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 at [email protected]
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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? Very sadly the Greetings shop in Lapstone Road, Millom, which had a range of Nicholson books in stock, has closed. Try Faber & Faber HERE or Amazon HERE, or click HERE for links to Nicholson's poems online. If you know of a shop currently selling NN's work, please let us know. |
Social Media: We're on Facebook, Bluesky, and YouTube. Click on the icons below and you can
email us by clicking the envelope.
email us by clicking the envelope.
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Get out and about with our three Nicholson walking trails! Go to Google Play or the App Store and search for 'Norman Nicholson's Millom'
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Catch up on news and pics from our 2023 Festival HERE
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Our anthology of lockdown poetry by our members and friends is available from Amazon or from the publishers at a reduced rate. Email [email protected] for details.
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Find out about the Norman Nicholson House Project HERE
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LATEST NEWS
Wed. 17th December 2025 - start at 11.00am
'Joe Nicholson’s Festive Walk Around the Block'
A short literary walk around Millom New Town about Norman Nicholson’s accounts of his father.
The recently restored frontage of Norman Nicholson's lifetime home, St. George's Terrace, Millom - photo by Sue Dawson
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Our Chair, Jonathan Powell, will be leading a walk in Millom on 17th December as part of The Ramblers 'Wellbeing Walks' Programme.
This is a short walk of less than 1km around Millom on level pavements. It starts at The Clocktower, Millom at 11.00am. Overview Joseph Nicholson (1880 – 1957) lived above his gentleman’s outfitters shop at 14 St George’s Terrace. Each afternoon, he would take a break and walk around the block along Lapstone Road to the School and back along St George’s Road. People were said to set their clocks by him. His son, Norman Nicholson the poet, spent almost all of his life living in that building and he gives accounts of Joe and his life in Millom in his poetry and autobiography Wednesday Early Closing. There are few opportunities to sit down on the walk. We will have a short discussion first outside the shop and afterwards in the Market Square where there is seating. The Nicholsons worshiped in St George’s Church, Millom, just up from the Market Square. On the walk day, the Church will be open and hosting the traditional Christmas Tree Festival. As a local “Warm Hub” on Wednesdays, hot refreshments will be served. We may have a reading of one of Norman Nicholson’s Christmas poems. Everyone is welcome! All Ramblers Wellbeing Walks are classed as Easy Access which means: “Walks for everyone, including people with conventional wheelchairs and pushchairs, using easy access paths. Comfortable shoes or trainers can be worn. Assistance may be needed to push wheelchairs on some sections” More information here: Joe Nicholson’s Festive Walk Around the Block |
Norman's prose featured in beautiful exhibition at Wordsworth Grasmere
Sparkling Waters of Morecambe Bay by Kate Tame; photo by Glenn Lang
'An amphibious, ambiguous world of mists and ripples and broken lights on pools and gulleys...' (Norman Nicholson, The Lakes, Chapter 1: 'The Coastal Route'). |
After several successful projects over the past few years at Wordsworth Grasmere, the South Cumbrian Textile and Multimedia Arts Collective Flax has another exciting exhibition there. It has been on display in the Community Arts Gallery at the Wordsworth Museum for the past four months and will continue for just a few more days. The beautifully crafted artwork is inspired by Dorothy and William Wordsworth's excursions to Morecambe Bay and the Duddon Estuary, but two of the pieces on display reference the words of our own writer, Norman Nicholson!
Kate Tame’s 'Sunset ripples of Haverigg Sands' is inspired by a description by Norman Nicholson of the effect of mist and light on the watery world of the estuary: 'An amphibious, ambiguous world of mists and ripples and broken lights on pools and gulleys' (Norman Nicholson, The Lakes, Chapter 1: 'The Coastal Route'). The textile art inspired by these words is a wonderfully abstract representation of the dark red and orange light of the setting sun on the rippling sands and waters of The Duddon Estuary. Kate Tame's second reference to Nicholson's work is taken from his topographical book Greater Lakeland: 'The tide flows and ebbs... Nothing really changes. In fact the landscape of the sands is probably the least changed...in the whole of the Lakes... for centuries the main stream of life has flowed along the coast route... crossing the sands of Morecambe Bay & the Duddon Estuary' (Norman Nicholson, Greater Lakeland, Chapter 7: 'Morecambe Bay'). The image displayed is in a silver frame and shows subtly irregular lines of gold, silver, bronze and black embroidery on a shining creamy-white background, capturing the 'dazzle' on the waters of Morecambe Bay in textile, just as Nicholson's words captured it in text. This exhibition is part of the Walking for Wellbeing: Accelerating Cultural, Creative and Environmental Enrichment in Morecambe Bay project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council - AHRC and in collaboration with Lancaster University. The Norman Nicholson Society is delighted that words by our own poet, who so admired the work of Dorothy and William Wordsworth, have been included in this exhibition. Hurry up if you want to catch it before it is dismantled! posted 26/10/2025 |
Call-out for textile artists
Norman Nicholson is the inspiration behind a new collaboration between a group of Cumbria-based poets and textile artists from across the county. Creative collective Alder and Wiza are compiling an illustrated book of new poetry named, Through-stone and Thread: a Lived Cumbrian Landscape. Inspiration comes from the pamphlet Stitch and Stone: a Cumbrian Landscape, which features some of what became Nicholson’s best-known poems, alongside hand-stitched embroideries of rural Cumbrian scenes and landscapes by textile artist Kenneth Dow Barker. This year marks 50 years since the pamphlet’s publication.
The orginal Stitch and Stone, published 50 years ago
Inspired by Nicholson’s poems, a group of Cumbria-based poets have now compiled a captivating and dynamic collection of new writing as the framework for textile art illustrations. Poets include Kerry Darbishire, winner at the Lakeland Book
Awards 2025 for her collection River Talk; Peter Rafferty who featured in The New Lakes Poets alongside Norman Nicholson which was published by Bloodaxe Books (1991); and Antoinette Fawcett, founder member of The Norman Nicholson Society.
Contributing and lead artist for the collaboration is Cumbria-based artist, Julia Garner of Julia Garner Arts, best known for her landscape works in textiles and other media.
Artwork for Through-stone and Thread: a Lived Cumbrian Landscape is being created through callouts to as many contributors from across Cumbria as possible. If you’re an emerging or experienced textile artist, Alder and Wiza would love you to get in touch for details on how to submit your work for potential inclusion in the book. And, if you’re in a community art group looking for a new theme, or if you’ve got a quick five minutes to express yourself creatively, you can get involved too by contributing to larger public artworks being led by Alder and Wiza.
Deadline for all submissions is June1st 2026. Publication is planned for 2027 as part of The Norman Nicholson Society’s
21st birthday year, which also marks the 40th anniversary of Nicholson’s death. Please contact Alder and Wiza at [email protected] for more information. Or catch up with them on Instagram.
posted 18/10/2025
Awards 2025 for her collection River Talk; Peter Rafferty who featured in The New Lakes Poets alongside Norman Nicholson which was published by Bloodaxe Books (1991); and Antoinette Fawcett, founder member of The Norman Nicholson Society.
Contributing and lead artist for the collaboration is Cumbria-based artist, Julia Garner of Julia Garner Arts, best known for her landscape works in textiles and other media.
Artwork for Through-stone and Thread: a Lived Cumbrian Landscape is being created through callouts to as many contributors from across Cumbria as possible. If you’re an emerging or experienced textile artist, Alder and Wiza would love you to get in touch for details on how to submit your work for potential inclusion in the book. And, if you’re in a community art group looking for a new theme, or if you’ve got a quick five minutes to express yourself creatively, you can get involved too by contributing to larger public artworks being led by Alder and Wiza.
Deadline for all submissions is June1st 2026. Publication is planned for 2027 as part of The Norman Nicholson Society’s
21st birthday year, which also marks the 40th anniversary of Nicholson’s death. Please contact Alder and Wiza at [email protected] for more information. Or catch up with them on Instagram.
posted 18/10/2025
Place, Space and Time...
Seventy attendees, some travelling from as far as London and South Wales, ensured that our three-year series of Norman Nicholson symposiums ended in style at the University of Cumbria's Ambleside campus yesterday. With the title of Place, Space and Time in Norman Nicholson's Oeuvre presentations ranged from our keynote speaker Dr David Cooper reflecting on the value of not just reading but re-reading Nicholson's work, to a collage of words, sounds and images from Nicholson's war poetry produced by Ann Thomson, to Meghann Hillier-Bradley exploring environmental issues as expressed in Nicholson's short stories and plays - and much more. The Society thanks everyone who came, and special thanks to Dr Penny Bradshaw, leader of Cumbria Uni's MA course in Literature, Romanticism and the Lake District, and the staff and volunteers from the Ambleside campus who helped make this such a success. Thanks also to our generous USA-based donor whose support has enabled us to offer these events free of charge over the last three years. We also wish to say a heartfelt thank-you to our committee member and editor of Comet, Antoinette Fawcett, for her immense efforts in organising the event. At the end of the symposium everybody who was there recognised her crucial role and applauded Antoinette for it.
posted 28/9/2025
posted 28/9/2025
2025 Symposium: final schedule
posted 22/9/2025
Our Christmas Lunch - when and where
The Society's Christmas Lunch will once again be held at the Netherwood Hotel, Grange-over-Sands - a great chance for members and friends to get together in an informal social setting. The date is Sunday November 30th, 12.30pm for 1.00pm. Full details will be posted here in October when the menu is published. We will also confirm booking arrangements and further details then.
Meanwhile, do save the date!
posted 20/9/2025
Meanwhile, do save the date!
posted 20/9/2025
Alliance of Literary Societies
The autumn edition of the ALS Newsletter has just been published. It's available to all members of the Norman Nicholson Society. You can find it by logging onto our Members Area on this website. You need to register in oreder to access the Members Area. If you're a member and haven't already done this, the details can be found HERE.
posted 20/9/2025
posted 20/9/2025
Christine Boyce exhibition
An exhibition featuring the work of the stained glass artist Chrisitne Boyce is to be held at Dacre Hall, Lanercost, near Brampton, between the 2nd and 7th September. Christine designed and made the Norman Nicholson Memorial Window in St George’s Church, Millom, installed in 2000. This exhibition will show a wider range of her works, including her paintings, sketchbooks and plans for her windows. It promises to be a unique opportunity to view her work and find out about the woman behind the designs.
posted 25/8/2025
Nicholson House project: important update
The house before and after recent remedial work. The blue plaque has been restored and is due to be fixed back into place shortly.
