My first collection of poetry, 50 x 50 - Useful Poetry For Troubled Times -has just gone on sale at the new online shop for the Queen Alexandra Hospital Home for Soldiers in Worthing.
The link to this will be given at the end of this blog, and I would urge you to visit the website of the Hospital, and of course the new online shop page which is an easy way of donating to this rather special cause.
I am incredibly proud to have had my work deemed suitable to be in effect promoted to support such a worthy cause, and one which has a rather extraordinary history.
The current hospital has been in Worthing since 1933, and currently provides care and rehabilitation for servicemen aged between 22 and 100 years of age.
The quality of the environment and of the care provided is to an extraordinarily high standard, and I have had the privilege of visiting on at least two of the annual open days during which the general public have the opportunity to visit the Hospital, to purchase items made by the residents, and in the context of a Summer Fayre to celebrate an extraordinary special place.
On both occasions that I have visited I have met Dame Vera Lynn, who has been a constant and regular supporter of the work of the hospital. It is funded by a mixture of public and private money, and public donations have been essential ever since the Hospital was first founded in 1915 when it was the George V Hospital located in London in what was originally to be built as the Stationery Office for the Crown. Plans were changed before the building was completed, and the hospital opened with around 2000 beds, and was the first point at which so many casualties from the Great War received the kind of care that they needed.
The current Hospital is clearly much smaller, but the ethos that was originally developed in that first incarnation of the institution remains to this day. Hence my dedication in this special edition of my poems to the memory of Constance Gladys, Marchionness of Ripon, who was so instrumental in the founding policies of the Hospital. She sadly died in 1917, but she is still remembered, and a rather beautiful marble bust of her remains in the depths of the Hospital.
I have written about her before in my blog, as she was far more than simply one of the many people that became engaged in the process of supporting the War Effort on the home front. She was a great Patron of the Arts, and was responsible for bringing Diaghilev and his Ballet Company, the Ballet Russes, to London in 1913.
This is I am sure the inspiration for the film by Michael Powell and Emmerich Pressburger, The Red Shoes, which tells the story of a ballet company that spent its winters in Monte Carlo, before travelling across the world to great acclaim.
Diaghilev in the film has become Lermontov, and in the story the film tells, the Prima ballerina Vicky Page becomes a victim of the obsessive nature of her art, when she falls in love with the composer of the ballet after which the film is named.
The film includes famously a 20 minute section in which the ballet is performed, after the death of the Prima ballerina with just her pair of red shoes on the stage. It is a most moving and accomplished film, and it was only recently when I discovered that Lady Ripon had been responsible for bringing Diaghilev and his company to London for the first time, and that this must be the inspiration for the film.
They say that truth is stranger than fiction, and in this case the strange truth is that my sister’s name is Vicky Page, and though she is far from a ballet dancer, I have had the great privilege of having worked with Opera North, based in Leeds, and thereby having worked with some of the best dancers as well as singers because no opera company can work without some kind of partnership with a Dance Company.
In the case of Opera North, on a regular basis they have worked with Northern Ballet Theatre, based just up the road from the Grand Theatre in Leeds. And on particular projects they have worked with Adventures In Motion Pictures, who are famous for having created their all-male production of Swan Lake, in which the dancers instead of representing swans, are seen as dancing fauns, and in the film of Billy Elliot, the young Billy Elliot grows up to be a principal in that company.
The final scene in that film shows his miner father attending a performance of Billy in one of the principal roles in that ballet, and it is one of the proudest moments for me as that dancer representing the adult Billy Elliot is limbering up in the wings. Because I have worked with those dancers, from that magical Company, which is possibly as close in modern dance to the amazing achievements of the ballet Russes, for which Diaghilev was the impresario.
Everything is connected, if only we knew the connections. And now, my book of poetry is available for sale to support this Hospital, and some strange circle has been completed, and my life working in the professional arts has made some kind of sense through my poetry being available to support the Hospital, as my disability makes it impossible for me to earn royalties without compromising the support that I require through my having multiple sclerosis.
I will also include a link where my book of poetry, that special edition as created for the Hospital, can be viewed online free of charge. I do hope anyone reading this blog will have a look at some of my poetry, and that it might persuade you to buy the special edition and thus to support something that began with the assassination of an Archduke in the Balkans in 1914.
http://www.qahh.org.uk/get-involved/donate/shop/
http://www.completelynovel.com/books/50-x-50-useful-poetry-for-troubled-times-extended-edition--2/read-online
No comments:
Post a Comment