Glasgow School of Art

Author Louise Welsh reflects on Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art. 1/5 Louise describes her memories of the building before it was ravaged by two fires. This week's Essays are celebrating British architecture. Each writer has a passionate connection with the building, revealing how our long past and complex present have led to a built environment unlike anywhere else on the planet. Image courtesy of Alan McAteer. Producer Clare Walker

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Horatio Clare

Horatio Clare explores the castaway myth, looking at what happens to the soul and mind in the great spaces and on actual desert islands. In this series of Essays, recorded in front of an audience at the 2019 Hay Festival, five writers respond to the themes of Daniel Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’. Often described as the first novel, it's a story which still resonates, three hundred years after it was written, but also preserves the attitudes of its time. Fiona Stafford, Horatio Clare, Alex Wheatle, Alys Conran and Daniel Hahn reflect on the novel as a tale of exotic adventure, a study of isolation and a fantasy of colonial encounter.

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Fiona Stafford

Fiona Stafford explores ‘The Strange, Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe’, looking at what Crusoe the narrator was most surprised by, and the stranger aspects of the book In this series of Essays, recorded in front of an audience at the 2019 Hay Festival, five writers respond to the themes of Daniel Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’. Often described as the first novel, it's a story which still resonates, three hundred years after it was written, but also preserves the attitudes of its time. Fiona Stafford, Horatio Clare, Alex Wheatle, Alys Conran and Daniel Hahn reflect on the novel as a tale of exotic adventure, a study of isolation and a fantasy of colonial encounter.

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Women's Work

Writer Polly Coles reads Women's Work, the last of her essays in search of what makes a true Venetian. Beginning each essay with an object or a place, she traces a cultural and historical thread through to living individuals who are contributing to a rich and diverse contemporary Venetian culture. She argues the true Venetian does not have to be born in the city or a permanent resident to be part of a viable, creative future for this beleaguered community. Polly begins at the deconsecrated church of Sant'Anna - once a convent - in search of the armies of anonymous female artisans who for centuries serviced the Venetian textile industry. Written and performed by Polly Coles Producer: Melanie Harris Sparklab Productions.

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Exhibitions and Exhibitionism

Writer Polly Coles reads Exhibitions and Exhibitionism, continuing in her search of what it might mean to be a true Venetian. Beginning each essay with an object or a place, she traces a cultural and historical thread through to living individuals who are contributing to a rich and diverse contemporary Venetian culture. She argues the true Venetian does not have to be born in the city or a permanent resident to be part of a viable, creative future for this beleaguered community. Polly starts at the alternative beachcombers' Biennale on the Lido and ends with the work of some of the many Venetian artists revitalising the city today. Written and performed by Polly Coles Producer: Melanie Harris Sparklab Productions.

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Import/Export

Writer Polly Coles reads Import/Export, the third of her essays in search of what makes a true Venetian. Beginning each essay with an object or a place, she traces a cultural and historical thread through to living individuals who are contributing to a rich and diverse contemporary Venetian culture. She argues the true Venetian does not have to be born in the city or a permanent resident to be part of a viable, creative future for this beleaguered community. Polly starts with Francis Bacon's 'Study for Chimpanzee' in the Guggenheim collection and discusses flight, exile, discrimination and art. Written and performed by Polly Coles Producer: Melanie Harris Sparklab Productions.

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True Venetian Islanders

Writer Polly Coles reads Islanders, the second of her essays in search of what makes a true Venetian. Beginning each essay with an object or a place, she traces a cultural and historical thread through to living individuals who are contributing to a rich and diverse contemporary Venetian culture. She argues the true Venetian does not have to be born in the city or a permanent resident to be part of a viable, creative future for this beleaguered community. Polly begins in the medieval Jewish cemetery on the Lido and discusses how the island geography of Venice has allowed segregated and separate communities to evolve. Written and performed by Polly Coles Producer: Melanie Harris Sparklab Productions.

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Making up the City

Writer Polly Coles reads Making Up the City, the first of her essays in search of what makes a true Venetian. Beginning each essay with an object or a place, she traces a cultural and historical thread through to living individuals who are contributing to a rich and diverse contemporary Venetian culture. She argues the true Venetian does not have to be born in the city or a permanent resident to be part of a viable, creative future for this beleaguered community. Beginning with Mariano Fortuny, painter, innovator and textile artist, Polly looks at Venetian artists who have engaged with their ancient home in a modern spirit and asks is it possible to make something new in this museum city? Written and performed by Polly Coles Producer: Melanie Harris Sparklab Productions.

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Swimming the Avon

Poet and wild swimmer Elizabeth-Jane Burnett joins Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough for an inspirational dip in the chilly River Avon. Elizabeth-Jane's latest book, The Grassling, is a nature memoir about her father, his illness and her attempts to reconnect with the fields and rivers that sustained and moulded his family for generations. Her poetry collection Swims describes a series of wild swims around Britain, connecting them to the environmental and political issues of the day. In Worcestershire she enjoys her first taste of the River Avon, braving the cold but enjoying the sand martins, the skylarks and a low flying heron which might just find itself immortalised in Elizabeth-Jane's next poetry collection. Producer: Alasdair Cross

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The Power of the Thames

Stand knee-deep in a river and consider the energy flow. Water presses against you, light reflects upon the surface. What else can you feel? Helen Czerski of University College London views the Thames with the eyes of a physicist. At low tide she takes Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough for a wade through the surprisingly clean waters separating Brentford from Kew Gardens. How would the river look if embankments were removed and channels breached? Why do islands form and persist? Where does each drop of Thames water come from? Why can the river flow east and west at the same time? You may never view the Thames in quite the same way again. Producer: Alasdair Cross