Plans for the development of Norman Nicholson's house have been scaled down as a result of funding difficulties.
The Society launched this project to buy and restore the Victorian terraced house in Millom in 2016, and set up Norman Nicholson House Community Interest Company to focus on the work. The CIC succeeded in buying the house earlier this year and then obtained funding to repair the exterior, including a new roof. This work has also been completed. But now the project team have had to revise further plans after a series of funding rejections.
This means that the intention to build a three-storey extension at the rear of the building has been abandoned and instead the team will focus on refurbishing the house as it currently stands.
Project chair Charlie Lambert said: ‘We always knew that our aims were ambitious and make no apology for that. But we also recognise the reality of the funding landscape and it’s clear that our project as originally envisaged is asking too much. So we’re now looking to concentrate on the house within its current footprint. We will reduce the amount we’re requesting from funding organisations but retain the same objectives – to create a lively museum to celebrate Nicholson’s work, provide a focus for creativity, and a hub for community activities in Millom.
‘We will take a bit of time to consult our advisors and then look forward to moving ahead with our revised project.’
posted 25/8/2025
The Society launched this project to buy and restore the Victorian terraced house in Millom in 2016, and set up Norman Nicholson House Community Interest Company to focus on the work. The CIC succeeded in buying the house earlier this year and then obtained funding to repair the exterior, including a new roof. This work has also been completed. But now the project team have had to revise further plans after a series of funding rejections.
This means that the intention to build a three-storey extension at the rear of the building has been abandoned and instead the team will focus on refurbishing the house as it currently stands.
Project chair Charlie Lambert said: ‘We always knew that our aims were ambitious and make no apology for that. But we also recognise the reality of the funding landscape and it’s clear that our project as originally envisaged is asking too much. So we’re now looking to concentrate on the house within its current footprint. We will reduce the amount we’re requesting from funding organisations but retain the same objectives – to create a lively museum to celebrate Nicholson’s work, provide a focus for creativity, and a hub for community activities in Millom.
‘We will take a bit of time to consult our advisors and then look forward to moving ahead with our revised project.’
posted 25/8/2025
Place, Space and Time in Norman Nicholson’s Oeuvre
Norman Nicholson Symposium – September 27th 2025
Ambleside Campus of the University of Cumbria
The third Norman Nicholson symposium will take place on Saturday September 27th 2025. The topic this year will be Place, Space and Time in Norman Nicholson’s Oeuvre, themes that are central to Nicholson’s writing in all the genres he worked in. This symposium is the last in the current series, organised by the Norman Nicholson Society and hosted at the University of Cumbria’s Ambleside Campus by Dr. Penny Bradshaw, Associate Professor of English Literature and Theme Lead for Cultural Landscapes within the University of Cumbria’s Centre for National Parks and Protected Areas.
Thanks to a generous private donation, places will be free of charge and will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. The day will include a light lunch and refreshments, and will provide plenty of opportunities to chat to the speakers and
each other.
The programme of speakers is now complete and includes:
Dr. David Cooper, Manchester Metropolitan University. Dr. Cooper is this year’s keynote lecturer and will speak on 'Reading Nicholson's Poetry as a Spatial Event’.
Dr. David A. Cross, Hon. Research Fellow, University College,Durham, speaking about the ‘sheer magic’ of Nicholson’s Lake District anthology.
Dr. Sue Allan, cultural historian and independent scholar. Dr. Allan will speak about the ‘event’ of place, reflecting on small town life in Millom and Wigton.
As in previous years, there will also be a creative and performative strand, which will include a collage in word, image and sound of Norman Nicholson’s war poetry, devised by Ann Thomson (script) and Antoinette Fawcett (audio/visual).
The Symposium will also include the launch of an exciting member-led creative writing and textile arts project, which responds to Stitch and Stone (1975), the pamphlet of poems which Nicholson presented to Queen Elizabeth II when he was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry (1977). This project is led by Susan Cartwright-Smith and includes input from several Cumbrian poets.
Other speakers include the poets Mary Robinson and Luke Bateman, and Nicholson’s bibliographer Andrew F. Wilson. Recent research on Nicholson’s work will be presented by doctoral candidate Meghann Hillier-Broadley, and MA students
Greta Kelly and Joseph Cunningham.
Registration for the event will open on August 16th. Please keep an eye on our website, social media, and Society emails and bulletins for the opening of the booking period, and do send in your booking request quickly to ensure your place.
Places cannot be reserved before booking opens. We will keep a reserve list to ensure that all delegate places are allocated.
posted 10/8/2025
The Bloody Cranesbill at Hodbarrow
photo: GLENN LANG
This is just one of the memorable sights which our members enjoyed at the Society's recent Summer Event in Millom. Our exploration of the nature reserve at Hodbarrow yielded, among other things, a close-up of the Bloody Cranesbill, the plant celebrated by Norman in his poem of the same name in the Sea to the West collection of 1981. The flower was always a reminder to Norman of the habitual Sunday walks he would undertake with his father and Uncle Jim.
We scuffed through a scabbed and scruffy valley of ruddled rocks
To Cumberland's southernmost point....
Norman described the flower as
...red as the ore
It grew from, fragile as Venetian glass, pencilled with metal-thread
Haematite-purple veins.
The mine was still in production in those days, but now,
Fifty years later,
And it's hard to tell there ever was a mine: pit-heads
Demolished, pit-banks levelled, railway-lines ripped up...
So much has changed, so much has gone, but the flower lives on, a symbol of tenacity, determination, and survival:
A town's
Purpose subsides with the mine; my father and my Uncle Jim
Lie a quarter of a century dead; but out on its stubborn skerry,
In a lagoon of despoliation, that same flower
Still grows today.
And 45 years on from publication, it still does - and without the despoliation.
Thanks to Glenn Lang for the photo.
posted 30/6/2025
We scuffed through a scabbed and scruffy valley of ruddled rocks
To Cumberland's southernmost point....
Norman described the flower as
...red as the ore
It grew from, fragile as Venetian glass, pencilled with metal-thread
Haematite-purple veins.
The mine was still in production in those days, but now,
Fifty years later,
And it's hard to tell there ever was a mine: pit-heads
Demolished, pit-banks levelled, railway-lines ripped up...
So much has changed, so much has gone, but the flower lives on, a symbol of tenacity, determination, and survival:
A town's
Purpose subsides with the mine; my father and my Uncle Jim
Lie a quarter of a century dead; but out on its stubborn skerry,
In a lagoon of despoliation, that same flower
Still grows today.
And 45 years on from publication, it still does - and without the despoliation.
Thanks to Glenn Lang for the photo.
posted 30/6/2025
'Comet' available now to members
The latest edition of the Society's newsletter 'Comet' has been circulated to members by email. A pdf version is now available in our exclusive Members Area on this website. If you're not sure how to access the Members Area, the details are HERE.
posted 30/6/2025
posted 30/6/2025
Irvine Hunt: poet, author and friend
The Norman Nicholson Society was very sorry to receive the sad news in April of the death of the author, poet and storyteller Irvine Hunt, a founder member of the Norman Nicholson Society and a great friend and supporter of Norman Nicholson. Irvine died peacefully at home on April 2nd at the age of 95.
Irvine often helped Norman by driving him to poetry readings at which they both performed, including in Morpeth and Ashington for the MidNAG festivals in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. The friendship between the two writers was strong and lasting, and Irvine and his family were entrusted with the Nicholson Literary Estate after Norman's death in 1987. Irvine honoured Norman's memory in many ways, including compiling and editing the selection of Nicholson's topographical prose Norman Nicholson's Lakeland: A Prose Anthology, published by Robert Hale Ltd in 1991.
Irvine’s funeral service took place in the lovely St. Kentigern’s Church in Castle Sowerby. The service ended with a reading of Nicholson's beautiful poem 'Sea to the West'.
We know that Irvine always treasured his connection with the Society and that he valued the positive contribution it has made to Norman’s literary legacy. We will greatly miss his kindly and gentle interest in our activities. We hope to publish a more formal tribute to Irvine in our Society Bulletin later this year, in recognition of the work that he and his family have done to keep Norman’s name alive.
posted 24/6/2025
Irvine often helped Norman by driving him to poetry readings at which they both performed, including in Morpeth and Ashington for the MidNAG festivals in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. The friendship between the two writers was strong and lasting, and Irvine and his family were entrusted with the Nicholson Literary Estate after Norman's death in 1987. Irvine honoured Norman's memory in many ways, including compiling and editing the selection of Nicholson's topographical prose Norman Nicholson's Lakeland: A Prose Anthology, published by Robert Hale Ltd in 1991.
Irvine’s funeral service took place in the lovely St. Kentigern’s Church in Castle Sowerby. The service ended with a reading of Nicholson's beautiful poem 'Sea to the West'.
We know that Irvine always treasured his connection with the Society and that he valued the positive contribution it has made to Norman’s literary legacy. We will greatly miss his kindly and gentle interest in our activities. We hope to publish a more formal tribute to Irvine in our Society Bulletin later this year, in recognition of the work that he and his family have done to keep Norman’s name alive.
posted 24/6/2025
Philip Gardner thesis available at Millom Library
There's a valuable addition to the resources available in Millom Library. Philip Gardner's 1969 PhD thesis, a key text for Nicholson scholars over many years, is now available in hard copy for readers to access within the library. It's kept in the reserve collection, but with a note on the shelf with Nicholson's work to say that it is available. The thesis is also available online from Liverpool University at https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3174119/
The thesis was the precursor to Gardner's writing the first full-length book devoted to Nicholson’s work, his Norman Nicholson, published by Twayne of New York in 1973, combining literary criticism with biographical and geographical information which provide important context. It’s a book written with authority. Gardner’s appreciation of Nicholson dates back to student days in 1955, later prompting him to travel to Millom to meet him. From this visit a valued friendship developed, which in turn informed the thesis.
