Venue: Monks Yard, Horton
Café open until 15:00
Time: 11:00
Tickets: £8.00

Siobhan Daniels:
Retirement Rebel

Approaching retirement and frustrated with her job, Siobhan Daniels made a BIG decision: to start living life on her own terms. Rather than hiding from life’s challenges, she bought a motorhome and drove off to find them. Retirement Rebel is Siobhan’s honest and uplifting story of how one woman stepped off the merry-go-round of life, slowed down and started enjoying the journey.

Venue: Monks Yard, Horton
Café open until 15:00
Time: 14:30
Tickets: £8.00

Andrew Prince:
From Downton to Gatsby – Jewellery and Fashion from 1890 to 1929

A successful London jeweller, Andrew is also an accredited Arts Society lecturer. He was commissioned to make much of the jewellery worn by characters in TV’s Downton Abbey and will bring a selection along to this event. Feel free to try it on! His illustrated, entertaining talk will explore an extraordinary era (1890s to 1930s) when great couturiers worked with the finest craftsman to produce creations of outstanding quality and opulence in both fashion and jewellery.

Venue: Whitelackington Village Hall
Bar open
Time: 19:30
Tickets: £8.00

Grace Palmer:
The Fresh Fiction Best Short Stories

Fresh Fiction is a series of short story nights performed live by writers in the South West. We’re pleased to include them in the Ilminster Literary Festival programme. Original stories have been hand-picked by the Novel Nights team, headed by Grace Palmer, to create an evening’s entertainment celebrating this genre.

Writers Mark Blackburn, Jonathan Evans, Helen Lucey, Stuart Nuttall, Estelle Phillips, Hilary Smith, June Trask and Paul Toolan will share their stories.

Venue: Warehouse Theatre, Ilminster
Tea/Coffee available
Time: 14:30
Tickets: £10.00 / £5.00 (Students)

Gemma Aldridge:
From School to Fleet Street

Gemma will talk briefly about her journey from school to Fleet Street, via working in a Motorway service station and a call centre before joining the Sunday Mirror 10 years after leaving university. She moved swiftly up the ranks, becoming Features Editor, and then Deputy Editor before being appointed Editor of the Sunday Mirror and the People barely two years ago. Life on a national newspaper is never dull, and Gemma will talk about some of the big stories she has been involved with (guess who broke the Partygate story!), and how she decides what should go on the front page. “I never imagined it would happen so quickly, but it’s been one of the best experiences of my life”, she says. Join us to share that experience.

Venue: Warehouse Theatre, Ilminster
Tea/Coffee available, Bar open
Time: 19:30
Tickets: £10.00

Vince Cable:
How to be a Politician: 2,000 Years of Good (and Bad) Advice

Sir Vince Cable is the former leader of the Liberal Democrats and served as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills from 2010 to 2015. Structured to follow the arc of a life in politics – from childhood aspirations and first attempts at getting elected, to navigating the back benches, ascending the greasy pole, dealing with detractors, facing crises, and finally escaping – this unique collection weaves together the wittiest, wisest and most acerbic political quotations from the last 2,000 years. Punctuated throughout by candid insights from Sir Vince Cable, How to Be a Politician is a timeless and entertaining education in the dark arts of politics.

Venue: The Minster Rooms, Ilminster
Tea/Coffee from 14:00
Time: 14:30
Tickets: £8.00

Lucy Lethbridge:
Tourists ~ How the British Went Abroad to Find Themselves

Lucy is a journalist and author, specialising in popular history books for adults and children. She has written for the Observer, the Sunday Telegraph, the Independent on Sunday, and the TLS. She has been the Literary Editor of the Tablet and the London correspondent for Art News in New York. ‘Where shall we go next?’ wrote Jemima Morrell in her diary in the early summer of 1863. And what a question it was. Her grandparents neither would nor could have asked it. But for the British middle classes in the age of steam and railway, travelling the world really did seem suddenly possible. The earth had become a spectacle, a pageant of many nations with their wares on display for the happy shopper.

