Non Fiction
Rupert Tower – Between Two Worlds: Inside Daphne du Maurier’s House on the Strand
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomDaphne du Maurier’s grandson, Jungian analyst, Rupert Tower, will explore Daphne du Maurier’s novel in the context of her inner life preoccupations, including dreaming in time, identity, and loss, together with her continued fascination with the past, ancestry, and power of place. He will also examine her narrative from the psychological perspective of Jungian analytical...
Bryony Gordon – Mad Woman
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomTelegraph journalist, pioneering author, podcaster and activist Bryony Gordon has long been open about her mental health, lifting the lid on a subject that was taboo for many years. Mad Woman is her phenomenal follow-up – a decade later – to the brilliant number-one bestseller Mad Girl. Join her as she talks to BBC Radio...
Jessica Hepburn – Save me from the Waves: an adventure from sea to summit
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomWe welcome author and adventure activist Jessica Hepburn to Fowey to talk about her third book, Save Me from the Waves. This remarkable and alternative adventure story, charts Jessica becoming the first and only woman (currently) to have completed the ‘Sea, Street, Summit Challenge’, which is to swim the English Channel, run the London Marathon and...
Dr Helen Doe – One Crew: 200 Years of Saving Lives at Sea
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomIn the 200 years since it was founded, the RNLI has saved more than 144,000 lives and is one of the most respected organisations in the UK and Ireland. It began with a meeting in London in 1824 to act upon a proposal by Sir William Hillary. It is his vision that still drives the...
Sarah Harkness – Literature for the People
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomFrom an impoverished childhood in the Scottish Highlands to Victorian London, this is the inspiring story of Daniel and Alexander Macmillan, who created a publishing empire. Daniel and Alexander Macmillan, sons of Scottish crofters, arrived in London in the 1830s at a crucial moment of social change and went on to set up a publishing...
Madeleine Olivia – Make it Vegan: Simple Plant-Based Recipes for Everyone
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomJoin Hayle based YouTuber, Madeleine Olivia, to celebrate the release of her debut cookbook, Make It Vegan. Madeleine, a self-taught home cook, has spent the last eight years sharing her life online, charting her journey to live a sustainable and eco-conscious lifestyle through her wildly popular YouTube videos. Make It Vegan aims to make vegan food accessible...
Tiffany Murray – My Family and Other Rock Stars
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomIn conversation with bestselling author Patrick Gale, Tiffany Murray will talk about her recently published memoir My Family and Other Rock Stars. It is about food, family and what happens when Freddie Mercury comes to stay! Her novels Diamond Star Halo, Happy Accidents and Sugar Hall, have variously been shortlisted for the Wodehouse Bollinger Prize and received the Roger Deakin Award...
David Gibbins – A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomDrawing on decades of experience excavating shipwrecks around the world, renowned maritime archaeologist, David Gibbins, reveals the riches beneath the waves and shows us how the treasures found there can be a porthole to the past, to tell a new story about the world and its underwater secrets. From a Bronze Age ship built during the...
Alan Johnson – Death on the Thames
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomFollowing his series of successful memoirs – This Boy, In My Life, The Long and Winding Road and Please, Mr Postman, former Labour MP Alan Johnson joins us to discuss his latest novel in the bestselling Mangan thriller series, Death on the Thames. His career in Parliament began after a period as General Secretary of the Communication Workers...
Galen Bartholomew – The SS Suevic and the night the RNLI saved 611 lives
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomJoin family historian Galen Bartholomew, for a remarkable account of shipwreck and survival. The SS Suevic, one of five White Star Line ‘Jubilee Class’ liners, ran aground in a storm off the Lizard Point, Cornwall, in March 1907. In appalling weather conditions, the RNLI rescued 456 people. This remains the largest number of people rescued...
Nicola Upson – Shot with Crimson
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomJoin crime novelist Nicola Upson for the latest instalment in the Josephine Tey mystery series, Shot with Crimson. September 1939, and the worries of war follow Josephine Tey to Hollywood, where a different sort of battle is raging on the set of Hitchcock’s Rebecca. Then, a shocking act of violence reawakens the shadows of the past, with consequences...
Dr Helen Doe – From the Battle of Britain to the Great Escape
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomThe first full reappraisal of one of Britain’s great fighter aces, this bestselling book examines the truth behind Stanford Tuck’s 1956 biography to reveal the real person rather than a mythical hero. In January 1942, Bob Tuck was the top-scoring British fighter ace, with an official score of 29 enemy aircraft destroyed. With film-star looks,...
