This Is Cheshire

LITERARY GIANTS GRACE TOWN STAGE

From the Guardian Series, first published Thursday 4th Oct 2001.

KNUTSFORD'S Literature Festival begins another impressive chapter this weekend with a host of big names.

Novelist Beryl Bainbridge and poet Vernon Scannell will be among the guest speakers at the town's second literary festival.

On Monday Charlotte Peters Rock, a local poet who has helped organise the event, said there would be something for everyone.

"It should be of interest to anyone not just people who read books or write because it will be pure entertainment," she said. On Friday night poet Vernon Scannell, who regarded himself as a failure, will introduce his sardonic humour to guests at Tabley House in Northwich Road.

During the evening local historian and event organiser Joan Leach will give a short talk on the poet of Tabley House, John Byrne Leicester-Warren, who was the last Lord de Tabley. Prolific author Beryl Bainbridge will light up the Methodist Church in Princess Street on Saturday at 2.30pm to discuss her works of art.

Mrs Peters Rock said on Monday that the novelist, a Booker Prize finalist, would be one to watch out for.

"I am sure she will have something very interesting to say about the Booker Prize and she is supposed to be quite a feisty lady," she said. On Sunday the focus switches to local talent.

Mrs Leach, who lives in Tabley, will take visitors on a stroll through time as she traces the steps of the town's best-known author Elizabeth Gaskell. In the afternoon a production of The Ladies of Cranford will bring Mrs Gaskell's stories to life at the Civic Centre on Toft Road.

Sandra Hunt and Rachel Laurence will introduce their take on the characters from Cranford to a Knutsford stage for the first time.

"This is for the benefit of Knutsford and will bring literature to us rather than us having to go to the city centre to see it," said Mrs Peters Rock.

amoores@guardiangrp.co.uk

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