A detailed article about Philip Gardner, who now lives in Ottawa, appeared in Comet, the Norman Nicholson Society's newsletter, in March 2024.
posted 5/6/2025
The thesis was the precursor to Gardner's writing the first full-length book devoted to Nicholson’s work, his Norman Nicholson, published by Twayne of New York in 1973, combining literary criticism with biographical and geographical information which provide important context. It’s a book written with authority. Gardner’s appreciation of Nicholson dates back to student days in 1955, later prompting him to travel to Millom to meet him. From this visit a valued friendship developed, which in turn informed the thesis.
A detailed article about Philip Gardner, who now lives in Ottawa, appeared in Comet, the Norman Nicholson Society's newsletter, in March 2024.
posted 5/6/2025
New chair and changes to our committee
JONATHAN POWELL. Photo: 4-5 Gray's Inn Square
We are pleased to announce that Jonathan Powell was elected as our new Chair at the 2025 Norman Nicholson Society AGM in April. Jonathan is a barrister at Gray’s Inn and divides his time between London and The Hill, just outside Millom. He has been a member of the NNS since 2018 and joined the NNS committee last year.
After serving as Joint Acting Chairs of the NNS last year, Prof. Brian Whalley remains as the Membership Secretary and Glenn Lang has returned to his old position as NNS Secretary. Dr Antoinette Fawcett continues as the editor of The New Comet and The Comet Bulletin, and Brian Charnley remains as Treasurer. Antoinette and Glenn are also the NNS Joint Representatives to the Alliance of Literary Societies. Sue Dawson continues to be our Schools and Communities Officer.
Abi Palmer’s place on the NNS committee was ratified at the AGM; Abi is based at the University of Cumbria and is currently writing a Ph.D. thesis on the renowned Yorkshire diarist Anne Lister. John Grieve will continue to serve as a co-opted member of the committee.
Dr Laura Day, Janice Brockbank and Simone Faulkner have recently resigned from the committee due to the pressure of other commitments. Janice served as the NNS Secretary from November 2019 to April 2023 and continued on the committee till December 2024. Dr Laura Day was the NNS Youth Representative from 2021 to 2025 and Simone acted as an important contact in Millom. We thank them all for their vital contributions to the work of the Norman Nicholson Society over the years.
posted 23/5/2025
After serving as Joint Acting Chairs of the NNS last year, Prof. Brian Whalley remains as the Membership Secretary and Glenn Lang has returned to his old position as NNS Secretary. Dr Antoinette Fawcett continues as the editor of The New Comet and The Comet Bulletin, and Brian Charnley remains as Treasurer. Antoinette and Glenn are also the NNS Joint Representatives to the Alliance of Literary Societies. Sue Dawson continues to be our Schools and Communities Officer.
Abi Palmer’s place on the NNS committee was ratified at the AGM; Abi is based at the University of Cumbria and is currently writing a Ph.D. thesis on the renowned Yorkshire diarist Anne Lister. John Grieve will continue to serve as a co-opted member of the committee.
Dr Laura Day, Janice Brockbank and Simone Faulkner have recently resigned from the committee due to the pressure of other commitments. Janice served as the NNS Secretary from November 2019 to April 2023 and continued on the committee till December 2024. Dr Laura Day was the NNS Youth Representative from 2021 to 2025 and Simone acted as an important contact in Millom. We thank them all for their vital contributions to the work of the Norman Nicholson Society over the years.
posted 23/5/2025
The Norman Nicholson Society Summer Event:
Poets, Artists and Inspiration
photo: SUE DAWSON
Saturday 14th June 2025
11.00am to 4.30pm (approx)
This year is the 25th anniversary of Christine Boyce’s stained glass masterpiece, the
Norman Nicholson Memorial Window, which was completed in time for the
millennium, just thirteen years after Nicholson’s death. Christine Boyce (1928-
2019) spent two years immersing herself in Nicholson’s poetry and prose and was
given almost complete freedom in terms of the design of the window.
The event will take place in St. George’s Church, Millom, where the window is
located. There will be a general introduction to the images in the window and their
inspiration, followed by a consideration of Nicholson’s key poem ‘Caedmon’. The
Anglo-Saxon poet Caedmon is the first English poet known to us by name and his life
and work clearly had deep significance for Nicholson. Christine Boyce places the
figure of The Poet at the centre of her design to stress the importance of ‘Caedmon’ in her conception of the task of the creative artist: not only that of the poet
memorialized in her own work of art, but that of all artists, whether working in the
visual arts, music, dance or literature. The morning session will be followed by lunch and the consideration of other poems portrayed in the window, particularly ‘The Bee Orchid’ and ‘The Bloody Cranesbill’.
If the weather permits, we will take a walk at Hodbarrow to see these flowers in bloom. We will include a short visit to Nicholson’s house, either in the morning or the afternoon, to see the current renovations. There will also be the option to visit the ancient Church of the Holy Trinity on the outskirts of Millom, which will be celebrating the Festival of the Holy Trinity the same weekend. This was Nicholson’s favourite church, where his mentor the Rev Sam Taylor was the vicar from 1935-1944. At Holy Trinity Church there will be the opportunity to see an exhibition of the work of the artist David Bates ARCA
(1929-2024) which portrays Millom as it was when Nicholson knew it. The exhibition also includes work by David Bates’s wife, June Moss, and his pupil, Jim Billsborough. Malcolm Bates will give a talk about the work of his father and
mother (details to be released later).
The Norman Nicholson Society Summer Event will start at 11.00am promptly, so please arrive before the starting time. St. George’s Church will be open from 10.30am. We expect the day to finish between 4.30pm and 5.00pm. There is no need to book, but do send us an email if you hope to attend: [email protected]. NOTE: All activities are at your own risk. Please ensure that you wear suitable clothing and footwear for the walk and bring necessary refreshments. Tea and coffee will be available in St. George’s Church.
Whatever the weather may be, this summer event will give friends and members the chance to acquaint or reacquaint themselves with the wellsprings of Nicholson’s inspiration. See you there!
posted 15/5/2025
(1929-2024) which portrays Millom as it was when Nicholson knew it. The exhibition also includes work by David Bates’s wife, June Moss, and his pupil, Jim Billsborough. Malcolm Bates will give a talk about the work of his father and
mother (details to be released later).
The Norman Nicholson Society Summer Event will start at 11.00am promptly, so please arrive before the starting time. St. George’s Church will be open from 10.30am. We expect the day to finish between 4.30pm and 5.00pm. There is no need to book, but do send us an email if you hope to attend: [email protected]. NOTE: All activities are at your own risk. Please ensure that you wear suitable clothing and footwear for the walk and bring necessary refreshments. Tea and coffee will be available in St. George’s Church.
Whatever the weather may be, this summer event will give friends and members the chance to acquaint or reacquaint themselves with the wellsprings of Nicholson’s inspiration. See you there!
posted 15/5/2025
Norman Nicholson Symposium, September 27th 2025:
Place, Space and Time in Norman Nicholson’s Oeuvre
Ambleside Campus of the University of Cumbria
We’re delighted to announce that the third Norman Nicholson symposium in the series organised by the Norman Nicholson Society, and hosted at the University of Cumbria’s Ambleside Campus by Dr. Penny Bradshaw, Associate Professor of
English Literature and Theme Lead for Cultural Landscapes within the University of Cumbria’s Centre for National Parks and Protected Areas, will take place on Saturday September27th 2025. The topic this year will be Place, Space and Time
in Norman Nicholson’s Oeuvre, themes that are central to Nicholson’s writing in all the genres in which he worked.
This symposium will continue and extend the range of debate about Nicholson’s place in English Literature; his lifelong engagement with the landscape, industry, culture and history of Greater Lakeland; his sensitive awareness of and response to
the natural world; and his abiding commitment to societal, environmental, and spiritual issues. We are especially interested in papers or presentations which explore these themes in the context of Deep Time, local distinctiveness and,
particularly, environmental, societal and industrial transitions, theological space and rural modernism.
The programme of speakers is almost complete, but we do still have space for one or two further presentations. If you are interested in reading a 20-minute paper, making a creative presentation, giving a performance, or reading at this symposium,
please contact the Norman Nicholson Society at [email protected].
We are also delighted to announce that Dr. David Cooper of Manchester Metropolitan University, and a former chair of the Society, will be this year’s keynote speaker. Other speakers will include the art historian Dr David A. Cross and the writer and environmentalist Dr Karen Lloyd, as well as several poets and writers, including Luke Bateman, Kelly Davis, and Mary Robinson. Recent research on Nicholson will be presented by Meghann Hillier-Broadley and we expect there to be news of Nicholson-related projects and lively readings from his work.
Thanks to a generous private donation, places will be free of charge and will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. The day will include a light lunch and refreshments, and will provide plenty of opportunities to chat to the speakers and
each other.
Registration for the event will open in mid-August. Please keep an eye on our website, social media, and Society emails and bulletins for the opening of the booking period, and do send in your booking request quickly to ensure your place.
posted 10/5/2025
New look to 14 St George's Terrace!
Repairs to the exterior of Norman Nicholson's house in Millom have been completed on schedule – and a new look to the 140-year-old building has been revealed.
The £99,000 project to carry out vital repairs to the exterior of the house at 14 St George’s Terrace included installing a new slate roof, strengthening the chimney stack and dormer, replacing the windows, drainpipes and gutters, and returning the lay-out of the front of the building to its original design.
The house was suffering badly from damp, missing slates and damaged timber and brickwork. Now it looks in great condition, boasting a brand-new appearance with the woodwork painted an eye-catching shade of pink as a nod to Millom’s past as the site of one of the world’s richest seams of haematite, something frequently referenced in Nicholson’s poetry.
