‘Ripping Yarns’ and the Tale of the Forgotten Author, an exhibition at the Havant Literary Festival 2013. This is an open invitation to attend the official opening of the first exhibition to celebrate the life and works of Percy F. Westerman.
The exhibition will be opened at 2pm by the Mayor of Havant in the Havant Library.
The Westerman Yarns would like to thank all our sponsors, J. Edwards Funeral Directors (Bedhampton), Portsmouth Grammar School and Mercury Graphics for their generous support with this project.
Click the link for information of other Havant Literary Festival 2013 events and activities.
The Westerman Yarns events are:-
‘Ripping Yarns’ and the Tale of the Forgotten Author. The exhibition will be open during normal library opening hours from 2pm Tuesday 1st October until Friday 11th October, Havant Library.
By Bike and Boat, Percy F. Westerman. Tickets £3.00, Wednesday 2nd October, Havant Library, 2pm -3pm: Nigel Gossop will talk about the local and regional connections in Percy’s journalism and story writing.
Ripping Yarns, The Life and Works of Percy F. Westerman. Tickets £3.00, Saturday 5th October, The Meridian Centre, 10.30am – 12pm: Nigel Gossop presents an illustrated talk on the life of this Portsmouth born author of adventure books for children.
Westerman Goes to Hollywood. FREE Admission, Monday 7th October, The Meridian Centre, 11am – 12.30pm: A screening of the silent film made in 1937 of the book Haunted Harbour. Nigel Gossop will introduce and give an account of the story behind the story with an explanation of how the Warsaw Sea Scouts made the film having been instrumental in Percy F. Westerman writing the story.
The Westerman Yarns have been invited to stage an exhibition
as part of the fifth Havant Literary Festival, a celebration of the written and
spoken word. The festival takes place during
the first ten days of October. Please
watch the festival web site for details.
Sponsorship Invitation
As this is our first public exhibition we are keen to ensure
a quality presentation and are seeking sponsorship for the production of
twelve, full colour, exhibition panels. This
could be one sole sponsor or several sponsors contributing a share. All sponsors will be invited to have their
logo at the lower edge of each panel. For further information, please email westermanyarns@gmail.com
At the Westerman Seminar in
February this year we discussed the idea of taking the next seminar to
Percy's beautiful home town of Wareham, for one year, to visit the site of
‘The Barge’ and the Redcliffe Yacht Club, founded by Percy F. Westerman; their
first Commodore.
I am pleased to inform you
that Wareham Town Council have kindly agreed to allow us to hold the next
Westerman Seminar in the Council Chamber on Saturday 15th February,
2014.
Details of the programme are
still being developed and we are still accepting ideas and suggestions, but I
am really pleased to be taking the seminar to the place that Percy called
‘home’ for the last 40 years of his life.
On Friday 14th
February The Friends of the Westerman Yarns will be presenting a Westerman
exhibition/display in the Corn Exchange, Wareham (times tbc).
The Westerman Seminar will
return to Portsmouth Grammar School in 2015.
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The first edition of The Westerman Yarns Newsletter is now available as a pdf by subscribing to Friends of The Westerman Yarns. The first edition includes an early rare complete story, The Prisoner of War - A Tale of Portchester Castle During the Napoleonic Wars (1908) by Percy F. Westerman and a review by James Mackenzie of To the Fore with the Tanks, plus news, letters and articles.
Membership is free for the first year, so, if you haven't already joined, click on the link below.
Join The Friends of The Westerman Yarns
If you would like to contribute to the next edition of the newsletter for November '13. Please contact me at westermanyarns@gmail.com
Greetings cards and packs of notelets featuring four evocative cover images from Percy Westerman’s novels are available from Percy’s old school. The cards are blank for your message. Every purchase benefits the school’s bursary fund.
Click on the Portsmouth Grammar School link for more information.
http://www.pgs.org.uk/pgs-association/development-office/merchandise/
Friends of Westerman Yarns is a new initiative that has been developed through the annual Westerman Seminar’s. We initially aim to produce two newsletters a year and members are invited to submit articles, news items, letters, book information, finds, and reviews.
The newsletter; The Westerman Yarns, will have Westerman at its heart, but is open to other children’s literature related material that may appeal to members. Items published in the newsletter will not be posted on the blog for at least 12 months
Members will also receive advanced notice and priority booking for Westerman Yarns events.
There are no membership fees.
All newsletters will be sent by email as pdf files. However, if members wish to receive a paper copy, please send two, stamped, self-addressed A5 envelopes to cover a one year subscription to:
The Westerman Yarns
14 Court Close
Drayton
Portsmouth
PO6 2LU
Click here to join Friends of The Westerman Yarns
The seminar at Portsmouth Grammar School on Saturday 16 November was a real departure from our previous programmes. We kicked off with an abridged performance/reading of the play of Captain Blundell’s Treasure by a talented group of students from Springfield School, Portsmouth who really captured the spirit of Westerman’s characters. After their performance they happily answered questions from the delegates about their perception and views of the play and the style of writing.
Steve Rudge showed examples of rare and unusual dust wrappers from his collection, looking at their introduction and development including some very unusual examples with advertising wrap-around’s that many of us had never seen before. I then gave out copies and discussed the story The Prisoner of War, written by Percy and included in a feature about him and his first book A Lad of Grit from a promotional paper printed by the company W. Pink and Sons Limited for circulation in the Portsmouth area at Christmas 1908.
The introduction of 'bring and buy' where delegates were invited to bring along spare books for sale was a great sucess and we will definately carry that through to the next seminar. During the breaks there was plenty of time for networking and chat, and a few people have already offered ideas for the next seminar.
After lunch Greg Worwood discussed the use of dating Blackies annuals and periodicals using the production codes. These codes can also be used to track the order that books were published in any given year. I then shared the results of recent research including quotes, forewords, acknowledgements and press cuttings that are helping to build the Westerman story.
We closed the day with a presentation about the history and background to the rediscovered silent film of the Westerman book Haunted Harbour mentioned on the dust wrapper blurb of the 1936 book, followed by a screening of the film.
Acknowledgements
Our thanks to Portsmouth Grammar School for their continued support of the Westerman Seminar; The University of Worcester Research Archive for the loan of material from the Westerman Research Collection; The Media Archive for Central England, Brian Griffiths – Walsall Sea Scouts, Robert Crewdson and Greg Philpot for the Haunted Harbour film and information; Drama Students from Springfield School, Phelim Rowland and the loan of the script from The University of Worcester Research Collection for the performance of Captain Blundell’s Treasure; Greg Worwood and Steve Rudge for their presentations.
‘Ripping Yarns’ and the Tale of the Forgotten Author, an exhibition at the Havant Literary Festival 2013. This is an open invitation to attend the official opening of the first exhibition to celebrate the life and works of Percy F. Westerman. 
