Good news all round

My first chance to update the blog for a little while. It's been wonderful to see the attention that's been coming the way of Norman Nicholson and the NN Society over the last few weeks. 'Songs of Praise' did a wonderful job in its broadcast on May 14th. It's fine to get some filming done, but after that you never know what - if anything - is going to make it into the final show. As it turned out, producer Garry Boon decided not to use the sequences he shot at 14 St George's Terrace, or at St George's Church, but he still give us a great boost with two separate sections of the programme devoted to Nicholson. He dug up an impressive amount of archive of Norman himself, and it was another plus to see our president, Melvyn Bragg, discussing the strengths of Nicholson's work. One instant result of the broadcast was that traffic to our website more than quadrupled over the next 24 hours! Then we had the exciting news that one of the UK's favourite actors, Kevin Whately, has agreed to be a patron of the Norman Nicholson House Project. Kevin and his wife Madelaine Newton are both big admirers of Norman's work - just one more example of the way Nicholson devotees keep appearing in all sorts of different environments. We are so grateful to Kevin and Madelaine. As to where we are up to with our application to the Heritage Lottery, we are nearing the end of the process of writing the application itself and rounding up a number of supporting documents which we need to submit at the same time. It certainly isn't a straightforward process, but we are getting there. Meanwhile we have also been hard at work preparing for the commemoration of Norman's death 30 years ago. It's shaping up to be a lovely afternoon at St George's Church in Millom - do come along if you can, 2pm this Saturday, June 3rd.