Chair of the Nicholson House project Charlie Lambert said: ‘This is a massive step on the way towards fully reopening the house as a café, a place for small-scale community events, a Nicholson exhibition, and accommodation for a writer in residence and general tourists. Our aims are to celebrate Norman Nicholson’s outstanding writing and to make a genuine contribution to Millom and the surrounding area. We’re extremely grateful to South Copeland GDF Community Partnership and Cumberland Council/UK Shared Prosperity Fund for providing the funding to carry out the work.’
Now that the building is secure and weatherproof the project will seek further funding to renovate the interior, build an extension at the back, and fully equip the house for its future role.
The £99,000 project to carry out vital repairs to the exterior of the house at 14 St George’s Terrace included installing a new slate roof, strengthening the chimney stack and dormer, replacing the windows, drainpipes and gutters, and returning the lay-out of the front of the building to its original design.
The house was suffering badly from damp, missing slates and damaged timber and brickwork. Now it looks in great condition, boasting a brand-new appearance with the woodwork painted an eye-catching shade of pink as a nod to Millom’s past as the site of one of the world’s richest seams of haematite, something frequently referenced in Nicholson’s poetry.
Chair of the Nicholson House project Charlie Lambert said: ‘This is a massive step on the way towards fully reopening the house as a café, a place for small-scale community events, a Nicholson exhibition, and accommodation for a writer in residence and general tourists. Our aims are to celebrate Norman Nicholson’s outstanding writing and to make a genuine contribution to Millom and the surrounding area. We’re extremely grateful to South Copeland GDF Community Partnership and Cumberland Council/UK Shared Prosperity Fund for providing the funding to carry out the work.’
Now that the building is secure and weatherproof the project will seek further funding to renovate the interior, build an extension at the back, and fully equip the house for its future role.
THEN: January 24th 2025. photo: CHARLIE LAMBERT
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NOW: April 7th 2025. photo: SUE DAWSON
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posted 8/4/2025
Our AGM - and a visit to the Beacon Museum
The NN Society AGM will take place on Zoom on Saturday, April 26th at 11.00am. This will be followed by an online event at 12noon, details of which to be confirmed.
Before that, on Saturday March 29th at 2pm our committee member Jonathan Powell has arranged an informal visit to the Beacon Museum in Whitehaven to view the exhibition 'Inspired by Industry', which features work by Percy Kelly and other West Cumbrian artists. Nicholson and Kelly had much in common with each other and their relationship was the subject of David Cross's book Cumbrian Brothers: Letters from Percy Kelly to Norman Nicholson. We will be guided round the exhibition by Chris Wadsworth, Kelly's biographer. Details of the exhibition can be found on the Beacon's website: https://thebeacon-whitehaven.co.uk/galleries/
The usual museum entrance fee will apply. If you'd like to join us, please send an email to Jonathan Powell at the following address: [email protected] and headed WHITEHAVEN BEACON VISIT.
posted 17/3/2025
Before that, on Saturday March 29th at 2pm our committee member Jonathan Powell has arranged an informal visit to the Beacon Museum in Whitehaven to view the exhibition 'Inspired by Industry', which features work by Percy Kelly and other West Cumbrian artists. Nicholson and Kelly had much in common with each other and their relationship was the subject of David Cross's book Cumbrian Brothers: Letters from Percy Kelly to Norman Nicholson. We will be guided round the exhibition by Chris Wadsworth, Kelly's biographer. Details of the exhibition can be found on the Beacon's website: https://thebeacon-whitehaven.co.uk/galleries/
The usual museum entrance fee will apply. If you'd like to join us, please send an email to Jonathan Powell at the following address: [email protected] and headed WHITEHAVEN BEACON VISIT.
posted 17/3/2025
ALS Newsletter now available to our members
The Alliance of Literary Societies Spring 2025 newsletter has been published and is available for our members to read in the members' area of this website. There are many interesting articles, including one about Arthur Ransome which members will find interesting, given Ransome's Cumbrian connections. If you're not yet a member, you would be very welcome to join us. Membership details are HERE.
posted 2/3/2025
posted 2/3/2025
Explore Nicholson at Higham Hall
Antoinette Fawcett
Our committee member and editor of Comet Antoinette Fawcett is to lead a two-day course exploring the work of Norman Nicholson at Higham Hall, near Cockermouth, next month. The course, organised by Higham Hall, presents an exciting and surprising journey through Nicholson’s work, exploring his craftmanship, his deep knowledge of Greater Lakeland, and the important and lasting themes he tackled. The course will also consider some influences on Nicholson and works that he in turn inspired. It starts on Wednesday March 26th at 6.30pm and ends on Friday March 28th at 1.30pm. Costs are Residential: £310, Non-residential: £225. To book, ring 01768 776276. More information on the Higham Hall website HERE.
posted 10/2/2025
posted 10/2/2025
Work starts at 14 St George's Terrace
photo: SUE DAWSON
Repair work has started on Nicholson's old home in Millom! Having secured funding to pay for a new slate roof and numerous other external repairs the Nicholson House project, which was launched by the Society in 2016, has commissioned Millom company J.Nuttall Building Services to carry out the work. Scaffolding began to appear today and the builders are due to complete the job at the end of March. South Copeland GDF Community Partnership and Cumberland Council are very kindly providing the funds for this. Our project team will now began the quest for further funding to cover the cost of interior repairs and refurbishment.
Read more about this on the BBC website HERE and the NW Mail website HERE - and watch Border TV tomorrow when there's due to be a report on this milestone moment.
posted 30/1/2025
Read more about this on the BBC website HERE and the NW Mail website HERE - and watch Border TV tomorrow when there's due to be a report on this milestone moment.
posted 30/1/2025
Find out about the Nicholson Papers
Jessica Smith (photo: University of Manchester)
Our second event of the year comes up on Wednesday February 5th (7.30pm) when Jessica Smith, archivist and curator in charge of the Modern Literary Archives at the John Rylands Library in Manchester, will talk about the papers of Norman Nicholson held in their archive, and the work of the archive in general. The talk, on Zoom, is a great opportunity to learn about the scope of the Nicholson-related materials and to understand the kind of use that can be made of this treasure trove and the insights it can give us.
Although Norman Nicholson is known to have destroyed many of his papers, including drafts of poems and personal letters, he also kept a range of important materials until his death. These were eventually deposited with the John Rylands Library, which is part of the University of Manchester. This extensive collection is known as The Papers of Norman Nicholson and is complemented by the Norman Nicholson Book Collection and The Papers from the Norman Nicholson Book Collection, also held at the John Rylands.
The importance of these collections was stressed by former archivist, Stella Halkyard, as they formed the initial basis of the Modern Literary Archives at the John Rylands Research Institute and Library. The first Nicholson deposits attracted further donations, including the Papers of Doreen Cornthwaite relating to Norman Nicholson and many more important and interesting Nicholson-related papers and artefacts. These donations and long-term loans make the John Rylands Library the richest and most complete source of archival material relating to Norman Nicholson.
Registration for this event is now open. Please contact the Society at the usual email address, [email protected], by Monday 3rd February at 5.00pm. The event is open to all and is free of charge.
posted 21/1/2025
Although Norman Nicholson is known to have destroyed many of his papers, including drafts of poems and personal letters, he also kept a range of important materials until his death. These were eventually deposited with the John Rylands Library, which is part of the University of Manchester. This extensive collection is known as The Papers of Norman Nicholson and is complemented by the Norman Nicholson Book Collection and The Papers from the Norman Nicholson Book Collection, also held at the John Rylands.
The importance of these collections was stressed by former archivist, Stella Halkyard, as they formed the initial basis of the Modern Literary Archives at the John Rylands Research Institute and Library. The first Nicholson deposits attracted further donations, including the Papers of Doreen Cornthwaite relating to Norman Nicholson and many more important and interesting Nicholson-related papers and artefacts. These donations and long-term loans make the John Rylands Library the richest and most complete source of archival material relating to Norman Nicholson.
Registration for this event is now open. Please contact the Society at the usual email address, [email protected], by Monday 3rd February at 5.00pm. The event is open to all and is free of charge.
posted 21/1/2025
Our first events of the New Year
Members and friends gathered online on the evening of Wednesday January 8th to celebrate the 111th anniversary of Norman Nicholson's birth. A dozen Society members read favourite poems, including a wonderfully-illustrated reading of a little-known Nicholson poem, Cricket in Cumberland, by Sue Dawson. There was also a reading of Askam Unvisited by John Killick who recalled meeting Nicholson at an event in Doncaster and telling him that he rated this as his one of his greatest poems. 'Nicholson agreed,' said John - adding 'although he might have just been being polite!'
The evening, hosted by Antoinette Fawcett, also included a reading by Martyn Halsall of his own poem The Inheritors, written in tribute to Nicholson. The event concluded with a toast to Norman with more than one of our number choosing Norman's favourite tipple, a good Scottish malt whisky.
Our next event comes up on Wednesday February 5th, 'Norman Nicholson and the John Rylands Library Archive', an online talk
by Jessica Smith, Archivist in charge of the Modern Literary Archives at the John Rylands Library in Manchester, starting at 7.30pm. To register, please email [email protected] by Monday February 3rd at 5pm.
posted 12/1/2025, updated 16/1/2025
The evening, hosted by Antoinette Fawcett, also included a reading by Martyn Halsall of his own poem The Inheritors, written in tribute to Nicholson. The event concluded with a toast to Norman with more than one of our number choosing Norman's favourite tipple, a good Scottish malt whisky.
Our next event comes up on Wednesday February 5th, 'Norman Nicholson and the John Rylands Library Archive', an online talk
by Jessica Smith, Archivist in charge of the Modern Literary Archives at the John Rylands Library in Manchester, starting at 7.30pm. To register, please email [email protected] by Monday February 3rd at 5pm.
posted 12/1/2025, updated 16/1/2025
Celebrating Norman's 111th birthday
We've been celebrating Norman's birthday (January 8th) as a Society since 2007, when a group of us stood outside what was then the Norman Nicholson House café and toasted Norman with champagne. Eighteen years later we still mark the start of each new Nicholson year with a special celebration, although this year’s event will be online rather than in person.