Venue: Nyanza Lodge, Ilminster
Bar open
Time: 19:30
Tickets: £8.00

Calista Lucy:
Shakespeare’s First Folio, 1623

Calista is Keeper of the Archive at Dulwich College. 2023 is the 400th anniversary of the printing of Shakespeare’s First Folio of work. Calista is responsible not only for Dulwich College’s copy of the First Folio but also important theatrical papers from the late 16th to early 17th centuries. Calista’s illustrated talk will throw light on early English theatre and the gathering together of Shakespeare’s plays into the First Folio.

Venue: Nyanza Lodge, Ilminster
Bar open
Time: 15:00
Tickets: £8.00

Simon Keable-Elliott:
Utterly Immoral – Robert Keable and his Scandalous Novel

When Robert Keable’s First World War novel Simon Called Peter was published, critics called it ‘offensive’, ‘a libel’ and reeking of ‘drink and lust’. Scott Fitzgerald suggested it was ‘utterly immoral’ and referenced it in The Great Gatsby. The novel became a huge international best-seller, and it made its author an international celebrity. What critics did not know was that the novel, about a military chaplain and a young woman having an affair during the war, was autobiographical.

Simon, Robert Keable‘s grandson, has used letters, books, articles, interviews, and a trip to Tahiti to produce a fascinating account of Robert Keable’s life and the story of the success of Simon Called Peter.

Venue: Monks Yard, Horton
Café until 3pm
Time: 11:00
Tickets: £8.00

Tina Orr-Munro:
Breakneck Point – in conversation with Richard Place

Tina Orr Munro is no stranger to brave change. After university, she started working life as a CSI Crime Scene Investigator. She is now a journalist specialising in writing about policing and security. Her time as a CSI provided much inspiration for her novel Breakneck Point, which is set in North Devon. She shines a light on what happens behind the crime scene tape.

Venue: Monks Yard, Horton
Café until 3pm
Time: 14:30
Tickets: £8.00

Simon Parkin:
Island of Extraordinary Captives – A True Story of an Artist, a Spy and a Wartime Scandal

Painstakingly researched from dozens of unpublished first-hand
accounts and previously classified documents, The Island of Extraordinary Captives tells, for the first time, the story of history’s most astonishing internment camp and of how a group of world-renowned artists, musicians and academics came to be seen as “enemy aliens”. “…definitely worth the deep dive into Britain’s inglorious war, when desperate men and women were disregarded, abused and left to fester in a humiliating no man’s land.” – The Spectator

Venue: Ilminster Arts Centre
Bar open
Time: 19:30
Tickets: £8.00

Tessa Boase:
London’s Lost Department Stores

London’s sumptuous Victorian and Edwardian department stores changed the capital – and its women. Shoppers of every rank were lavishly wooed, seduced, and often undone by the temptations laid out before them in these new ‘cathedrals of desire’. A cultural and architectural tour of the capital’s big stores – from Marshall & Snelgrove, to Pontings; from D. H. Evans’ soaring escalator hall, to the live flamingos atop Derry & Toms; from Bodgers of Ilford, to Bon Marché of Brixton. From shoppers to shop girls, via wow-factor window dressing, a fascinating slice of social history – with wonderful period images.

Venue: The Minster Rooms
Tea/coffee from 10:30
Time: 11:00
Tickets: £8.00

Dave Usher:
Hestercombe Gardens Restoration

David, a professional gardener with over 45 years’ experience, was for 18 years the Head Gardener in charge of the world renowned formal Lutyens-Jekyll gardens at Hestercombe. He was also a founder member of the group that started the restoration of Hestercombe’s 18^th century landscaped parkland. Using original photographs, David will share with us the story of the restoration of these world-famous gardens.

