| Authors & Tickets |
 |
 |
If you are a Friend click here to access your exclusive booking page.Please have your access-code to hand.Events at a Glance:
Saturday 25th September Sunday 26th September Monday 27th September Tuesday 28th September Wednesday 29th September Thursday 30th September Friday 1st October Saturday 2nd October Sunday 3rd October
Full Details of all Events are listed below:
Saturday 25th September Festival Opening FREE - NO TICKET NEEDED To open this year's festival, bestselling author and illustrator Babette Cole will be escorted to St Mary's Church by an exuberant procession of Appledore schoolchildren who have created an array of book-related artwork for the occasion. The procession will leave Appledore School at 10:30am, and process down Richmond Hill, along the Quay, and towards St Mary's Church.
Saturday 25th September
The Amazing World of Babette Cole 11.00am St Mary’s Church £ 5:00 Family event Supported by Bloomsbury Press In Babette Cole’s brilliant new series Penny Simms has won a scholarship to Fetlocks Hall, an equestrian boarding school. But Fetlocks Hall is no ordinary school – it will lead Penny to the magical unicorn world of Equitopia and take her on amazing adventures. A blend of fast-paced plots, pony facts and magical fantasy.
Saturday 25th September Appledorians Wherever you are! 11.00am Appledore Hall FREE - NO TICKET NEEDED Appledorians all over the UK: this is an opportunity to link up with old friends on this very special day at The Appledore Hall. There will be films of the past, many old photographs and tales to be told.
Saturday 25th September Prue Leith A Serving of Scandal 2.00pm St Mary’s Church £ 8:00 Supported by Quercus Books Prue Leith’s A Serving of Scandal is a story of unrequited love, Fleet Street muckraking and political ambition. The reader veers between sympathy for ambitious and charismatic Foreign Secretary Oliver, caught up in scandal, and for his feisty friend Kate whose life he ruins to save his skin.
Saturday 25th September
Kipling and Conan Doyle 4.00pm St Mary’s Hall £ 6:00 Supported by I.B. Tauris Publishing Kipling and Conan Doyle - biographer Andrew Lycett talks about the similarities and differences between two of the celebrated authors he has written about in Kipling Abroad and Conan Doyle: The man who created Sherlock Holmes. How did they know each other and how did they affect one another’s writing?
Saturday 25th September Holding on and Looking Out 6.00pm St Mary’s Hall £ 6:00 Sponsored by the Garrick Trust David Johnson is Appledore Book Festival’s Garrick Poet. He is a prize-winning performance poet and Radio 4 playwright. His witty observational poetry has entertained audiences at literary festivals in the UK and North America. He will be reading from his latest collection Holding on and Looking Out, and will also be talking about how and why he writes.
Saturday 25th September Terence Frisby
Kisses on a Postcard 8.00pm Baptist Chapel £ 6:00 Supported by Bloomsbury Press Terence is a playwright, actor, director and producer. His most famous play There’s a Girl in my Soup was London’s longest-running comedy and a worldwide smash hit. Now Terry shares his childhood experiences as an evacuee in Cornwall in his book Kisses on a Postcard which was first a radio play, then a musical, which opened in Barnstaple but will soon open as a musical in the West End.
Saturday 25th September Appledore Day Party 7.00pm - 11.00pm Appledore Hall FREE - NO TICKET NEEDED All welcome.
Sunday 26th September
Local Photos (1850s to 1980s) 11.30am St Mary’s Hall £ 6:00 Peter Christie will show another selection of local photographs of people and places from around 1850 to the 1980s. Come along and see if you recognise scenes, relatives, acquaintances – or even yourself! Bring along your own photographs for identification.