As for our celebration last year, we are asking friends and members to be involved in the reading of poems and prose passages by Nicholson, with one suitable choice for each month of the year. Prose passages can be chosen from Wednesday Early Closing or Provincial Pleasures. This will take place at 7.30pm on Wednesday January 8th 2025.
If you would like to participate as a reader, do let us know as soon as possible, as the programme is filling up. You should give details of your chosen poem or passage and the month you would like that poem or passage to represent. You should also give second and third choices, in case other people have chosen the same pieces/months as you.
Registration for the event will open on Monday December 16th and closes at 5pm on Monday January 6th. We will send you the Zoom link on the morning of January 8th. To register, either as audience or reader, please email [email protected]
posted 16/12/24
As for our celebration last year, we are asking friends and members to be involved in the reading of poems and prose passages by Nicholson, with one suitable choice for each month of the year. Prose passages can be chosen from Wednesday Early Closing or Provincial Pleasures. This will take place at 7.30pm on Wednesday January 8th 2025.
If you would like to participate as a reader, do let us know as soon as possible, as the programme is filling up. You should give details of your chosen poem or passage and the month you would like that poem or passage to represent. You should also give second and third choices, in case other people have chosen the same pieces/months as you.
Registration for the event will open on Monday December 16th and closes at 5pm on Monday January 6th. We will send you the Zoom link on the morning of January 8th. To register, either as audience or reader, please email [email protected]
posted 16/12/24
We move to Bluesky
The Society has opened an account on the social media platform Bluesky where you can find us by searching for Norman Nicholson Society. This will in due course replace our activity on X / Twitter where we will continue to maintain a presence until the New Year. If you've been following us on X / Twitter, thank you so much for your support and we look forward to linking up again as we build a following on Bluesky. Click HERE to start.
posted 7/12/24
posted 7/12/24
'A nationally important writer with an international reputation'
Despite the ravages of Storm Bert, more than thirty people attended Antoinette Fawcett’s lecture at Higham Hall on the afternoon of Sunday 24th November 2024. The audience consisted of a few NNS members and the general public, including many who had no previous knowledge of Norman Nicholson.
Through close readings of five poems (The Elm Decline, Wall, Cornthwaite, Carol and Clouded Hills) Antoinette guided her audience through several topics that were of major significance to Norman throughout his life, including the environment, society, local and family history, and spirituality. While doing so she conveyed much about his life and character and argued that in his lifetime Nicholson was a nationally important writer with an international reputation, who should not be forgotten.
The lively question and answer session that followed the lecture showed how engaged the audience had been, and included not only fascinating personal memories of Norman and his work but also tributes to Antoinette for her meticulous research and her informative and entertaining presentation. Many discussions continued over tea and cake in the elegant dining room at Higham after the lecture. It was good to see Norman’s reputation being revived in this way and we trust that the NNS will be welcoming several new members as a result. - GLENN LANG
posted 1/12/24
Through close readings of five poems (The Elm Decline, Wall, Cornthwaite, Carol and Clouded Hills) Antoinette guided her audience through several topics that were of major significance to Norman throughout his life, including the environment, society, local and family history, and spirituality. While doing so she conveyed much about his life and character and argued that in his lifetime Nicholson was a nationally important writer with an international reputation, who should not be forgotten.
The lively question and answer session that followed the lecture showed how engaged the audience had been, and included not only fascinating personal memories of Norman and his work but also tributes to Antoinette for her meticulous research and her informative and entertaining presentation. Many discussions continued over tea and cake in the elegant dining room at Higham after the lecture. It was good to see Norman’s reputation being revived in this way and we trust that the NNS will be welcoming several new members as a result. - GLENN LANG
posted 1/12/24
'It was never a light we thought to see...'
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Shepherds' Carol from Nicholson's 1944 collection Five Rivers is the poem chosen as the inspiration for the Society's entry in the annual Christmas Tree Festival at St George's Church in Millom, which opened today. The poem is one of several by Nicholson which transplants Biblical stories from the original Palestine to Cumbria, so we find the shepherds telling the story of 'the child we found in a cot of straw' after making their way through the darkness of ghyll and scree, and light on the fells, accompanied by their collies. The shepherds used in the display were originally made by our former chair, the late Peggy Troll, and it's a special moment for us to have Peggy's memory celebrated like this.
Our display has been put together by our committee member Sue Dawson, assisted by Janice Brockbank.
The Christmas Tree Festival is open for visitors every Friday, Saturday and Sunday between now and Christmas Day, 11.30am to 4.30pm. The theme this year is simply 'Christmas'. There are around 60 trees on display.
Note: Nicholson wrote two poems titled Shepherds' Carol. This is the first. The second one, same idea but different construction, was written for the 1967 TV production No Star on the Way Back with music by Thea Musgrave.
Our display has been put together by our committee member Sue Dawson, assisted by Janice Brockbank.
The Christmas Tree Festival is open for visitors every Friday, Saturday and Sunday between now and Christmas Day, 11.30am to 4.30pm. The theme this year is simply 'Christmas'. There are around 60 trees on display.
Note: Nicholson wrote two poems titled Shepherds' Carol. This is the first. The second one, same idea but different construction, was written for the 1967 TV production No Star on the Way Back with music by Thea Musgrave.
posted 29/11/24 - pictures by SUE DAWSON
'A unique, revisionary perspective'
Dr Frayn was a speaker at the Norman Nicholson Festival, 2019
The roll call of British war poets doesn't usually include the name of Norman Nicholson, but that is to overlook significant influences on his writing and an important element of his poetic output. That's the view of Dr Andrew Frayn of Edinburgh Napier University, whose latest paper on Nicholson has been published by Modernist Cultures, the journal of the British Association for Modernist Studies.
In the paper, to quote from the abstract, Dr Frayn argues that Nicholson's 'position in his lifetime home of Millom, an industrial town on the periphery of the tourist Lake District, gives his writing a unique, revisionary perspective on both modern/ist and war poetry: he is a non-combatant rural poet who focuses not on contested ground overseas, but on the rural and wartime industry on the north-western English coast'.
The paper goes on to examine Nicholson's credentials as a modernist poet (about which Nicholson himself was somewhat equivocal) with particular reference to his early work, something which coincides with our upcoming online talk by Dr Antoinette Fawcett on the poems written before his 1944 collection Five Rivers, to take place on Thursday week, December 5th.
'On the Perimeter and Fringe of War' - Norman Nicholson, Rural Modernity and Wartime by Dr Andrew Frayn can be accessed free of charge here: https://www.euppublishing.com/toc/mod/19/1 Scroll down to find the paper under 'Articles' on the left-hand side.
Also available online is Dr Frayn's previous paper on Nicholson, Rural Modernity, Rural Modernism and Deindustrialisation in Norman Nicholson’s Poetry, published in English Studies by Taylor & Francis, March 2023, here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0013838X.2023.2180593#d1e229
posted 27/11/24
In the paper, to quote from the abstract, Dr Frayn argues that Nicholson's 'position in his lifetime home of Millom, an industrial town on the periphery of the tourist Lake District, gives his writing a unique, revisionary perspective on both modern/ist and war poetry: he is a non-combatant rural poet who focuses not on contested ground overseas, but on the rural and wartime industry on the north-western English coast'.
The paper goes on to examine Nicholson's credentials as a modernist poet (about which Nicholson himself was somewhat equivocal) with particular reference to his early work, something which coincides with our upcoming online talk by Dr Antoinette Fawcett on the poems written before his 1944 collection Five Rivers, to take place on Thursday week, December 5th.
'On the Perimeter and Fringe of War' - Norman Nicholson, Rural Modernity and Wartime by Dr Andrew Frayn can be accessed free of charge here: https://www.euppublishing.com/toc/mod/19/1 Scroll down to find the paper under 'Articles' on the left-hand side.
Also available online is Dr Frayn's previous paper on Nicholson, Rural Modernity, Rural Modernism and Deindustrialisation in Norman Nicholson’s Poetry, published in English Studies by Taylor & Francis, March 2023, here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0013838X.2023.2180593#d1e229
posted 27/11/24
Memories of Norman and Enrica
This month has seen the publication of a book by one of the pupils of Enrica Garnier, the inspirational teacher who had a 10-year relationship with Norman Nicholson.
The book, ‘Parents Absent’, by Frances Clemmow, includes memories of meeting Nicholson when he travelled to visit Enrica at Pontesford House near Shrewsbury in Shropshire, the place to which pupils and staff from Walthamstow Hall School in Sevenoaks, Kent, were evacuated during the Second World War. Fran Clemmow was one of the pupils; Enrica Garnier taught French and English (and swimming) at Sevenoaks but was teacher in charge at the Pontesford satellite.
The book, ‘Parents Absent’, by Frances Clemmow, includes memories of meeting Nicholson when he travelled to visit Enrica at Pontesford House near Shrewsbury in Shropshire, the place to which pupils and staff from Walthamstow Hall School in Sevenoaks, Kent, were evacuated during the Second World War. Fran Clemmow was one of the pupils; Enrica Garnier taught French and English (and swimming) at Sevenoaks but was teacher in charge at the Pontesford satellite.
Fran recounts how she met Nicholson on one occasion, in 1943, when she was met by Enrica at Shrewsbury station at the start of the summer term. They had time in hand before catching the bus to Pontesford House so they went to the flat of a friend of Enrica’s, Emmeline Blackburn.
‘Limited as she was with places where she could meet Nicholson outside her Pontesford bedsit, Emmeline’s flat must have been a godsend,’ she writes. ‘On this occasion I remember being slightly over-awed when being introduced to this very colourful be-whiskered gentleman.’
Fran credits the Society’s vice-president David Boyd for much of the detail she’s picked up regarding Nicholson and his relationship with Enrica, through David’s 2015 biography ‘Norman Nicholson, A Literary Life’. She notes the time spent by Enrica in typing out Norman’s poems for his first collection, ‘Five Rivers’ (dedicated to Enrica), and mentions in particular the poem ‘September in Shropshire’ with its references ‘unmistakably Pontesford House’.
