Welcome
Welcome to the website of the Norman Nicholson Society. The site aims to provide information about Nicholson and his work and encourage the study and enjoyment of this remarkable man's writings. Here you will also find information about the NN Society which holds regular events and publishes the newsletter Comet. The Society is based in Millom, on the banks of the River Duddon and in the shadow of Black Combe, and has a worldwide membership.
MembershipNew members of the Norman Nicholson Society are warmly welcomed. Membership fees are £15 per annum or £20 for a couple living at the same address, and £6 youth membership (up to age 25). Check out benefits of membership here, including how to access the Members' exclusive area of this website. Please contact us via the Contact page.
|
Norman Nicholson
Norman Nicholson was born in Millom, Cumbria, in 1914 and lived there until his death in 1987 with the exception of two years in his late teens when he was sent to a sanatorium in Hampshire to recover from tuberculosis - an event which shaped his subsequent life. His writing career lasted from 1930 until his death and embraced plays, poetry, novels, criticism and essays. He is best known for his poetry and was awarded the Queen's Medal for Poetry in 1977 and the OBE in 1981.
Read an appreciation of Norman Nicholson by Fran Baker, former archivist at the John Rylands University of Manchester Library, HERE. Most frequently-asked question: Where can I get hold of Nicholson's work? The Greetings shop, 26 Lapstone Road, Millom LA18 4BU, has a range of Nicholson books in stock. Or try Faber & Faber HERE or Amazon HERE, or click HERE for links to Nicholson's poems online. |
LATEST NEWS
Our Lockdown Poetry book is launched today!
The Norman Nicholson Society and The Book Mill are proud to announce the launch of The Unpredicted Spring, a unique anthology of poems written as the world struggled to cope with the Covid pandemic.
This collection of 42 poems represents the best of more than 200 worldwide entries to a Lockdown Poetry Competition organised by the Society in 2020. It includes the two winning poems – Learning Whimbrel by Martyn Halsall, former Poet in Residence at Carlisle Cathedral, and Silently Ignoring the World by 14-year-old Californian-born, Cambridgeshire-based Katie Deutsch.
This latest addition to the literature of the pandemic is published by The Book Mill and available from Amazon at £10.99 or at a discounted rate from the publishers who should be contacted by email in the first instance, postmaster@thebookmill.co.uk.
Editor of the anthology Kathleen Jones, who also judged the competition, said: ‘What I like about the book is the diversity; that we’ve got people from all over the world with very different experiences of lockdown; people of all age groups, and they are all writing about how they are coping and the new things they are observing.
‘Being put in situations like this does inspire amazing poetry. People can often put into words in poems things that they can’t talk about, deeply internalised things. Some people who had never written poetry before began writing.
‘Some of the poems I liked best were written by the under-18 age group. It thrilled me to see so many writing poetry – and writing good poetry, which has a fresh quality of looking at the world. That for me was one of the best things that’s come out of this book’.
Chair of the Norman Nicholson Society Charlie Lambert said: ‘What the combined forces of Government laws, peer pressure and infections can never do is to keep in check the human spirit. Imagination will not be quarantined, and we can see this in this very moving yet uplifting anthology’.
The title, The Unpredicted Spring, is taken from a poem by Norman Nicholson himself which is also printed in the book. The poem, Early March, was written during another time of national emergency, the Second World War. ‘We did not expect this,’ it begins, ‘we were not ready for this…’
He could have been writing about the coronavirus in 2020.
VIEW THE OFFICIAL LAUNCH VIDEO:
This collection of 42 poems represents the best of more than 200 worldwide entries to a Lockdown Poetry Competition organised by the Society in 2020. It includes the two winning poems – Learning Whimbrel by Martyn Halsall, former Poet in Residence at Carlisle Cathedral, and Silently Ignoring the World by 14-year-old Californian-born, Cambridgeshire-based Katie Deutsch.
This latest addition to the literature of the pandemic is published by The Book Mill and available from Amazon at £10.99 or at a discounted rate from the publishers who should be contacted by email in the first instance, postmaster@thebookmill.co.uk.
Editor of the anthology Kathleen Jones, who also judged the competition, said: ‘What I like about the book is the diversity; that we’ve got people from all over the world with very different experiences of lockdown; people of all age groups, and they are all writing about how they are coping and the new things they are observing.