Sunday 26th September Virginia McKenna The Life in my Years 2.00pm St Mary’s Church £ 8:00 Supported by Oberon Books Virginia McKenna is perhaps best known for her role as Joy Adamson in Born Free, one of the many films she made with her late husband Bill Travers. A leading British star of the 1950s and 60s, Virginia started Zoo Check (now the Born Free Foundation) with Bill and their son Will after the premature death of Pole Pole, an elephant they had come to know while filming An Elephant Called Slowly. Virginia has travelled extensively, visiting zoos about which the Foundation has received complaints. Whenever possible she accompanies rescued big cats to sanctuaries in India and South Africa.
Sunday 26th September
Growing up with the Goons 4.00pm Baptist Chapel £ 6:00 Supported by J R Books In this unique personal history of The Goons, featuring interviews with many of those who knew and worked with them, Andrew Secombe provides an extraordinary behind-the-scenes look into their private lives, revealing how wonderful and how difficult it was to be the offspring of one of this famous group.
Sunday 26th September Kate Adie Reporting from the Front Line 6.00pm St Mary’s Church £ 8:00 Kate Adie O.B.E. is best known for her award-winning work as BBC Chief News Correspondent and her popular radio programme From Our Own Correspondent. Her best-selling books include her autobiography The Kindness of Strangers; Nobody’s Child: The Lives of Abandoned Children, which led to the BBC 1 series Found, and Into Danger about men and women who risk their lives for work. Corsets to Camouflage, about women in uniform, was a Times history book of the year.
Sunday 26th September
Godfrey’s Ghost: From Father to Son 8.00pm Baptist Chapel £ 6:00 Supported by Mogzilla Life Actor, Playwright, Soldier, Father – a personal portrait of Dad’s Army’s Private Godfrey. As a young man Arnold Ridley was best known as the author of the classic comedy-thriller The Ghost Train. In old age he played the much-loved Private Godfrey in television’s Dad’s Army. In his talk Arnold’s son Nicolas paints an affectionate picture of a truly remarkable man who lived an extraordinary life. The talk will include readings from Godfrey’s Ghost, Nicolas’ book about his father and will be followed by a question and answer session.
Sunday 26th September Kate Adie The Meat and Drink of Reporting 8.00pm The Quay Restaurant £ 30.00 This event is exclusive to Friends of Appledore Book Festival. Come and hear Kate Adie speak and enjoy an excellent meal of fresh local produce. This event is limited to 25 people so book early to avoid disappointment.
Monday 27th September
More History than you can Handle 2.00pm Docton Court £ 5:00 An afternoon walking tour of historic Appledore, from Docton Court. Following the sell-out walks last year, local historian David Carter has agreed to repeat this event for us in 2010. David has written 2 books on the History of Appledore, delving deeply into its past. This tour will tell you about the village's early history and how much of it can still be seen, on this 2-hour walk though its historic streets. SORRY! - SOLD OUT.
Monday 27th September
Writing the Regional Novel – From Plotting to Publication 4.00pm St Mary’s Hall £ 5:00 An experienced published writer, from short stories to pantomimes, Julie McGowan’s first novel, The Mountains Between was a regional bestseller in South Wales, and her second, Just One More Summer, featured on BBC Radio Cornwall. Her talk explores the benefits and pitfalls of writing novels with a strong regional link.
Monday 27th September
Comedy Scriptwriting – a Funny Way to Make a Living 6.00pm Appledore Hall £ 6:00 Sponsored by the Garrick Trust Ian got his first TV credit on TW3 and is still writing. His words have come out of the mouths of Frankie Howerd, Les Dawson, David Frost, Dave Allen, Ken Dodd, Freddie Starr and many others, some of them still alive, but mostly from the Two Ronnies and Barry Humphries. He is this year’s Festival Garrick Screenwriter.
Monday 27th September David Lawrence Jones The Amazing Adventures of Bradley Baker 6.00pm St Mary's Hall £ 5:00 Family Fringe Event David Lawrence Jones tells the story of 11-year-old Bradley Baker who travels from Yorkshire to Devon to stay with his aunt during the school holidays. The adventures begin when Bradley is magically transported via the plughole into Pathylon, where he encounters many daunting tasks, unusual creatures and makes some strange new friends.