‘The more I read the poem,’ she writes, ‘the more it seems to me that it might also have been Nicholson’s private farewell to his relationship with Enrica’.
The poem ends:
And so I leave you
To hoard the bright pods of a dying summer
In the brown and poignant winter of this war.
She might have a point.
‘Parents Absent – Memories of a Girls’ Boarding School in Wartime 1939-1950’ by Frances Clemmow, available from Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Frances-Clemmow/s?rh=n%3A266239%2Cp_27%3AFrances+Clemmow
At £11.99 paperback or £4.99 Kindle.
CHARLIE LAMBERT
posted 20/11/24
‘Limited as she was with places where she could meet Nicholson outside her Pontesford bedsit, Emmeline’s flat must have been a godsend,’ she writes. ‘On this occasion I remember being slightly over-awed when being introduced to this very colourful be-whiskered gentleman.’
Fran credits the Society’s vice-president David Boyd for much of the detail she’s picked up regarding Nicholson and his relationship with Enrica, through David’s 2015 biography ‘Norman Nicholson, A Literary Life’. She notes the time spent by Enrica in typing out Norman’s poems for his first collection, ‘Five Rivers’ (dedicated to Enrica), and mentions in particular the poem ‘September in Shropshire’ with its references ‘unmistakably Pontesford House’.
‘The more I read the poem,’ she writes, ‘the more it seems to me that it might also have been Nicholson’s private farewell to his relationship with Enrica’.
The poem ends:
And so I leave you
To hoard the bright pods of a dying summer
In the brown and poignant winter of this war.
She might have a point.
‘Parents Absent – Memories of a Girls’ Boarding School in Wartime 1939-1950’ by Frances Clemmow, available from Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Frances-Clemmow/s?rh=n%3A266239%2Cp_27%3AFrances+Clemmow
At £11.99 paperback or £4.99 Kindle.
CHARLIE LAMBERT
posted 20/11/24
Norman Nicholson: a writer for our time
Dr. Antoinette Fawcett will be giving a lecture on Norman Nicholson as an exemplary writer for our own time at Higham Hall, near Cockermouth, on Sunday November 24th, 2pm to 4pm. It may be 80 years since Nicholson's first collection was published, and 37 years since his death, yet his writing continues to hit an uncannily accurate mark for our own generation. This lecture will explore the life and work of Nicholson, whose response to nature, society, spirituality, and the environment in his time resonates even more strongly in our own. Full details HERE. This event has been organised by Higham Hall.
Looking to next year, Antoinette will also be giving a course at Higham Hall in March, giving people a chance to deepen their understanding of Nicholson's poetry. Details HERE.
posted 11/11/24
Looking to next year, Antoinette will also be giving a course at Higham Hall in March, giving people a chance to deepen their understanding of Nicholson's poetry. Details HERE.
posted 11/11/24
'Norman Nicholson and me' - talk at the Armitt this Sunday
Thanks to all who have registered for Professor Brian Whalley's online talk on Nicholson tomorrow evening. There's another event coming up which will be of interest: this Sunday, November 10th, our committee member Dr. LAURA DAY will discuss her personal reflections on Nicholson’s work in a talk titled NORMAN NICHOLSON AND ME - EXPLORING CUMBRIA TOGETHER, A CENTURY APART. It's at the Armitt Museum, Ambleside, 2pm-4pm. Laura will reflect on her personal relationship with the landscape having grown up on a Cumbrian sheep farm, and how Nicholson forged his own personal relationship via his poetry.
Tickets are £10 each from the Armitt Museum at https://www.armitt.com/event-directory/
posted 5/11/24
Tickets are £10 each from the Armitt Museum at https://www.armitt.com/event-directory/
posted 5/11/24
'The silent god within the silent rock'
Online event coming up next Wednesday, November 6th at 7.30pm: Dr. Brian Whalley, acting chair of the Norman Nicholson Society, will give a talk on ‘Glaciers and ice in the poetry of Norman Nicholson - and some cold notes on creativity in science fact and fiction’. Brian is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Sheffield and a renowned geomorphologist, who over many years has introduced poetry and other forms of creative writing into his teaching. All are welcome to attend this free event via Zoom. Please register by 5pm on Tuesday November 5th by contacting us at the usual Gmail address:[email protected] A link will be sent to you on the day of the event.
posted 31/10/24, updated 4/11/24
posted 31/10/24, updated 4/11/24
We'll be 'at the Music Festival' in Ulverston - again
The Norman Nicholson Society is once again sponsoring the South Cumbria Musical Festival for two set-piece poetry recitation classes, in memory of Peggy Troll, our founder Chair. For the last two years we have also been Patrons of the Festival, which is an important competitive event and a training ground for the musicians, speakers, actors and writers of the future.
Nicholson himself, as we know from his memoir Wednesday Early Closing, was a very gifted boy reciter, famous in Millom and the surrounding area for his dramatic renditions of poetry. He describes the Musical Festival of ‘those days’ as ‘one of the favourite winter sports in our part of the world’, with the audience ‘waiting, tense and excited …for the Adjudicator’s verdict’.
The SCMF grew out of the Millom Festival and we were pleased to see last year how well the Millom Schools still support the event, in spite of the distance between Millom and Ulverston.
The set pieces for this year's Norman Nicholson Poetry Classes are ‘Put on More Coal’ (up to and including school year 6) and ‘Wall’ (school years 7 to 9 inclusive). Copies of the poems are available from the SCMF Entries Secretary, along with notes to help the children understand the pieces and prepare for their performance. Entries close on 13th January, 2025.
In addition to sponsoring the two Poetry Classes, the Norman Nicholson Society is providing special book token prizes. Full details are available on the SCMF website: https://southcumbriamusicalfestival.co.uk/.
Nicholson himself, as we know from his memoir Wednesday Early Closing, was a very gifted boy reciter, famous in Millom and the surrounding area for his dramatic renditions of poetry. He describes the Musical Festival of ‘those days’ as ‘one of the favourite winter sports in our part of the world’, with the audience ‘waiting, tense and excited …for the Adjudicator’s verdict’.
The SCMF grew out of the Millom Festival and we were pleased to see last year how well the Millom Schools still support the event, in spite of the distance between Millom and Ulverston.
The set pieces for this year's Norman Nicholson Poetry Classes are ‘Put on More Coal’ (up to and including school year 6) and ‘Wall’ (school years 7 to 9 inclusive). Copies of the poems are available from the SCMF Entries Secretary, along with notes to help the children understand the pieces and prepare for their performance. Entries close on 13th January, 2025.
In addition to sponsoring the two Poetry Classes, the Norman Nicholson Society is providing special book token prizes. Full details are available on the SCMF website: https://southcumbriamusicalfestival.co.uk/.
CARLISLE AND DISTRICT MUSIC AND DRAMA FESTIVAL, which takes place from 10th-15th March 2025, also has two Norman Nicholson classes (Class 15 and Class 33). The syllabus can be downloaded here: Carlisle and District Music and Drama Festival. Entries close on Sunday, 19th January 2025.
posted 29/10/24
posted 29/10/24
Driving Norman to see Josefina - latest in our Audio Archive
Former Haverigg teacher and one-time warden of the Harriet Trust Chris Powell has recorded his memories of Norman Nicholson for our Audio Archive, available on this website HERE. Chris often drove Norman to visit the founder of the Harriet Trust, the sculptor Josefina de Vasconcellos, and her husband, the artist Delmar Banner, at their home, The Bield, in Little Langdale. He recalls those days in an interview recorded on October 10th 2024.
posted 25/10/24
posted 25/10/24
Christmas lunch: December 14th in Grange-over-Sands
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The Society will again be holding a Christmas lunch for members and their family and friends. The date is Saturday December 14th, 1.30pm for 2pm, at the Netherwood Hotel in Grange-over-Sands which has looked after us so well over many years. Please see the Events page for full details including booking arrangements.
posted 5/10/24
posted 5/10/24
Our Symposium hears 'the speaking voice'
Keynote speaker: Professor Jonathan Pitches
Scholars, researchers, poets, artists and literature enthusiasts gathered at the University of Cumbria's Ambleside Campus yesterday for our second Norman Nicholson Symposium, in conjunction with the University of Cumbria's Centre for National Parks and Protected Areas. What emerged was a stimulating day of presentations on the theme of 'The Speaking Voice; the Written Word: Norman Nicholson and Performance'.
Keynote speaker was Professor Jonathan Pitches of the University of Leeds. He focused on one specific aspect of Nicholson's verse plays, the way he uses mountains in his dramas, giving them personalities and speaking roles on stage. Professor Pitches referenced in particular The Old Man of the Mountains and Birth by Drowning, recalling the impact that the former had when it first appeared in 1946 with its forceful condemnation of what today would be described as unsustainable farming practices. The ideas presented in the play over 70 years ago are as current as ever, he said.
In all there were 11 different presentations encompassing scholarly papers, live poetry readings, BBC radio recordings, an illustrated talk by the Nicholson MA graduate and wood engraver Carole Thirlaway, and a recording by the Cumbrian-born contralto Jess Dandy of the poem Fossils, set to music by the composer Joel Rust.
For a full report and more pictures of the Symposium, click HERE.
Keynote speaker was Professor Jonathan Pitches of the University of Leeds. He focused on one specific aspect of Nicholson's verse plays, the way he uses mountains in his dramas, giving them personalities and speaking roles on stage. Professor Pitches referenced in particular The Old Man of the Mountains and Birth by Drowning, recalling the impact that the former had when it first appeared in 1946 with its forceful condemnation of what today would be described as unsustainable farming practices. The ideas presented in the play over 70 years ago are as current as ever, he said.
In all there were 11 different presentations encompassing scholarly papers, live poetry readings, BBC radio recordings, an illustrated talk by the Nicholson MA graduate and wood engraver Carole Thirlaway, and a recording by the Cumbrian-born contralto Jess Dandy of the poem Fossils, set to music by the composer Joel Rust.
For a full report and more pictures of the Symposium, click HERE.
posted 29/9/24
posted 29/9/24
Full house for our September Symposium!
