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 THE talented and highly regarded "Newlyn maid" and
lady of letters Liz Harman took as her bardic name Nedhores Hwedhlow –
Spinner of Tales – and it is a title that could not be more apt.
A
natural born storyteller, star of the Golowan Festival's Tongue Pie
evenings and one who, only recently presented a successful literary
lunch as part of Newlyn Festival of Arts, Liz has inherited her mother
Rene Nash's talent for the telling of a story. She used the event to
launch her latest book of Cornish tales, Now 'Ark Some More, a sequel
to 2006's Now 'Ark To Me.
I was lucky enough, when
young and seeking information about the Newlyn School of Artists, to
spend several hours entranced by Rene's accounts of their "comings and
goings" and can vouch for her exceptional storytelling ability.
As
Liz Harman acknowledges in the introduction to her second collection of
stories and poems, her mother Rene is still with her: particularly in
the two letters written by Aunt Sarah Anne. In this volume, we are
treated to Aunt Sarah Anne And The Duvet and Aunt Sarah Anne And The
Pudden Skins, which was awarded the Rosemergy Cup for Cornish dialect
prose in the in 2007 Gorsedh Kernow competitions.
An
author, storyteller, poet and playwright who writes and speaks with the
authentic voice of Newlyn (as one Bucca to another I can also vouch for
that), for maximum enjoyment and entertainment her stories and poems
need to be read aloud. She uses the local dialect economically and
wisely to add just the right amount of atmosphere and colour to them.
While good humour abounds in much of her work, from her
tongue-in-cheek adaptations of such Old Testament stories as Noah and
the Flood and David and Goliath to her tale concerning "three old
salts" from St Ives and their thoughts about the Widow "some goer"
Uren, there is also sadness and sorrow. From poems about fishing and
fishermen that in their different ways relate to The True Price Of
Fish, to the tale of the author's own great-grandmother who, like so
many parents at the time of the Cornish Diaspora, said farewell to her
sons, knowing that it was unlikely she would ever see them again. There
is also the timely and moving Jenna's Star, which will surely light the
most hardened reader's heart.
The verse ranges
from everything from love poems like Lamorna and Blackberry Wine to one
dedicated to her childhood friend, the late and still much-missed,
Newlyn painter and potter Peter Ellery. From the ballad of the fabled
meeting between Dolly Pentreath and Squire Price of Chywoone to a tale
which will appeal especially to anyone who has had to sit and suffer
"the wind and water" of a committee meeting, there is much to laugh and
to cry about here. For good measure, Liz Harman includes the script of
Sound The Trumpet, her Newlyn nativity play. Possibly the only play of
its kind in which the shepherds are heard talking about the problems of
fishing, it was performed for the first time and so successfully two
years ago in St Peter's Church, Newlyn.
It must be
fair to say that few Cornish-born readers will be able to read these
tales and poems without heaving a sigh, if not actually shedding a
tear, for a Cornwall which has all but vanished.
An
all-Cornish production, its attractive cover of a lugger was painted by
Michael Praed of Newlyn, it was edited and designed by Simon Parker,
published by Scryfa of Linkinhorne and printed by Headland of Penzance.
Now
'Ark Some More by Liz Harman is published by Scryfa at £6. It is
available from shops in Newlyn, Mousehole and Penzance, or direct from
the author at 25 New Road, Newlyn, Penzance, TR18 5PZ. Cheques for £7
(inc. p&p) should be made payable to E B Harman
article copyright WESTERN MORNING NEWS
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