Monday 27th September
A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration 8.00pm Baptist Chapel £ 8:00 Sponsored by Faber Books Jenny Uglow is a writer and publisher, with close family links to North Devon. She is the author of prize-winning biographies of Elizabeth Gaskell, William Hogarth and the engraver Thomas Bewick. Her most recent book is A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration.
Monday 27th September Jazz evening - Brigitte Beraha 8.30pm Beaver Inn FREE - NO TICKET NEEDED With a voice described by jazz critic John Fordham as ‘pure-toned and wide ranging’, top singer Brigette Bereha will be joined by some of the cream of British jazz musicians: Barry Green (piano), Paul Clarvis (drums), and Chris Laurence (double bass).
Tuesday 28th September
Wordsmithery 2.00-3.30pm St Mary’s Hall £ 5:00 A practical workshop in which tutor/poet Chris Waters (Arisaig, Mudlark Press, 2010) will lead activities involving reading, drafting and sharing of poems. Session open to all. Interest more important than experience. Bring along a poem of your own to share, if you wish. Chris’ poetry has won the Bridport and Plough poetry competitions and appeared in anthologies including the Moor Poets and Poetry Scotland. He lives in South Devon.
Tuesday 28th September Puppets at the Seaside 4.00pm St Mary’s Hall £ 5:00 Family event Supported by Scholastic Edinburgh based children’s author and illustrator, Julie Hegarty published her first book Michelle in Crabbit Comes to Stay in 2006 and since then she has been delighting children with her creative stories. Her second and third books, Michelle: The Rock Concert and Uncle and Aunty Clockwise, have established her as a favourite author amongst youngsters. Her enchanting stories and energetic storytelling ensure that both children and adults alike are enthralled by her shows. The lively visual show includes puppets, props and lots of interaction with the audience as Julie transports them into the exciting world of her books.
Tuesday 28th September Shirley Williams Climbing the Bookshelves 6.00pm St Mary’s Church £ 8:00 Supported by Virago Press Shirley Williams began her distinguished parliamentary career in 1964, going on to hold cabinet office in the Wilson and Callaghan Governments. By 1980 the Labour Party, in her view, was veering into left-wing extremism and with the rest of the ‘Gang of Four’ she left to found the Social Democratic Party. She became their first elected MP in 1981 and was Party president from 1982 to 1988. Leaving Parliament in 1983 for an equally distinguished academic career, she held a chair at the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University from 1988-1996. She has lectured at Cambridge and at Princeton, Berkeley and Chicago in the US. She was appointed to the House of Lords in 1993. She published her autobiography Climbing the Bookshelves in 2009.
Tuesday 28th September Robert Goddard Long Time Coming 8.00pm Baptist Chapel £ 6:00 Supported by Transworld Since his first novel Past Caring was published in 1986, bestselling thriller writer Robert Goddard has enthralled readers and critics alike with his edge-of-the-seat pace and labyrinthine plotting. This literary conjurer and master of manipulation talks about his new novel Long Time Coming.
Tuesday 28th September 9.15pm (ish) Meet at the Royal George £ 5:00 As darkness falls follow Terry Bailey through Appledore’s winding lanes, alleys and churchyards with their histories of hauntings, unexplained happenings and lost souls. PLEASE NOTE : YOU MUST HAVE A VALID TICKET FOR THIS EVENT AS WE ARE UNABLE TO SELL TICKETS ON THE NIGHT. SORRY! - SOLD OUT.
Wednesday 29th September
A Place to Dream 2.00pm St Mary’s Hall £ 5:00 Sponsored by Northam Town Council Appledore has inspired writers through time. Join Festival Director Nick Arnold at the premiere of his amazing new film made with Clive Okill celebrating the lives of Charles Kingsley, Rudyard Kipling and Henry Williamson - three writers who gained priceless inspiration from the parish of Northam and its people. www.nickarnold-website.com
Wednesday 29th September
Gavrilo Princip: the Assassin who started World War 1 4.00pm St Mary’s Hall £ 5:00 On 28th June 1914 the Bosnian student Gavrilo Princip shot dead the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Austria blamed Serbia for the attack and the First World War followed. What was the background to the assassination, why did it have such catastrophic results, and how did it lead to our current world?
