period masterpiece and is about a middle-aged bookseller and miser who falls in love with a widow; the novel charts their meeting, wooing, marriage and deaths.  The detailed observation harks back to the best of Bennett’s ‘Five Towns’ writing.  Elsie and the Child is a story about Elsie the servant in Riceyman Steps

Suggested Reading: The key texts to be examined will be Buried Alive, The Roll-Call, Riceyman Steps and Elsie and the Child.  All can be purchased from secondhand internet bookstalls like www.abebooks.co.uk

Programme

Saturday

 

4pm – 6pm

Arrival and registration at college reception

6.00pm

Dinner

7.30pm

Introduction, overview of film and television productions of Bennett’s novels with particular reference to the two film versions of Buried Alive

8.00pm

A showing of His Double Life (1933) starring Roland Young as Priam Farrell [sic] and Lillian Gish as Alice Chalice

9.10pm

Discussion

9.30pm

Close of evening

 

 

Sunday

 

8.30am

Breakfast

9.30am

Buried Alive and The Roll-Call

11.00am

Morning coffee

11.30am

Riceyman Steps

1.00pm

Lunch

2:00pm

Elsie and the Child, followed by discussion

3:00pm

Afternoon Tea and close of course

 

 

Acknowledgment

Acknowledgement is made to Janet Blight for kind permission to use her original sketch of Riceyman Steps

 

Sessions last approximately 1 ½ hours

 

 

 

   

Thanks to the Raymond Williams Foundation (www.raymondwilliamsfoundation.org.uk) , this week-end has been subsidized.  The Raymond Williams Foundation aims to make courses such as this accessible to as wide a range of adults as possible.

 

The first 15 delegates enrolling for the entire weekend will receive a £20.00 reduction off their course fee. 

EARLY BOOKING ADVISED

 

Standard Fees:

Single

£76.00

Shared

£69.00

Non resident

£54.00

 

En-suite fee per room for weekend:

Single

£5.00

Shared

£8.00

 

Course viability is dependent on early enrolment. Courses if necessary will be cancelled 3 weeks prior to course commencement.

 

Please note that en suite accommodation is allocated on a first request first served basis.

 

Why not join ‘The Friends of Wedgwood Memorial College Association’. Contact the College office for more details.

 

Wedgwood Memorial College

Station Road

Barlaston

Stoke on Trent

ST12 9DG

Tel: 01782 372105     Fax: 01782 372393

Email: wedgwood.memorial@stoke.gov.uk

www.stoke.gov.uk/wedgwoodmemorialcollege

 

 

          
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wedgwood Memorial College

 

Arnold Bennett: London Novels

 

 

Co-ordinator - Martin Laux

 

Saturday 9 – Sunday 10 October 2010