Rye Arts Festival provides a platform for artistes from around the world but is also a stage for people who live locally who have stories to tell. And 2024 is no different with a selection of events presented by brilliant Ryers.
Isabel Ryan has entertained us in the last couple of years with sparkling and informative presentations about her illustrious ancestors – father John Ryan, who created Captain Pugwash, and great grandfather Sir Reginald Blomfield, a renowned architect. This year Isabel turns to herself, and on Saturday, September 28 she will talk about her part in the restoration of the flame of the Statue of Liberty. For in 1984, whilst working for a French architect in the Big Apple, she rolled up her sleeves and, with great derring-do, scaled the iconic statue to its swaying parapet above New York harbour! This illustrated talk is likely to sell out so secure your tickets soon.
The festival is delighted to have a “Visit to a Working Sheep Farm” on Sunday, September 22 where Tony Pierce will show us around and talk about his life as a farmer, and the work entailed in running his own sheep farms in Rye Harbour and another on the road to Camber.
As they would say in the Lake District, Tony is hefted to the Marsh as shepherding blood courses through his veins. Tony helped his father as a child, before working on a farm himself after leaving school, and then buying his own business back in 2016. This is a great opportunity to find out more about an important and historic local industry from, so to speak, the horse’s mouth!
Alex Josephy, who lives near Church Square, will be joined by the very hard-working Isabel Ryan, Janet Stott and one Judith Shaw, a poet from Hastings, in the Ypres Tower garden on the evening of Thursday, September 26 for a reading of a poem sequence. Written in the recent pandemic by Alex it is set in 16th century Italy and tells of a young woman caught up in a siege of a small hill town, which brings parallels to Rye. This intimate event, “Again Beyond the Stars”, promises to be a rare treat.
The recently restored Rye Town Model in Rye Heritage Centre is one of the jewels in the town’s crown – a must-see not just for tourists but for everyone who lives in or near Rye. Simon Parsons, the heritage centre’s manager, and who has spent a lifetime working on many of the real buildings depicted in the model, will be introducing a new audio / visual presentation which looks at the impact of the second world war on the town. Light affects and sounds will highlight bombing raids and the impact on the town. The events will be on Saturday, September 14 and Saturday, September 21 and it will be unlucky for some – those who don’t secure their tickets early!
Pat Argar is back to continue her series of hugely entertaining and informative talks about authors who lived in or who were heavily influenced by Rye and its surrounding areas. It won’t matter if you haven’t seen the previous talks, as on Monday, September 16 “Writers of the Marsh” reaches the 1960s through to the 1990s. Rumer Godden, of Black Narcissus fame, and poet Patric Dickinson will feature.
A week later Pat will be back to talk about “A Hop Farming Family from 1796-1986”. Pat will focus on four generations of a local hop farming family, and the matriarchs in each generation who either grew the business or kept it together through hard times by grit and determination. Brave, skilled and entrepreneurial men will get a look in too. Always a brilliant and captivating speaker, Pat knows her stuff. In this case because it is her own family who are the story!
And on Friday, September 27 our local Renaissance man, Chris O’Donoghue, who has tried his hand at a variety of jobs through his career, with great success will give us a potted history of his life. It’s called “From Pottery to Potting Shed”, as it covers Chris’s early days at Poole Pottery before moving to near Rye to work as a potter and mould maker, before trying his hand as a garden designer, at Chelsea Flower Show no less, where he won multiple medals for his planting schemes and designs.
To find out more about these, and around 60 other events during the festival, go to www.ryeartsfestival.org.uk.
Image Credits: Tony Pierce , Pat Agar .