Wednesday 29th September
The Flesh Tailor 6.00pm St Mary’s Hall £ 6:00 Sponsored by the Garrick Trust Kate Ellis, this year’s Book Festival Garrick author, was born in Liverpool and studied drama in Manchester. Now living in Cheshire, she is the author of two series of crime novels and she has twice been nominated for the CWA Short Story Dagger. She has just published her fourteenth Wesley Peterson novel The Flesh Tailor.
Wednesday 29th September
Sacred Treason 8.00pm Baptist Chapel £ 6:00 Supported by Headline Books Ian Mortimer is a prize-winning scholar and one of the most original historians to set pen to paper. His books range from revisionist theories and sympathetic biographies to fully-referenced guidebooks to visiting the middle ages. He is also a historical novelist, this year publishing a 16th thriller under his middle names (James Forrester). He proposes to have his fiction-writing persona interview his history-writing one and vice versa. The result will be a first – and an exploration of how vibrant and accessible the history and history fiction of the future might be.
Wednesday 29th September Ghost Walk (2) with Terry Bailey 9.15pm (ish) Meet at the Royal George £ 5:00 As darkness falls follow Terry Bailey through Appledore’s winding lanes, alleys and churchyards with their histories of hauntings, unexplained happenings and lost souls. PLEASE NOTE : YOU MUST HAVE A VALID TICKET FOR THIS EVENT AS WE ARE UNABLE TO SELL TICKETS ON THE NIGHT. SORRY! - SOLD OUT.
Thursday 30th September
Poetic Fire and Satiric Song 2.00pm St Mary’s Hall £ 5:00 “At the periphery the world is dying away, at the centre it glows like a live coal” (Henry Miller). This describes the spirit of Jeremy’s poetry – a fierce sense of justice and concern for the world. Glyn Davies is a well known musician as well as a poet, whose great grandfather was the poet W. H. Davies.
Thursday 30th September
For Better for Worse, for Richer for Poorer 4.00pm St Mary’s Hall £ 5:00 A nagging sense of being trapped in their own lifestyles made a husband and wife decide to leave their comfortable London home and travel with their two small children in a converted fishing boat through the canals of France to the Mediterranean. They share the highs and lows of a journey which gave them a renewed passion for love and life.
Thursday 30th September
Game Cook 6.00pm St Mary’s Church £ 8:00 Supported by J R Books The Rt. Hon. Norman Tebbit, former M.P. and cabinet minister, took over the cooking after his wife Margaret was injured in the Brighton bombing. Cooking game has become his speciality. In The Game Cook Lord Tebbit showcases his favourite game recipes. A mouth-watering treat for food-lovers and those who are looking for money-saving ways to provide tasty, wholesome and organic dishes for their family.
Thursday 30th September A Fortunate Life 8.00pm St Mary’s Church £ 8:00 As a Royal Marine Commando, a member of the Special Boat Service, a diplomat, a Member of Parliament and leader of his party and, most recently, the international community’s High Representative in war-torn Bosnia and Herzegovina, Paddy Ashdown has led a life packed with drama and adventure. Now he has told the full story in his autobiography, A Fortunate Life. Join him for a fascinating evening, talking about his life and times, taking questions and signing his book.
Friday 1st October Pat Slade Pat Slade Rifles through the Archives 11.00am Appledore Library £ 3:00 Pat Slade Rifles through the Archives – a presentation in words and pictures illustrating events in Appledore and the local area. Appledore-born Pat set up the Community Archive now based at the Northam Council Offices and still continues to research and collate items of local interest. Her book Bideford in Old Photographs was published in 1996. SORRY! - SOLD OUT.