‘Being put in situations like this does inspire amazing poetry. People can often put into words in poems things that they can’t talk about, deeply internalised things. Some people who had never written poetry before began writing.
‘Some of the poems I liked best were written by the under-18 age group. It thrilled me to see so many writing poetry – and writing good poetry, which has a fresh quality of looking at the world. That for me was one of the best things that’s come out of this book’.
Chair of the Norman Nicholson Society Charlie Lambert said: ‘What the combined forces of Government laws, peer pressure and infections can never do is to keep in check the human spirit. Imagination will not be quarantined, and we can see this in this very moving yet uplifting anthology’.
The title, The Unpredicted Spring, is taken from a poem by Norman Nicholson himself which is also printed in the book. The poem, Early March, was written during another time of national emergency, the Second World War. ‘We did not expect this,’ it begins, ‘we were not ready for this…’
He could have been writing about the coronavirus in 2020.
VIEW THE OFFICIAL LAUNCH VIDEO:
posted 1/3/21
New in the Members' Area
As the launch of the Norman Nicholson Trails app comes ever nearer, members of the Society can hear a special welcome recorded by our President, Lord Melvyn Bragg. You'll find it in the exclusive members' area of this website, along with some of the images from the app, including an outline of the two trails. If you're a member and you haven't yet registered for the members' area, you can find out how to do so HERE.
posted 23/2/12
posted 23/2/12
New translation by Antoinette
Antoinette Fawcett's latest translation from Dutch has recently been published.
Antoinette, our long-serving committee member and editor of Comet, has translated The Limits of My Language: Meditations on Depression by Eva Meijer, the author of Bird Cottage, which was also translated by Antoinette.
The book was published last month and is available from Pushkin Press at £9.99 or from Amazon. It is described as 'a poignant, stimulating search for the things, great and small – from philosophy and art to sitting quietly with a cat – that make our lives worth living.'
posted 20/2/21
Grant awarded by Architectural Heritage Fund
We're delighted to announce that the Architectural Heritage Fund has awarded a grant of £7,800 to the Norman Nicholson House Project. The money is earmarked for consultancy work from specialists in museum design and business planning.
Charlie Lambert, Chair of the Project and also Chair of the Norman Nicholson Society, said: ‘We are very grateful to the Architectural Heritage Fund – not just for the money, which of course is very welcome, but also for showing such faith in a project which is quite different from the majority of schemes which they support. This shows that a Victorian terraced house in a street in Cumbria has a value and a story which are well worth preserving and celebrating.’
The AHF is a registered charity which promotes the conservation and sustainable re-use of heritage buildings for the benefit of communities across the UK.
posted 18/2/21
Charlie Lambert, Chair of the Project and also Chair of the Norman Nicholson Society, said: ‘We are very grateful to the Architectural Heritage Fund – not just for the money, which of course is very welcome, but also for showing such faith in a project which is quite different from the majority of schemes which they support. This shows that a Victorian terraced house in a street in Cumbria has a value and a story which are well worth preserving and celebrating.’
The AHF is a registered charity which promotes the conservation and sustainable re-use of heritage buildings for the benefit of communities across the UK.
posted 18/2/21
Poetry of hope
The Rev Canon Dr Edmund Newey, Rector of Rugby, is to lead an online seminar on Monday March 8th entitled: ‘This metaphor is no way out’: Some Poetry of Hope, Drawing on Norman Nicholson and Others. The seminar is the second in a series of monthly events organised by Engaging Theology in Cumbria. It will take place on the Zoom platform, 7.30pm to 9pm. More details here.
posted 8/2/21
posted 8/2/21
2021 AGM will be online
This year's AGM of the Norman Nicholson Society will be an online event using the Zoom platform, on Saturday April 24th starting at 11am. The formal proceedings will be followed at 12 noon by a talk by Dr Penny Bradshaw, Head of English at the University of Cumbria. The AGM is for members only but all are welcome to join us for Dr Bradshaw's talk. Details will be posted nearer the time.
posted 1/2/21
posted 1/2/21
|
for previous News items please visit our News Blog
Social Media: We're on Facebook and Twitter. Click on the icons below.
Explore Millom and surrounding area:
Millom Discovery Centre St George's Church Millom Library Hodbarrow RSPB Reserve |
