A journey etched by Saffron – the exotic in Essex. This walk spoke of a beat that caught our steps in a stillness. Like the stillness of the setting sun on the spinning earth. The earth that carried the roots of saffron. A testament of its power. How it embraced the exotic. How it instilled it in her beat.

The radical pilgrimage headed by Lora Aziz, writer, wild crafter, was in the presence of the legend that a saffron corm was smuggled to England from the Middle East in a pilgrim’s ‘hollow staff.’

I joined Lora on her first day of the 7-day walk on the trail. A journey meant to unveil the manner in which land shifts to a breath. The power of a soul to move the earth. The glory of the earth to be moved by a soul. Amidst this narrative we journeyed upon the trail that carried the warmth of an embrace.

There is a rhythm to which the heart beats and a rhythm to the earth’s endeavour. It holds it dear. Dearer than we… & upon this journey, I found the earth speaking, ever so softly, “does your heart, meant for beating, not beat?” and such was the lament of the earth. The earth talked of the souls fracturing it to pieces. Claiming, un-claiming it. Mining, drilling, taming, un-taming it. The land with the immense power to hold so purely and delicately, questioned the beings with hearts in their chests. The turmoil it endures, the mercy it births. The resilience it shows to the beat of its rhythm.

& Evermore of how it embraces the exotic in its beat.

This was the first day of the seven-day journey that Lora had decided to embark upon. Once we covered the first stage, we sat on the footpath of Warren Road under the gleaming sun. “…and then there were three” said Lora as we were the last to stay. We sat under the embrace of the trees on the concrete layered earth, sipping on water.

I held onto the rose, petalled in a fragrance that ran its course to the blood of my soul. I saw the gold of the saffron coloured day. In fractures of its beaming desires, I felt the earth in my bones. The breath of your core and my core called to the breeze that glowed in the crimson sun’s lore.

This was the beginning for Lora to embark upon the 7-day trail of earth and soul. I watched her move with an ecstatic beat in her feet and a heavy beat in her heart. I wondered, what could one say to the earth’s lament, fractured by its own.

Nawaziest Ul Bushra’s writing reflects on the experience of joining Lora Aziz for the start of our Radical Pilgrimage, a 7-day 70-mile journey along The Saffron Trail. This was part of our series of In My Steps: Radical Walks during Essex Book Festival June 2023.

The post The Lament of the Beat Fractured by its Own appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

Looking at the 70th Anniversary of the East Coast Floods and reflecting on the climate crisis they learnt how to research and write content, undertake interviews and join them all together to make an impactful podcast.

With the opportunity to interview environmental activists, environmental science experts and climate advocates they discussed the importance of connecting with nature, careers in environmental science and the challenge for businesses in becoming more eco-friendly.

Visit our Podcast page to listen to the latest episodes.

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An echo of a moment settled on my shoulder like the gentle squeeze of a warm hand. It moved from the drumming of my ears to the breeze that knocked on the door of Chalkwell Hall. Inside was Metal alive and breathing.

The walls of the house spoke of a journey. Each voice echoing the story engraved on the wooden crevices. Where the day was spoken for by the writers at the Hot Desks and the warmth of the Metal team, the night was a wild canvas for the house to speak. Built in 1832, the house had a breath of an ocean, ignited by the rising moon and the falling night. The creak of the floorboard- a wave of an ocean’s tell. The sound of a halo waiting to be noticed.

I felt that age-old house complimenting the blood running through an artist. The blood which carries the essence of generations of warmth and trauma. The blood that has the power to feel emotion in its deepest dot; beating through the heart ensuing into an expression profound in emotion. A testament to an artist’s lore. The agefulness of the house speaking of the wisdom of a true expression that courses through an artist’s blood.

Where, in the night, the house resonated the power in the creases of an artist’s hand, the morning filled the house with a potential to manifest that power.

In doing so,

I was introduced to Metal by Rosalind Green as a volunteer for the Essex Book Festival. Stepping into Metal at Chalkwell Hall was a feeling akin to being picked up from the world in to a story book. The experience carried a warmth necessary to a writer’s endeavour and a disturbance, like a ripple in water, necessary for the quill to breathe.