Friday 1st October
The Turning of the Tide 2.00pm St Mary’s Hall £ 5:00 Drawing on nineteenth century documents, The Turning of the Tide tells the story of a young Clovelly mother confined in Bideford Workhouse until helped by Dr Ackland, friend of Charles Kingsley. Liz Shakespeare is the author of Fever, a Story from a Devon Churchyard and The Memory be Green.
Foreign Bodies, and Nothing I Touch Stands Still 4.00pm St Mary’s Hall £ 5:00 Two poignant and compelling novels which at first seem very different. Yet both chart the journeys of young women travelling through unfamiliar territory, one into middle Europe, the other to the islands of the Far East. Join these two novelists in their refreshing and carefully woven double act.
Friday 1st October Gardeners’ Question Time 6.00pm St Mary’s Hall £ 6:00 Gardeners’ Question Time is becoming a perennial at the ABF and how lucky we are to present our vintage panel. Chris Bailes Curator of Rosemoor (Chair) Sarah Chesters Radio Devon Gardening Presenter John Harris (Moongardener) and author of R J Harris Moon Gardening Nick Oliver Horticulturalist St John’s Nursery
Friday 1st October General Sir Mike Jackson Soldier: The Autobiography 8.00pm St Mary’s Church £ 8:00 Supported by Transworld General Sir Mike Jackson is the best known British General of modern times. He retired in 2006 after 40 years of service in the British Army, finishing at its head as Chief of the General Staff. His autobiography Soldier is an outspoken account of a life lived through war and conflict. SORRY! - SOLD OUT
Friday 1st October
An Evening of Music and Poetry 9.00pm to 11.00pm St Mary’s Hall £ 5:00 Colin Shaddick, performance poet and musician, will be presenting another fast-paced evening of poetry and music. Colin was crowned ‘the Great British Eccentric’ in 2009 and in the same year was Writer-in-Residence at the Appledore Book Festival. The 2010 Poetry and Music event boasts a line-up which is sure to please.
Saturday 2nd October Megan Stallworthy Bookmaking Workshop 10.00am – 4.00pm Appledore Hall £ 35:00 Learn how to make beautiful handmade books at this popular workshop with Megan Stallworthy, a bookbinder and teacher and member of the Devon Guild of Craftsmen. All materials and equipment will be provided, and you will make two or three different kinds of books to take home. Places are limited so early booking is advised.
Saturday 2nd October Make the Most of Your Time on Earth 11.00am St Mary’s Hall £ 6:00 Supported by the Rough Guide Three travel writers, Adrian Mourby, James Smart and Natasha Foges talk about the most demanding and rewarding journeys they have ever made and discuss whether it is best to make these trips solo or with another. They are all contributors to Rough Guides' new, updated edition of Make the Most of Your Time on Earth.
Saturday 2nd October Murder and Mystery: the Craft of the Detective Story 2.00pm St Mary’s Church £ 8:00 Supported by Penguin Group P D James is one of the best-known and best-loved writers of detective fiction. Many of her novels feature her professional detective Commander Adam Dalgliesh. She is published in 29 languages and has won many awards for her work. She has received honorary degrees from seven British universities and in 1991 was created Baroness James of Holland Park. SORRY! - SOLD OUT.
Saturday 2nd October Present Danger 4.00pm St Mary’s Church £ 8:00 Supported by Quercus Books The latest novel from the ex-Director General of MI5 sees Liz Carlyle tackle vicious terrorism in Belfast. During her career Stella Rimington worked in all areas of the Service, becoming its first woman Director General in 1992. She has written her autobiography and four Liz Carlyle novels.
Saturday 2nd October The Road to Ambridge 6.00pm St Mary’s Church £ 8:00 Supported by J R Books The only original member of the cast still in The Archers, June Spencer is best known as Peggy Archer (now Woolley) on BBC Radio 4’s much-loved soap opera. June takes us back in time to ‘the slower pace of childhood’ and reflects on life during the Second World War. She also writes movingly about her husband’s decline due to Alzheimer’s disease, and the subsequent identical story line with her fictional husband on The Archers.