Venue: Ilminster Arts Centre
Bar open
Time: 19:30
Tickets: £8.00

Kate Vigurs:
Mission France

Formed in 1940, Special Operations Executive was to coordinate Resistance work overseas. The organization’s F section sent more than four hundred agents into France, thirty-nine of whom were women. But while some are widely known – others have had their stories largely overlooked. Dr Kate Vigurs interweaves for the first time the stories of all thirty-nine female agents. Tracing their journeys from early recruitment to work undertaken in the field, to evasion from, or capture by, the Gestapo, Kate shows just how greatly missions varied.

Venue: Monks Yards, Horton
Café until 3pm
Time: 11:00
Tickets: £8.00

Richard Kay:
An Auctioneer’s 10 Commandments

Richard is a Director of Lawrences Auctioneers in Crewkerne and the firm’s specialist in paintings, drawings, watercolour and prints. After leaving university in 1986, he joined Sotheby’s and spent eight years with them before moving to Phillips (now Bonhams) to be a picture specialist and Associate Director there. He joined Lawrences in 1999. His particular area of interest is British printmaking since 1900. Intentionally light-hearted and informal in tone, Richard’s talk comprises anecdotes in the form of ‘Ten Commandments’ derived from 35 years working as a picture specialist.

Venue: Monks Yards, Horton
Café until 3pm
Time: 14:30
Tickets: £8.00

Tim Moorey:
Secrets of a Crossword Setter

A professional crossword setter with many years’ experience of adult teaching, Tim sets puzzles for a wide range of publications, including The Times and Sunday Times, The Week, and MoneyWeek. Tim’s spontaneous and humorous talk is for enthusiasts at all levels from beginners onwards. He may even provide the clues you need for cracking cryptic crosswords. In the words of Stephen Sondheim, ‘The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is you know there is a solution.’

Venue: Herne View Primary School, Ilminster
Time: 18:00
Tickets: Not Required

Children’s Poetry Recital Final

Engaging with people of all ages is one of the aims for the Festival. Each year, our Poetry Recital Competition encourages children to recite a chosen poem from memory. Local participating schools select representatives from several Key Stages to go forward to the competition final held at Herne View Primary School, Ilminster.

Venue: Monks Yards, Horton
Café until 3pm
Time: 11:00
Tickets: £8.00

Simon McDonald:
Leadership – A Life of Diplomacy

Simon McDonald was the British ambassador to Germany and later permanent under-secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and head of Diplomatic Service. Leadership of the United Kingdom is being debated as never before. Simon considers the future of leadership in the UK, makes a compelling case for the reform of the monarchy, the cabinet, civil service, and, in particular, the House of Lords, of which he has been a member since 2021.

Venue: Monks Yards, Horton
Café until 3pm
Time: 14:30
Tickets: £8.00

Sophie Pavelle:
Forget-me-not – Finding the forgotten species of climate-change Britain

An adventurous zoologist and talented science communicator, Sophie uses enthusiasm and humour to bring natural history to new audiences. She is regularly commissioned for BBC Countryfile Magazine, BBC Wildlife and Wildlife Watch and writes opinion articles about conservation issues for The Metro. She shares quirky stories about British wildlife and conservation, putting a fresh twist on contemporary natural history content. Join Sophie on a low-carbon journey around Britain in search of ten animals and habitats threatened by climate change in the 21st century.

Venue: Ilminster Arts Centre
Bar open
Time: 19:30
Tickets: £8.00

Trio Paradis:
Tango! A Wrap-up Concert

Trio Paradis – Jacquelyn Bevan (piano), Lisa Betteridge (violin) & Linda Stocks (cello) – are a classical piano trio who perform Café Concerts at community venues across Somerset and Wiltshire: informal monthly events, with music in a variety of styles, including arrangements of pop songs, jazz standards and well-known classics for piano and strings. This evening their programme will focus on Tango music and include some entertaining facts about both the dance and its music.