Due to cancellations some extra places have become available for our Symposium in Ambleside this Saturday. If you'd like to come, please email [email protected]. The event is free of charge with lunch and refreshments also supplied, thanks to a very generous benefactor. More details plus a downloadable copy of the full programme for the day can be found on our EVENTS page.
We're looking forward to seeing everyone at the Langdale Building of the University of Cumbria Ambleside campus, formerly Charlotte Mason College, just across the road from The Knoll which was the home of Harriet Martineau from 1846 to 1876.
The day starts with arrivals from 10am and the first formal session opens at 10.30am. Contributors will include Jess Dandy, described as 'the foremost British contralto of her generation', who will perform Nicholson’s poem ‘Fossils’ in a setting by the composer Joel Rust via an audio recording.
The Symposium is scheduled to close around 5.30pm.
posted 12/9/24, updated 13/9/24 and again 23/9/24
We're looking forward to seeing everyone at the Langdale Building of the University of Cumbria Ambleside campus, formerly Charlotte Mason College, just across the road from The Knoll which was the home of Harriet Martineau from 1846 to 1876.
The day starts with arrivals from 10am and the first formal session opens at 10.30am. Contributors will include Jess Dandy, described as 'the foremost British contralto of her generation', who will perform Nicholson’s poem ‘Fossils’ in a setting by the composer Joel Rust via an audio recording.
The Symposium is scheduled to close around 5.30pm.
posted 12/9/24, updated 13/9/24 and again 23/9/24
Booking opens for the 2024 Norman Nicholson Symposium
Booking is now open for this year’s Norman Nicholson Symposium in Ambleside on Saturday September 28th. The deadline for registration is Thursday, September 12th. If you'd like to attend, please register as soon as possible by emailing [email protected]. We will keep a reserve list in case of cancellations. As places on the symposium are limited, it is important that you contact us as soon as possible if you do need to cancel your attendance so that your place can be made available for someone else.
As for last year’s symposium, a complimentary lunch and refreshments will be provided for all delegates. Arrivals from 10am for 10.30 start. The event will close around 5.30pm.
The theme for this year’s symposium, to be hosted by Professor Penny Bradshaw of the University of Cumbria, is Norman Nicholson and Performance. The keynote lecture, Norman Nicholson’s mountain dramas: performance perspectives on a nascent eco-critic, will be delivered by Professor Jonathan Pitches of the University of Leeds, while Dr. Christopher Donaldson of the University of Lancaster will give the final lecture of the day on Voices of History in Norman Nicholson’s Poetry and Prose.
Delegates will also have the rare chance to hear A Wall Walks Slowly: The Sound of Cumbria, an award-winning and innovative BBC Radio 3 programme produced in 1977 by Desmond Briscoe, which combined Nicholson’s poetry with a Cumbrian soundscape that included interviews with local people and the atmospheric sounds of nature.
Other presentations include: Ann Thomson on audience perception and Nicholson’s controversial play A Match for the Devil; Meghann Hillier-Broadley on the unspoken words of Nicholson’s dramas; a rehearsed reading of ‘The Bow in the Cloud’; a consideration by Andrew F. Wilson, Nicholson’s bibliographer, of the poet’s many radio broadcasts of the 1940s and 1950s; an examination of the contrasting soundscapes of Nicholson’s poetry; and much more, including an audio performance of a contemporary composer’s response to Nicholson’s poem ‘Fossils’.
The poet and former journalist Martyn Halsall will examine Nicholson’s creative legacy, honouring his echoes in his own work, while the wood engraving artist Carole Thirlaway will look at what it means to give visual voice to Nicholson’s poetry.
Thanks to our collaboration with the University of Cumbria, and the generosity of an anonymous donor based in the US, we are able to offer places on the symposium free of charge. We would, however, appreciate donations towards future events at the symposium itself. 2027 will mark the 40th anniversary of Nicholson’s death and we plan to make that a very special year!
posted 16/8/2024
As for last year’s symposium, a complimentary lunch and refreshments will be provided for all delegates. Arrivals from 10am for 10.30 start. The event will close around 5.30pm.
The theme for this year’s symposium, to be hosted by Professor Penny Bradshaw of the University of Cumbria, is Norman Nicholson and Performance. The keynote lecture, Norman Nicholson’s mountain dramas: performance perspectives on a nascent eco-critic, will be delivered by Professor Jonathan Pitches of the University of Leeds, while Dr. Christopher Donaldson of the University of Lancaster will give the final lecture of the day on Voices of History in Norman Nicholson’s Poetry and Prose.
Delegates will also have the rare chance to hear A Wall Walks Slowly: The Sound of Cumbria, an award-winning and innovative BBC Radio 3 programme produced in 1977 by Desmond Briscoe, which combined Nicholson’s poetry with a Cumbrian soundscape that included interviews with local people and the atmospheric sounds of nature.
Other presentations include: Ann Thomson on audience perception and Nicholson’s controversial play A Match for the Devil; Meghann Hillier-Broadley on the unspoken words of Nicholson’s dramas; a rehearsed reading of ‘The Bow in the Cloud’; a consideration by Andrew F. Wilson, Nicholson’s bibliographer, of the poet’s many radio broadcasts of the 1940s and 1950s; an examination of the contrasting soundscapes of Nicholson’s poetry; and much more, including an audio performance of a contemporary composer’s response to Nicholson’s poem ‘Fossils’.
The poet and former journalist Martyn Halsall will examine Nicholson’s creative legacy, honouring his echoes in his own work, while the wood engraving artist Carole Thirlaway will look at what it means to give visual voice to Nicholson’s poetry.
Thanks to our collaboration with the University of Cumbria, and the generosity of an anonymous donor based in the US, we are able to offer places on the symposium free of charge. We would, however, appreciate donations towards future events at the symposium itself. 2027 will mark the 40th anniversary of Nicholson’s death and we plan to make that a very special year!
posted 16/8/2024
Norman Nicholson Symposium 2024: Saturday September 28th
We're very pleased to confirm that the Norman Nicholson Symposium 2024 will be held in conjunction with the University of Cumbria at the uni's Ambleside campus on Saturday September 28th.
This will be the second Nicholson Symposium, following on from the successful event at the same venue last year. It will be hosted by Associate Professor Penny Bradshaw, Programme Leader for the university’s MA in Literature, Romanticism and the English Lake District.
The theme this year is The Speaking Voice; the Written Word: Norman Nicholson and Performance. This presents us with an opportunity to examine Nicholson's emphasis on speakable words, whether in poetry, drama, or prose. The theme also enables the consideration of Nicholson's radio and television work, as well as responses to Nicholson's work in the broadcast media, or in music and song. An exciting element of this Symposium will be the chance to hear some of Nicholson's work in performance, such as extracts from the plays or prose, or complete poems.
Our speakers this year include Professor Jonathan Pitches of the University of Leeds, Dr Christopher Donaldson of the University of Lancaster, Dr Martyn Halsall, former poet-in-residence at Carlisle Cathedral, and Andrew F. Wilson, the author of an unpublished bibliographical study of Nicholson’s work.
Registration for the event will open in August. Places on the symposium are free of charge, but will be limited to ensure that everyone who attends has the opportunity to engage with the speakers and each other. More details will appear here and on our Facebook and 'X' accounts in due course.
published 4/7/24
This will be the second Nicholson Symposium, following on from the successful event at the same venue last year. It will be hosted by Associate Professor Penny Bradshaw, Programme Leader for the university’s MA in Literature, Romanticism and the English Lake District.
The theme this year is The Speaking Voice; the Written Word: Norman Nicholson and Performance. This presents us with an opportunity to examine Nicholson's emphasis on speakable words, whether in poetry, drama, or prose. The theme also enables the consideration of Nicholson's radio and television work, as well as responses to Nicholson's work in the broadcast media, or in music and song. An exciting element of this Symposium will be the chance to hear some of Nicholson's work in performance, such as extracts from the plays or prose, or complete poems.
Our speakers this year include Professor Jonathan Pitches of the University of Leeds, Dr Christopher Donaldson of the University of Lancaster, Dr Martyn Halsall, former poet-in-residence at Carlisle Cathedral, and Andrew F. Wilson, the author of an unpublished bibliographical study of Nicholson’s work.
Registration for the event will open in August. Places on the symposium are free of charge, but will be limited to ensure that everyone who attends has the opportunity to engage with the speakers and each other. More details will appear here and on our Facebook and 'X' accounts in due course.
published 4/7/24
At the Atlantic's dying edge - a celebration
We celebrated the 80th anniversary of the publication of Nicholson's first solo collection, Five Rivers, with a trip by rail up the West Cumbrian coast from Millom to Whitehaven and back. It was a wonderful opportunity to get together and enjoy Nicholson's poetry in the locations which provided his inspiration. Pictured is our committee member and editor of 'Comet' Antoinette Fawcett reading the poem 'Whitehaven' by the harbour.
Curlews wheel on the north wind,
Their bills still moist with Solway sand,
And waves slide up from the wide bays
With rumours of the Hebrides...
Thanks to all who came (dogs as well) and took part in the day.
posted 19/6/24
Curlews wheel on the north wind,
Their bills still moist with Solway sand,
And waves slide up from the wide bays
With rumours of the Hebrides...
Thanks to all who came (dogs as well) and took part in the day.
posted 19/6/24
A Grand Day Out
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Millom station to Whitehaven and return with The Norman Nicholson Society 15th June 2024 09.55 Millom to Whitehaven, arrive 10.50.
Return Whitehaven 13.19/14.16 arrive Millom 14.09/14.30 Optional return stop at Ravenglass Lunch/refreshments not provided but there are plenty of cafes, including at the Beacon, in Whitehaven. |
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In 1944 Norman Nicholson published his first ‘solo’ collection of poems; Five Rivers. The Grand Day Out commemorates this collection with a railway journey to Whitehaven from Millom Station. Nicholson used the coastal railway extensively and this is reflected in some of his early poems as in ‘Five Rivers’. We want to make this a travellers’ participation tribute to Nicholson, the coast of Cumbria, its towns and its railway; for participants to observe, recollect and ponder the changes in the coast and especially in the post-industrialisation of the area.
