A look at the past list of speakers for over 40 years of Suffolk Book League reveals that ghost stories have not featured heavily. This may be partly because as a literary subgenre such tales are often overlooked generally; nevertheless there have been times when the SBL programme has taken on a decidedly haunted air. One such was in December 1985 when John Gordon and other authors discussed ghost stories at the Quay Theatre, Sudbury with sponsorship from Eastern Arts (1). Those were the days!
M. R. James has featured in several talks, including January 1988 when the distinguished local author and antiquarian, John Blatchly, spoke about James, with the ‘well-known film and television actor’ (2) Anthony Carrick reading one of the stories, which must have been an atmospheric evening. It was not until December 2017 that the writer Robert Lloyd Parry gave a performance of a couple of stories from James. This was a memorable event and I remember that one of the stories was particularly striking and new to me. Through checking out previous editions of BookTalk, I ascertained that it was ‘The Ash Tree’, combining a threatening tree with strong elements of witchcraft (3).
Much further back was the December 1995 seasonal Dickens reading performance from Lawrence Werber, a familiar character actor from stage and screen, who in 2016 was also noted as running a dental practice in Suffolk, specialising in cosmetic dentistry (4). (Not that this career dichotomy affected his dramatic readings in any way, as far as I know).
When the dial is turned to myth and memory, the mythographer Marina Warner comes to my mind, having made a generous three visits to SBL, including March 1996, when she talked about ‘Women’s voices in fairy tales’. She seems to have looked particularly at the social background of these tales, and how the role of women in past societies was explored through them (5). At a later meeting (16 January 2008), Marina read out her own short story, ‘Ladybird, Ladybird’ (6), which I have recently rediscovered – let me know if you would like to see it.
MacGibbon, J. News, BookTalk, 1985, December, (21): 1.
MacGibbon, J. News, BookTalk, 1987, December, (32): 1.
Taylor, J. Robert Lloyd Parry, BookTalk, 2018, Spring, (169): 9.
Canadanne, Lawrence Werber, Interactive Knightmare Lexicon, 2016, 12 November. https://interactive.knightmare.org.uk/component/legacy/page/display/lexicon?s=view&EID=Lawrence%20Werber
Parry, A. The programme, BookTalk, 1996, March/April, (80): 1
Warner, M. ‘Ladybird, Ladybird’, read at the Suffolk Book League January 16, 2008, BookTalk, 2008, (130, Special Supplement).
Janet Bayliss
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