Pontefract: From liquorice to literature

Pontefract is probably best known for its famous castle and its liquorice. But from next week this historic market town will join the ranks of Yorkshire’s burgeoning literary scene when its first ever literature festival gets underway.

The inaugural Pontefract Festival of Stories, an offshoot of the Wakefield Literature Festival, is based around a 10-day programme of events that includes book talks and poetry readings as well as blues, jazz and world music.

It is the West Yorkshire town’s first ever literary festival and has taken its theme from local writer Ian Clayton’s bestselling book, Bringing It All Back Home.

As well as Clayton, who is hosting a number of events, guests also include broadcaster and former Leeds University student Andy Kershaw who is coming to talk about Bob Dylan’s classic album Bringing It All Back Home (from where Clayton’s book took its name).

Other highlights include former Featherstone Rovers coach Allan Agar talking about the improbable Challenge Cup final triumph of 1983, considered one of the biggest upsets in the competition’s history, followed by a screening of the game.

Photographer Kevin Reynolds will talk about his photographic odyssey across the Deep South in the US, while Dave Downs, a well known local figure, will discuss his tough upbringing in Featherstone and the life that it led him in to.

Ian Clayton is a champion of local storytelling and believes events like these are a crucial way of keeping stories alive.

“The beauty of literature festivals for me is that I get to connect with people who’ve read my books on a personal level. Festivals bring stories to life, so that they don’t exist remotely but become part of a community, which is where they all start anyway,” he says.

“Words and stories exist in a place just as much as shops and houses do. My stories have travelled around the world and it’s great to be able to bring them back home again.”

All the events will take place behind the curtain at the Tap and Barrel in Pontefract and is part of the ongoing cultural programme at the theatre, which hosts a regular series of events and sessions throughout the year.

Pontefract might not be a literary Mecca and it has some way to go before it rivals the hugely popular Ilkley Literature Festival. Nevertheless, the number of literary festivals in Yorkshire has mushroomed during the past decade and there’s a growing appetite for smaller, more intimate, events like Leeds Big Bookend, Niddfest and the Headingley LitFest.

The Tap and Barrel’s manager, Dean Smith, says this kind of festival is long overdue in Pontefract. “It is much more than a set of events in a public house, it is a platform for cultural activity in the district and is a celebration of what we stand for. It’s independent, self-sustaining and has arisen organically from the culture that surrounds us, which makes it very distinctive.”

He believes the festival can boost the town’s image and pull in punters from outside. “The hope is that this will help put Pontefract on the literary map. It’s a way of not only bringing people in Pontefract together it can also show the town in a different light to people in the outside world who perhaps don’t know much about the place,” he says.

“We’ve got some really talented publishers and writers here, it’s a hotbed of storytelling and it has been for many years it just hasn’t been recognised as one. But hopefully that will change and we can build a broader cultural economy rather than the post-industrial Pontefract that people know, or think they know.”

The Pontefract Festival of Stories runs from September 23 to October 2. For more details log on to www.tappontefract.wordpress.com