Welcome to the second Westerman Seminar

The 2012 Westerman Seminar at Portsmouth Grammar School on Saturday 11th February is only a few weeks away and I thought I would spend some time to tell you a little more about the exciting programme.

Guest speakers for this year are Dr Rachel Johnson from the University of Worcester with her talk How Westerman changed the Henty Hero and Dr Philip MacDougal with If war should come -the views of selected children's writers of the 1930s on the forthcoming European War and I will deliver Missing, Believed Lost – an update on research since the last seminar.

There are a few additional items including an interview/conversation with Eric Axford whose mother Amelia was Percy’s home help. Eric will bring along Percy Westerman’s writing chair from The Barge and tell the story of how he got it, plus many more anecdotes.

The University of Worcester have also loaned some items for display from Westerman Collection that were not available last year and we will have some previously unrecorded items from the Wareham Weekend Reminiscence Project that have been kindly loaned from Wareham residents/participants.

The seminar will be the platform to launch the latest Portsmouth Grammar School Monograph publication titled Tales of Pluck and Daring – the life and work of Percy F. Westerman. Each delegate will receive a complimentary copy of this limited edition full-colour publication.

The guest book dealer for this year will be David Schutte, a specialist in children’s books and Westerman Yarns will also have a small collection of books on sale.

Tickets are £15.00 and include all refreshments and a buffett lunch. For a booking form or if you have any questions about the event please email me at westermanyarns@gmail.com