Saturday 2nd October The Story of England 8.00pm St Mary’s Church £ 8:00 Supported by Penguin Group Michael Wood, internationally acclaimed historian and TV filmmaker, draws on 750 years of archives from Merton College Oxford, materials from a village-wide archaeological dig, and the first-ever DNA profiling of an English village, to tell the story of Kibworth in Leicestershire. He follows the extraordinary history of the community over 15 centuries; a ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ for Kibworth and England itself.
Saturday 2nd October Appledorian Evening 8.00pm Royal George pub FREE - NO TICKET NEEDED Appledore’s oldest pub invites Appledorians old and new to an evening of sea-shanties, hornpipes and stories of old Appledore. Look forward to one of Barry’s traditional local treats. All welcome, especially if you have tales to tell.
Sunday 3rd October Service for the Book Festival 10.00am On the Quay (St. Mary's Church if wet) FREE - NO TICKET NEEDED The vicar of St. Mary's Church Appledore, the Rev. John Ewington, will lead a very special ABF service, with music by the Appledore Band.
Sunday 3rd October
10.30am - 4.30pm Appledore Hall FREE - NO TICKET NEEDED West Country booksellers will display for sale thousands of antiquarian, scarce and good second-hand books, plus ephemera, maps, prints and postcards. What a great opportunity to find the elusive tome you have been hunting for years - or just to browse and buy what takes your fancy!
Sunday 3rd October
North Devon Savages 11.30am St Mary’s Hall £ 6:00 Local historian and author Peter Christie, who has appeared at every Festival so far, will again be speaking this year when he will present the True Story of the North Devon Savages. Hear about the family who both shocked and titillated Victorian England. Criminality, nudity and sex feature in this amazing story (and yes, there is a link to Appledore!).
Sunday 3rd October Ann Widdecombe My Life as a Writer of Fiction 2.00pm St Mary’s Church £ 8:00 Ann Widdecombe, MP for 23 years, broadcaster and journalist, has long had ambitions to write novels. She grew up moving around the country and abroad with her parents, as her father served in the Admiralty. She was educated at the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford and now lives in Devon. She is the author of four novels, The Clematis Tree, An Act of Treachery, Father Figure, and An Act of Peace. She writes novels on long train journeys and her fifth novel will be called An Act of Brotherhood. SORRY! - SOLD OUT.
Sunday 3rd October An Afternoon with Jacqueline Wilson 4.00pm St Mary’s Church £ 5:00 Family event Supported by Random House Dame Jacqueline Wilson is one of the bestselling authors of the past decade. Over 25 million copies of her books have been sold in the UK and they have been translated into 34 languages. Come and hear this living legend talk about her life as a writer and get a sneak preview of her brand new book The Longest Whale Song. Please note: because Dame Jacqueline has been ill we have to limit the number of books she will sign to 150. To make this fair we will issue vouchers to the first 150 children to arrive. These will allow them to join the queue to have one book signed each. We are really sorry that some children may be disappointed.
  |
Babette Cole
Andrew Lycett
David Johnson
Peter Christie
Andrew Secombe
Nicolas Ridley
David Carter
Julie McGowan
Ian Davidson
Jenny Uglow
Chris Waters
Julie Hegarty
Ghost Walk (1) with Terry Bailey
Nick Arnold
Peter Villiers
Kate Ellis
Ian Mortimer
Jeremy Bell and Glyn Davies
Damian and Siobhan Horner
Lord Norman Tebbit
Paddy Ashdown
Liz Shakespeare
Candy Neubert and Jane Spiro
Colin Shaddick
Travel Writers Panel
PD James
Stella Rimington
June Spencer
Michael Wood
Book Fair
Jacqueline Wilson