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THE GIRTY GRAPEVINE
National Year of Reading — A Celebration!
On 15th October, some of
the members of Wirral
Community Shakespeare
took part in this celebra-
tion by performing „The
Washer Woman‟ scene
from The Winters Tale at
Wallasey Town Hall.
In a packed pro-
gramme, South Wirral High
School performed William
Shakespeare‟s „All The
World‟s a Stage‟ from As
You Like It. Hilbre School
performed a scene from
Romeo and Juliet. We all
watched the National Year
of Reading film which
encapsulated some of the
exciting reading activities
that have been happening
across the Wirral this year.
The film featured some of
our own Get Into Reading
members.
Asylum Link: One-to-One Reading Sessions
Every Thursday, GIR
members take a trip to
Asylum Link in Liverpool to
join in their reading group.
We first went along to get
a feel for the group and
their needs. Now we assist
the facilitators in providing
one to-one reading help to
improve their literacy skills.
We join in their
reading group and it is so
thrilling to see how much
effort they put in to reading
out loud and more to the
point, how much joy they
Volume 1, Issue 1
Pupils from various
schools across the Wirral
recited poetry, the highlight
of which was Lingham
Primary performing „The
Dragon Who Ate Our
School.’ The poet Levi
Trafari entranced us with
his poems „Plastic Fantas-
tic‟ and „Reach for The
Stars.‟ We were be-
witched by Lucinda Scott
from West Kirby Gram-
mar School who sang
„Defying Gravity‟ from
Wicked.
The afternoon saw
us take part in a drama
workshop with the
Everyman theatre where
we acted out various
scenes from Frank Cottrell
Boyce‟s latest stage play
Proper Clever.
get out of reading. It is
always extremely moving
and often very humbling.
It‟s hard to imagine such
enthusiasm for the English
language.
One of our GIR
volunteers has really got in
to the whole process. She
loves every minute of it and
she now acts with confi-
dence the like of which we
have never seen in her
before. It has been a real
revelation and again,
another moving moment.
In our second
workshop we heard Frank
Cottrell Boyce read from
his novel Cosmic which had
us all in stitches. He
followed with a Question
& Answer session which
kept us all totally
enthralled discussing such
topics as how he started
writing and where he gets
his inspiration.
A truly wonderful
day and a good time was
had by all.
We always enjoy
the subject matter. It var-
ies from children‟s stories
to poetry. It is always
exciting and we wait in
eager anticipation to see
what is coming next.
If you would like
to make any donations of
clothes, toys or toiletries
to Asylum Link bring
them to The Lauries
Community Centre and
we can pass them on.
They do an amazing job
with so little.
Winter, 2008/09
Welcome
The Girty Grapevine
has been revamped,
welcome to the first
issue in its new lease of
life.
This is the newsletter
for Get Into Reading
group members: we‟ll
be letting you know
what‟s going on in
other groups, as well as
giving you the chance
to tell us about your
own.
What‟s your group
reading at the moment?
Have you been on a
trip together? We‟re
also looking for reading
recommendations, so if
you‟ve read a book
that you‟re bursting to
tell others about, drop
us a line.
CALL FOR
NEW
MEMBERS
Tuesdays
The Book at Break-
fast, Leasowe
Library, 10.30 am–
Noon
Feel Better with a
Book 2, Wallasey
Central Library,
2pm-3.30pm
Thursdays
The Book at
Breakfast, Rock
Ferry Library,
10am-11.30am
BBC Four comes to film Get Into Reading
On 20th October, the BBC came to
visit us at The Lauries! The BBC are
currently making a documentary about
why reading matters, to be screened
early „09. Get Into Reading seemed to
be the ideal place for them to start. It
was a long and intense day but it was
certainly worth it.
The day began with a group
reading session, in which Kate
McDonnell introduced a thought
provoking passage from Wuthering
Heights (the one where Cathy passion-
What are you reading?
Being Dead by Jim Crace
St. James‟ Library GIR Group is
currently reading Being Dead by Jim
Crace.
Thirty years have passed
since Joseph and Celice met
as zoology students on a field
trip to Baritone Bay. Joseph,
keen to find the site in the
dunes of their first lovemak-
ing, leads Celice on a nostal-
gic return visit to the Bay, but
the couple are murdered by a
passing thief. In the moment
of death, Joseph lays his hand
lightly on Celice‟s leg. Undis-
covered for days, the bodies become
prey to sand-crabs, flies and gulls.
Being Dead is a „quivering‟ –
GIR Trip to see Proper Clever by Frank Cottrell Boyce
A few Saturdays ago, a total of fifty six
adult GIR members, plus young peo-
ple from Sam‟s Looked-After Chil-
dren‟s Project, visited the Liverpool
Playhouse to see Frank Cottrell
Boyce‟s first ever stage play Proper
Clever.
We all met in the upstairs
bar and it was great to see the groups
all mixed up together, swapping GIR
If there is anything you want to submit for the next newsletter please contact:
Kate McDonnell on tel: 07973 247707 or email: kate.mcdonnell@thereader.org.uk, or
Alison Walters on tel: 0151 794 2830 or email: alisonwalters@thereader.org.uk.
ately exclaims „I am Heathcliff!) We
overcame our initial nerves and
became involved in an enthusiastic
discussion about what it meant to love
another person.
In the afternoon, GIR group
members volunteered themselves for
“What ought to be grisly is strangely not. Reverent, if anything……”
Richard Eder, The New York Times
an attempt to relive, through stories
and recollection, the lives of
Joseph and Celice before con-
signing them completely to
death. The novel‟s structure is
fourfold. One strand moves
backwards from the point of the
murder to describe the events
that immediately led up to it. A
second strand recounts how
the beginnings of Joseph and
Celice‟s love for each other was
clouded by a fire that took the life of a
fellow-student. The third strand de-
scribes in tiny detail the effect of the
elements and the processes of decay on
experiences and getting to know each
other. For some, it was their first visit
to the Playhouse and the play got a
thoughtful thumbs up from most peo-
ple and also produced quite a few
laughs.
There was some surprise
that two of the schoolgirl characters
suddenly turned into Aphrodite and
Athene just before the end(!), but
one-to-one interviews, speaking about
their own personal experiences of GIR
and how the project had not only
helped to develop a love of literature,
but had also provided them with long
lasting friendships and a real sense of
community. “It‟s fantastic“, said one
GIR member “We‟ve got
to know each other in
ways which would never
have been possible with
out the reading group”.
Clare Williams
their undiscovered bodies. The final
strand follows the efforts of Joseph
and Celice‟s daughter Syl to find her
missing parents. When they are finally
discovered, Joseph‟s hand resting gen-
tly on Celice‟s leg gives the otherwise
gruesome scene a tender aspect.
The prose is highly charged
and a joy to read and has provoked
some very lively discussions on life
and death within the group, as well as
what defines mortality and the soul.
I strongly recommend it, but it does
have some tough subject matter.
Alison Walters
many found it thought-provoking and
definitely a good way to spend Satur-
day afternoon. Kate McDonnell
THE GIRTY GRAPEVINE