Nicholson, born and raised in Millom, had TB as teenager and worked as a writer, critic and poet for the remainder of his life at 14 St George’s Terrace, Millom. He established a friendship with his Millom contemporary, Bessie Satterthwaite, who took a teaching post in Whitehaven and was a champion and supporter of Nicholson for the remainder of his life. She probably also introduced Nicholson to the Workers’ Education Association (WEA) and might have been responsible for him to be hired to lecture at their classes in the St Bees and Whitehaven area. Daniel Hay, the Borough Librarian of Whitehaven had developed a strong interest in local history and the literary scene and became a friend and admirer of Nicholson’s work. Hay commented, ‘No living Cumbrian has won such a worldwide esteem as Nicholson’ and, ‘for me ‘Five Rivers’ holds the key to what he will write later’. Please see David Boyd’s ‘Norman Nicholson A Literary Life' (2015) for more detail on the people involved in Nicholson’s literary life and from which the foregoing has been taken.
Nicholson’s love for topography and geology is well-known; they play a part in many of his poems. The presence of Black Combe is evident in poems and especially in the southern part of the Millom-Whitehaven journey. Perhaps less well appreciated is his knowledge and use of wildlife, birds and plants. The estuaries provide a place to see birds but in ‘Whitehaven’ he sets the scene with,‘… Within the harbour’s lobster claws. Curlews wheel on the north wind. Their bills still moist with Solway sand.’
The Beacon Museum (our first visit) provides a good view of the harbour. We shall have to see about birds we see but in the poem 'Five Rivers' Nicholson mentions gulls, eagles, stone chat, plover as well as curlew. Plants include rhubarb, watercress, ferns, bracken, hawthorn, thrift, dog-daisy, dog rose and dog grass. But Nicholson also liked ‘Weeds’ (Sea to the West collection of 1981; Collected Poems (340)). Nicholson is also well aware of Cumbria’s historical antecedents. The ‘statesmen’ who ‘meet in the Woolpack' (still in Eskdale) are estates men, yeoman farmers from Tudor times and who had an impact on the land-use. So too have the Neolithic wood-clearers (‘The Elm Decline’), ‘Roman cement and arches teach / Of the galleys that came to Ravenglass’ and Vikings, ’Here where the Norsemen foraged down the dales.’ (‘For the Grieg Centenary’ (36), also in Five Rivers).
But it is the railways that perhaps that have had the greatest impact in the area. As David Boyd says, ‘Millom did not exist until about 1860’ and ‘The Whitehaven and Furness Junction railway had reached out its network to this remote area in 1850.’ The history, not to mention the trials, experiments and tribulations of establishing the railway system, are explained, with splendid maps, in the CRA books by the late Alan Atkinson and David Joy. More recently, there is The Energy Coast, including Sellafield and the gas fields.
So please, observe, note and inwardly digest the coast, write something, sketch something or photograph people and places that mean something to you. Please send them to Brian Whalley ([email protected]) and we’ll put something together as a report on the ‘Grand Day Out’ for Comet and the website. And see if you can identify (in ‘Coastal Journey’) where, ‘the train halts where the railway line / Twists among the misty shifting sand. / Neither land nor estuary, / Neither wet nor dry.’ and ‘The train moves off again, / And the sandy pinetrees bend / Under the dark green berries of the rain.’
Reading
Atkinson, A. (2012) Millom, A Cumberland Iron Town and its Railways. Cumbrian Railways Association.
Boyd, D. (2015) Norman Nicholson. A Literary Life.
Joy, D. (2017) An Introduction to Cumbrian Railways. Cumbrian Railways Association.
Nicholson, N. Five Rivers and Collected Poems, Faber and Faber
Historic OS Maps links from the National Library for Scotland
View map: Great Britain. Ordnance Survey, Sheet 18 - Wasdale - Ordnance Survey of England and Wales. One-inch to the mile, Popular Edition - OS One-inch 'Popular' edition, England and Wales, 1918-1926 (nls.uk). View map: Great Britain. War Office, Sheet 18 - Wasdale - War Revision 1940 [Popular Edition mapping, Popular Edition marginalia, Sales C... - War Office, England and Wales One-Inch Popular, 5th ed. GSGS 3907 - 1937-45 (nls.uk) https://maps.nls.uk/view/196182759
The Norman Nicholson Society
Membership Secretary; [email protected] Membership; Individual £16, Joint at one address £20. Youth/Student £6
- Brian Whalley, Acting Chair
posted 14/6/24
Nicholson’s love for topography and geology is well-known; they play a part in many of his poems. The presence of Black Combe is evident in poems and especially in the southern part of the Millom-Whitehaven journey. Perhaps less well appreciated is his knowledge and use of wildlife, birds and plants. The estuaries provide a place to see birds but in ‘Whitehaven’ he sets the scene with,‘… Within the harbour’s lobster claws. Curlews wheel on the north wind. Their bills still moist with Solway sand.’
The Beacon Museum (our first visit) provides a good view of the harbour. We shall have to see about birds we see but in the poem 'Five Rivers' Nicholson mentions gulls, eagles, stone chat, plover as well as curlew. Plants include rhubarb, watercress, ferns, bracken, hawthorn, thrift, dog-daisy, dog rose and dog grass. But Nicholson also liked ‘Weeds’ (Sea to the West collection of 1981; Collected Poems (340)). Nicholson is also well aware of Cumbria’s historical antecedents. The ‘statesmen’ who ‘meet in the Woolpack' (still in Eskdale) are estates men, yeoman farmers from Tudor times and who had an impact on the land-use. So too have the Neolithic wood-clearers (‘The Elm Decline’), ‘Roman cement and arches teach / Of the galleys that came to Ravenglass’ and Vikings, ’Here where the Norsemen foraged down the dales.’ (‘For the Grieg Centenary’ (36), also in Five Rivers).
But it is the railways that perhaps that have had the greatest impact in the area. As David Boyd says, ‘Millom did not exist until about 1860’ and ‘The Whitehaven and Furness Junction railway had reached out its network to this remote area in 1850.’ The history, not to mention the trials, experiments and tribulations of establishing the railway system, are explained, with splendid maps, in the CRA books by the late Alan Atkinson and David Joy. More recently, there is The Energy Coast, including Sellafield and the gas fields.
So please, observe, note and inwardly digest the coast, write something, sketch something or photograph people and places that mean something to you. Please send them to Brian Whalley ([email protected]) and we’ll put something together as a report on the ‘Grand Day Out’ for Comet and the website. And see if you can identify (in ‘Coastal Journey’) where, ‘the train halts where the railway line / Twists among the misty shifting sand. / Neither land nor estuary, / Neither wet nor dry.’ and ‘The train moves off again, / And the sandy pinetrees bend / Under the dark green berries of the rain.’
Reading
Atkinson, A. (2012) Millom, A Cumberland Iron Town and its Railways. Cumbrian Railways Association.
Boyd, D. (2015) Norman Nicholson. A Literary Life.
Joy, D. (2017) An Introduction to Cumbrian Railways. Cumbrian Railways Association.
Nicholson, N. Five Rivers and Collected Poems, Faber and Faber
Historic OS Maps links from the National Library for Scotland
View map: Great Britain. Ordnance Survey, Sheet 18 - Wasdale - Ordnance Survey of England and Wales. One-inch to the mile, Popular Edition - OS One-inch 'Popular' edition, England and Wales, 1918-1926 (nls.uk). View map: Great Britain. War Office, Sheet 18 - Wasdale - War Revision 1940 [Popular Edition mapping, Popular Edition marginalia, Sales C... - War Office, England and Wales One-Inch Popular, 5th ed. GSGS 3907 - 1937-45 (nls.uk) https://maps.nls.uk/view/196182759
The Norman Nicholson Society
Membership Secretary; [email protected] Membership; Individual £16, Joint at one address £20. Youth/Student £6
- Brian Whalley, Acting Chair
posted 14/6/24
The Society will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the publication of Norman Nicholson’s first solo book of verse 'Five Rivers' in 1944 by having a Grand Day Out on Saturday June 15th. Norman had strong connections with the Cumbrian west coast and Whitehaven, so we plan to visit Whitehaven via the railway he used so much and recorded in various ways in the poems in 'Five Rivers'.
We'll depart Millom station on the 09.55 train which arrives in Whitehaven at 10.50. The return trip is aimed at departing Whitehaven on the 13.19 train, arriving at Millom at 14.09, but perhaps with an hour’s stopover at Ravenglass. There is no fixed timetable, however, and you can come and go as you please. There is no planned lunch so you can bring your own or eat at a café in Whitehaven as you wish. Please buy your own train tickets.
Although it is an informal turn-up-and-go event, it would be helpful to have indications of the numbers as we will try to arrange a Whitehaven library visit and a visit to the Beacon. Please email Brian Whalley, [email protected] for further information, and if you intend to join us please also inform Brian so we have an ideas of the numbers to expect.
posted 23/5/24 Ravenglass photo: Euroguides
We'll depart Millom station on the 09.55 train which arrives in Whitehaven at 10.50. The return trip is aimed at departing Whitehaven on the 13.19 train, arriving at Millom at 14.09, but perhaps with an hour’s stopover at Ravenglass. There is no fixed timetable, however, and you can come and go as you please. There is no planned lunch so you can bring your own or eat at a café in Whitehaven as you wish. Please buy your own train tickets.
Although it is an informal turn-up-and-go event, it would be helpful to have indications of the numbers as we will try to arrange a Whitehaven library visit and a visit to the Beacon. Please email Brian Whalley, [email protected] for further information, and if you intend to join us please also inform Brian so we have an ideas of the numbers to expect.
posted 23/5/24 Ravenglass photo: Euroguides
for previous News items please visit our News Archive
Explore Millom and surrounding area:
Millom Arts & Heritage Centre St George's Church Hodbarrow RSPB Reserve
Millom Arts & Heritage Centre St George's Church Hodbarrow RSPB Reserve
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