Lesley-Ann Jones – Fly Away Paul
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomIn this definitive account of Paul McCartney's time in Wings, published on the 50th anniversary of the bestselling album, Band on the Run, music biographer, Lesley-Ann Jones, tells the extraordinary story of how Paul survived the Beatles and found his Wings. No comprehensive biography of the time he spent with Wings has ever been published....
Dr Serena Trowbridge – Stories of the Stones
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomBritain’s landscape contains many stone circles, especially in Cornwall, Wales and Scotland. Their original purpose remains mysterious despite extensive archaeological investigation, and perhaps it is their obscurity which makes them so fascinating. Over the centuries they have inspired many legends, most famously of girls turned to stone for dancing on a holy day, or stones...
Jenny Eclair – In Conversation
Fowey Parish ChurchStand-up comedian Jenny Éclair was the first woman to win the coveted Perrier Award, the UK’s top comedy award, in 1995. Since then, she has taken multiple shows on tour around the country. She is well known for her starring role on BBC1’s Grumpy Old Women, being a co-host for the podcast Older and Wider,...
Lemn Sissay OBE – Let The Light Pour In
Fowey Parish ChurchFor the past decade, Lemn Sissay has composed a short poem as dawn breaks each morning. Life-affirming, witty and full of wonder, these poems chronicle his own battle with the dark and are fuelled by resilience and defiant joy. Let the Light Pour In is a collection of the best of these poems, and a...
Kate Strasdin – The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomThe hidden fabric of a Victorian woman's life, told through her unique scrapbook. In 1838, Anne Sykes was given a diary on her wedding day. Using it to collect snippets of fabric, she created a record of her life and times. Nearly two hundred years later, the diary fell into the hands of fashion historian Kate...
David Parker – For Those in Peril
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United Kingdom‘And that’s when things got a bit rough because I knew I was the one who was going to have to go into that hold to rescue the two men trapped’. These are the words of RAF winchman Eric Smith, who won the George Medal for his bravery at sea. Eric's is just one of...
Susan Smillie – The Half Bird
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomThe Half Bird is a beautifully written piece of narrative nonfiction. Join Susan as she talks about her incredible story of one woman's solo journey, from Land's End to the shores of Greece, exploring the unexpected joy of solitude, self-discovery, and resilience. When she set sail from the southwest coast of England on her beloved...
Adam Sisman – The Secret Life of John Le Carré
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomJoin John le Carré's biographer, Adam Sisman, as he reveals the tale of an extraordinary secret life of the great novelist, which he was unable to publish while le Carré was alive. The Secret Life of John le Carré is the story of what was left out, and offers reflections on the difficult relationship between...
Iain Dale and Friends – Kings and Queens: 1200 years of British and English Monarchs
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomThe British monarchy is one of the oldest in the world – dating back so far that its very origins are the subject of debate: was William the Conqueror the first king of England, or Alfred the Great? In a series that began with The Prime Ministers and The Presidents, award-winning broadcaster and presenter Iain...
John O’Farrell – Family Politics
Fowey Parish ChurchAll across Britain, a generation of grown-up children are graduating from university, moving back into their old bedrooms and showing their gratitude by berating their parents for their out-of-date politics. But for proud and high-profile left-wingers Emma and Eddie Hughes, the return of their only child is a far greater challenge than they ever could...
Wyl Menmuir – The Heart of The Woods
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomThroughout history, trees have determined the tools we use, the boats we build, the stories we tell about the world and ourselves, the songs we sing, and some of our most important rituals. As such, our lives are intertwined with those of the trees and woodlands around us. In this journey deep into the woods,...
Vernon Bogdanor – The Strange Survival of Liberal Britain: Politics and Power before the First World War
Fowey Town Hall Market Street, Fowey, Cornwall, United KingdomBritain’s best-known constitutional historian, Professor Vernon Bogdanor, says the 20 turbulent years before the outbreak of the First World War, heralded a new agenda that still dominates today. The years saw a transition from aristocratic rule to mass politics. Vernon claims that we are still grappling with the same complex and difficult issues that the Edwardians...
Robert Hardman – Charles III: New King. New Court. The Inside Story
Fowey Parish ChurchFaced with family dramas, political crises and questions about the future of the monarchy in Britain and elsewhere, the new King had no shortage of challenges. During this talk, acclaimed royal biographer, Robert Hardman will discuss the story of transition at the very top – and of a sovereign resolute in making his mark. With...
For The Many Live with Iain Dale, Jacqui Smith and Johnny Mercer
Fowey Parish ChurchJoin us for what promises to be a hilarious evening of politics as you have never heard it before! We are thrilled to welcome acclaimed political broadcaster, Iain Dale, and former Labour Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, for a live edition of their award winning For The Many podcast. Expect political insight and analysis, gossip and...
