Penzance
Weekend
12th,
13th, 14th October 2007
We have never been this far west before! The Flying Fish Adventure
featured St Michael's Mount and so we thought we ought to explore this
wonderful area. The three day event included a visit to the Geevor Tin
Mine and walks around Cape Cornwall, Marizon, Portleven and to St Michael's
Mount -- I have been assured that this last walk took place at low tide.
15th September 2007
Hickleton village hall turns out to be a room over the public house on the outskirts of Doncaster. A good crowd of people managed to find it on the Saturday afternoon to hear Richard Griffiths' illustrated talk on the Lone Pine locations and to browse Ray Ham-Longman's massive collection of books for sale.
North Yorkshire Moors Walking Weekend
24th - 27th August 2007
A hardy group of 17 people attended the annual Bank Holiday weekend in
Yorkshire. Perhaps others had been put off by warnings about the difficulty
of the walks. As it turned out, the weather was great, the walks were not
too testing and they missed a very enjoyable weekend.
On Saturday and Sunday we walked on the beautiful North Yorkshire Moors where the heather seemed to go on for ever. Our guide Tom Farrell had read both The Buckinghams at Ravenswyke and Mystery Mine and was able to point out the places visited by both the Buckinghams and the Lone Piners.
A highlight of the weekend was when members of the Malcolm Saville Repertory Company performed an extract from Mystery Mine on the bridge at Beck Hole, later reprised on our way to the Roman road at on Wheeldale Moor.
Malcolm Saville’s son Jeremy joined us for the Friday and Saturday events including the meals in Pickering and Sleights. Another highlight though was the Sunday night meal where we seemed to have entered a time warp in Grosmont, where the pub and the menu seemed unchanged since the 1950s.
The weekend was rounded off by a visit to Whitby on
Bank Holiday Monday where we enjoyed a light-hearted quiz walk around the
town having our fish and chips on the quay, surrounded by enormous crowds.
Ludlow
Weekend
15th,
16th, 17th June 2007
Despite a week of torrential rain, the
weekend largely turned out sunny and dry for those members of the Malcolm
Saville Society and their families who convened at Ludlow for this highly
successful walking weekend.
Over forty people participated each day: on Saturday as we explored the Lone Pine and Buckingham locations of Ludlow and the Maryknoll Valley on foot, before participating in a grand feast at De Greys Café in the evening; on Sunday, as we travelled by coach to Downton to meet up with old friend Tom Wall (Natural England) for a guided walk discovering the real secrets of the gorge! There was even the option of attending a guided walk around Ludlow town in the afternoon to complete this informative and yet light-hearted weekend.
It has been a number of years since Society members have explored Ludlow together (we last visited Downton Gorge in 2003) and it was heart-warming to see this remains a popular venue, attracting such a wide variety of people and age groups with such keen interest, not just in Malcolm Saville, but in the real-life sources of his inspiration.
Sussex
Annual Gathering
13th, 14th, 15th April 2007
We booked Dean's Place Hotel in the delightful village of Alfriston as a
base for our packed weekend of activities. On the Friday afternoon
there was a walk around the Seven Sisters Country Park as this is where most
of the action took place in the story, The Thin Grey Man.
On Saturday we had a coach to take us to Brighton to explore some of the locations described in The Long Passage. This included a guided tour around the Pavilion including some of the areas not usually open to the public. We were even allowed a glimpse of the famous long passage which is the setting for the dramatic climax to the story. We spent the rest of the day exploring the Lanes and the other delights of this seaside town. The glorious weather probably helped sales of ice creams.
In the evening we had our annual dinner followed by the results of our short story competition. The quality of the entries was excellent and extracts were read from the top four stories. The winner was Hélène Wilkinson from Paris. After this our mental agility was tested in a light-hearted quiz.
Sunday morning arrived for our Annual General Meeting. The Chairman was pleasantly surprised by the large attendance despite the glorious weather outside. After the meeting there was another opportunity to add to members' book collections or to continue conversation over tea and biscuits.
Bristol Road Show
Saturday 24th February 2007
We met in a conference room over the Broadmead Shopping
Centre in the heart of Bristol. The afternoon gave the opportunity to
meet other members, browse and buy some books, drink tea and hear an
illustrated talk by Richard Griffiths detailing the locations of the Lone
Pine stories. This breakneck tour of England shows some surprising
settings for the adventures. As Malcolm Saville said so often in his
forewords, these really are places that you can explore for yourself.
One mystery remained at the end of the afternoon - who was the silent lady in blue who entered the kitchen area and walked off with the Society jar of coffee during the talk?