“You can have anybody come through the door and help them put different areas of their practice together,” said Paige Ockendon. An artist is, often, figuring out their idea and they’re required to produce a “shiny, polished finished piece,” we encourage the process to that final piece. We aim to provide that “creative satisfaction.” While in conversation with Ockendon she emphasised “social engagement is very important to what we do here.”

Furthermore, the “project team has your wider interests at heart too” being artists themselves.

I feel an artist finds a charm in solitude. An irreplaceable comfort. For one to come out of that solitude, a place has to be worth it. Upon conversations with the writers at the Hot Desks, I felt how the space welcomed their journeys. Invited them to express their calling. “I feel safe here,” said one of the poets at the Hot Desks and I found myself wondering, what could be more inviting to an artist than a safe space. A space which expanded to provide the elements necessary to build their final masterpiece. Or, as Ockendon expressed, Metal was the bonding of a collective.

Where I saw the Hot Desks embracing the journeys of writers, I heard a story unfolding as I climbed down the stairs. It was ‘story time’ for the kids.

By the morning light the air felt the colour of ideas brewing in the minds of children, while the setting sun brought the journey of the Polish writers Wioletta Gregorewska and Maciej Hen in light. The same air, now, carried the heaviness of their journeys. The struggles and the beauty with which they unveiled their stories was a testament held by the breath of Metal in that room.

I heard the language expand in to a presence. Although a whisper, it was heard louder than a shriek. It was refreshing to see artists thrive in a setting; to see voices being heard; to see souls feeling safe in sharing their endeavour in all nakedness of emotion. I saw emotion move in to expression.

It was emotion that brought the artists together. The heart beating a beat regardless of time and space. The heart open to receiving emotion as emotion is. Nothing more nothing less while the being ached to express it.

Time at the Essex Writers House came to me while I was writing my poetic piece, ‘A Moment’s Call’ drenched in paintings. It spoke of, when time stands still and the space expands for you to speak. ‘A Moment’s Call’ began with a broken breath, in my crooked pupil’s form. It began in a moment of stillness. A timelessness speaking of time itself. A spacelessness creating space itself. Its essence lies in: If poetry is like an inhaled breath, painting is like an exhaled breath. It is the unravelling of that which lies between an inhaled and exhaled breath. That which is referred to as the moment.

Metal came to me like a physical manifestation of a space at a time I was writing, ‘A Moment’s Call.’ I found myself embracing its warmth like a droplet of fire untouching the horizon.

While gazing at the petals, unplucked in the rose garden where one could gaze at the expanse of Chalkwell Hall, I felt time speaking, “this was still the era- it could end later in that famous decade.” A decade where the purity of soul was embraced. Where being human meant more than what is prevalent in the world of today.

This space was a reminder of a speck of hope in the hourglass where time could beat to the rhythm of the heart. Where there was hope for a breath to breathe in a world consumed with everything else. Like all fleeting moments, this moment too passed in to the sun kissed breeze of the Thames Estuary. The emotion, however, had the power to be eternal. And eternal it is.

The rising sun brought saffron in to the horizon. The beginning of the Radical Pilgrimage which was headed by Lora Aziz, ‘writer, wild crafter.’ We were to walk the Saffron Trail to “…a journey never journeyed before…’’ as expressed by Aziz, in the presence of the legend that a saffron corm was smuggled to England from the Middle East in a pilgrim’s ‘hollow staff.’

While I embarked on the journey to walk the Saffron trail, I gazed back at the house that had spoken to me by the rising moon and the falling night. It spoke to me, then, by the saffron coloured day, painted against blue:

“I haven’t found any exotic shells but I live in hope.” – Linda Hibbin.

As we stepped forward, away from Chalkwell Hall, I smiled, Saffron- the exotic in Essex.

The earth hummed to the beat of the heart. I closed my eyes to hear the language come forth. For it was time to hear the lament of a beat fractured by its own.

Images by Nawaziest Ul Bushra

For the month of June 2023, Metal Southend hosted the sixth edition of Essex Writers House, a much-loved strand of Essex Book Festival.

Hosted at Chalkwell Hall in Southend on Sea, the programme was a chance for people to engage with interesting stories and to meet readers, writers and creative thinkers from across the county.

Thank you to Nawaziest for capturing the wonder that is Essex Writers House so beautifully in this piece of writing.

You may also be interested to read No Place for Elephants – a piece written by Essex Book Festival Director, Ros Green, about Essex Writers House.

The post Metal – The Movement of Emotions appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

Where did the idea come from?

I tripped over it, so to speak. This settlement, Foxash, is practically on my doorstep. I drive through it every time I do a big shop. The look of the place is so distinctive – dozens of these neat little semi-detached brick cottages fronting huge glasshouses with orchards behind – I had to find out more.

How did you research the book?

Initially, I asked local people what they knew about the place. Peter Gant at Manningtree Museum was particularly helpful. I spent a long time at the LSA archive, and a year of Tuesday afternoons shadowing a Foxash smallholder who produced fruit and veg, livestock and flowers, just like my characters do, in order to find out what is involved day to day (I was secretly hoping I’d discover my own green fingers but sadly that didn’t happen). I also spent a lot of time in the British Library. Eventually, I was lucky enough to meet two Foxash residents who had grown up on the estate, who kindly shared their reminiscences with me.

What was the inspiration for Jean and Adam Dell?

Do you know the old saw: when Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman? I wanted to reference this in their names, as they represent a life from the time before enclosures, when common land still existed. They are people steeped in rural know-how and superstition; Jean plants and crops by the moon, Adam tests whether the soil is warm enough to sow by lowering his breeches and pressing his buttocks against it. They were to be the absolute opposite of their new neighbours, Lettie and Tommy Radley, who arrive knowing little of the land and caring less.

How has writing the book had an impact on your own relationship to the land, and to Essex?

In some ways I am grateful this book took a ridiculously long time to finish, because it meant I had many, many years of paying close attention to the seasons, the flora and fauna around me. As a previously immune urbanite, I now find myself almost tearfully excited when a season comes around again, the chick weed comes up or the June drop happens. I have a renewed and massive respect for the men and women who work the land, the resilience and optimism required. And I have to say, a more nuanced and darker awareness of how bad things can get between people when times are hard and you are in the middle of nowhere.

Kate Worsley featured in Essex Book Festival 2023, talking about Foxash at Manningtree
Library on June 27. This article was first featured in Essex Life magazine May 2023.

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“Harwich is a town so well known, and so perfectly describ’d by many writers, I need say little of it: ‘Tis strong by situation, and may be made more so by art.”

We couldn’t agree more with Daniel Defoe who included Harwich in his walking tour of Essex in 1722, and we are absolutely delighted to be heading back there for our opening weekend on 3rd and 4th June.

One thing not to miss is former senior police office Jackie Malton, the inspiration for Helen Mirren’s character DCI Jane Tennison in TV drama Prime Suspect. Jackie will be talking about her compelling memoir The Real Prime Suspect – a “jaw-dropping” book in the words of Val McDermid – at the Electric Palace Cinema as part of our Criminally Good Day.

Jackie’s police career in London Met was notable for her rise within the ranks of a very male, heterosexual organisation while being a woman detective who was openly gay. Having worked in the Flying, Murder and Fraud Squads, Jackie also acted as a whistle-blower against police corruption in the 1980s. A particularly pertinent subject in 2023.

Our other writers include award-winning crime writer Ruth Ware, BBC radio presenter James Naughtie, and spoken word poet Brenda Birungi, ‘Lady Unchained‘. More news to follow on the silent film to be screened on the Electric Palace’s original 1912 silent film screen on Saturday night.

The post “Jaw-dropping” appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

Not that we’re complaining – that gives us an extra day in Harwich – and a chance to catch our breath after all of the marvellous things on the menu on Saturday’s Criminally Good Day.

The post NEWSFLASH!<br>Change of Date for James Naughtie’s event in Harwich Electric Palace Cinema appeared first on Essex Book Festival.