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The Art of Zen Fly Fishing

For Feargal Sharkey the perfect cast is a lifelong obsession. It's the moment when man and river exist in perfect harmony. It's a passion he shares with generations of artists before him on the chalk streams of Hertfordshire. Dame Juliana Berners, Prioress of St Mary of Sopwell wrote one of the earliest books on the etiquette of hunting, hawking and fishing in the 14th century. Her work influenced Izaak Walton who opens The Compleat Angler with a vivid description of a walk from Tottenham to the waters that Feargal fishes today. Growing up in Derry with the mountains and trout-rich rivers of Donegal on his doorstep, Feargal fished from childhood but when the punk fame of The Undertones reached its peak he found himself in north London with only the Grand Union Canal for company. Discovering the chalk streams on the edge of the city brought fishing back into his life and since then he's dedicated himself to the preservation of these waters. England contains most of the world's chalk streams, perfect habitat for trout, waterfowl, otter and water vole, but abstraction for drinking water and pollution from farming and industry has pushed many of these rivers to the edge of destruction. Feargal shares his determination to save the chalk streams with Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough and instructs her in the Zen art of fly fishing. Producer: Alasdair Cross

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Medway Mudlarks

On the banks of the River Medway, Nicola White is in search of artistic inspiration. Driftwood, perhaps? A Victorian poison bottle or a Roman pot? In the second of a series of Essays on British rivers Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough joins the mudlark artist as she combs through mud and shingle. The Medway rises in the South Downs and passes through sleepy Maidstone but it starts to get really interesting as it broadens out into mudflats, industry and islands. It's here that Kentish history, from the 43AD Roman invasion of Britain through the peaks and troughs of the Royal Navy's Chatham Dockyards to the preparations for Nazi invasion, can be read from the shore. Nicola collects the stories she finds there- military dog-tags, messages in bottles- and turns them into art inspired by the naïve abstraction of 20th-century St. Ives. Producer: Alasdair Cross

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Gaelic Waters

Gaelic songs and stories burst with mythical water creatures, from seductive kelpies and selkies to woeful waterfall banshees. In the first of five Essays from the banks of British rivers, folk singer Julie Fowlis guides Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough through a watery Highland underworld. Producer: Alasdair Cross

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The Art of Ending

“Nietzsche and I crossed paths in an unexpected place not so long ago… Without meaning to, the two of us found ourselves occupying the same place at different times but at similar points in our lives.” In this fifth and final essay of the series the writer Ken Hollings is in northern Italy, contemplating late Nietzsche and the human condition, in sickness and in health.

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A Wanderer above the Sea of Fog

“Sometimes I come across another writer’s interpretation of Nietzsche and wonder whether we are dealing with the same man at all.” Writer Ken Hollings roams across the imposing mountains of Austria in the company of Nietzsche’s 'Beyond Good and Evil'.

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For Everyone and No One

“When you’re planning to make Nietzsche your holiday reading, as I’ve done for many years, or simply want to become better acquainted with his work, do not begin with 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'. It’s a rookie mistake.” Amidst the stark fjords of Norway the writer Ken Hollings offers guidance on how best to approach Friedrich Nietzsche’s most notorious work.

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Under the Mountain

“Like the dawn breaking over Gatwick North Terminal, sharing your holiday time with Friedrich Nietzsche takes some getting used to. Trust me. I know.” Personal reflections from the writer Ken Hollings on his annual holiday quest to understand more about the influential German philosopher. In this second essay Hollings contemplates Nietzsche’s 'Daybreak' during a week’s hiking in the Swiss Alps.

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Becoming What You Are

‘Nietzsche is one of those writers who addresses his readers directly; you feel alone with him while he explores his thoughts in your presence”, notes the writer Ken Hollings. “This makes him one of the best travelling companions.” For more than a decade, a week’s summer break in Europe has provided Hollings with uninterrupted leisure time to read a different work by the influential nineteenth century German thinker, Friedrich Nietzsche. On Holiday with Nietzsche reveals Hollings’ personal thoughts and impressions about these literary encounters. Working from notes and journal entries compiled during his travels, Hollings takes us over mountains and lakes, through meadows and forests, across oceans and city squares - locations often frequented by Nietzsche himself. Starting in Turin, a favourite city of Nietzsche’s, and ending up on the North Sea, where Hollings wrestles in his cabin with Nietzsche’s book Untimely Meditations, this first essay offers an overview of Nietzsche the philosopher as the restless traveller dissatisfied with the complacency of the world around him.

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Dear William...

'Dear Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wilde, Do you mind if I just call you Oscar? It's just you always seemed so approachable yet ultimately unknowable...a bit like the Queen.' Continuing his series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom finds he's in the gutter, looking at the stars again. As his dispatches to some of the world's great writers resume, Ian is increasingly shocked by their unexpectedly frank and direct answers... 'Dear Dante, Did you really meant all that stuff about people being thrown into boiling pitch and tar..?' In his on-going epistolary quest, Ian attempts to find out everything we wanted to know but were too afraid to ask. Why did Mary Shelley start so young? How did William Trevor keep going for so long? And what exactly is the significance of Marianne Moore's tricorn hat? Producer: Conor Garrett

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Dear Marianne ...

'Dear Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wilde, Do you mind if I just call you Oscar? It's just you always seemed so approachable yet ultimately unknowable...a bit like the Queen.' Continuing his series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom finds he's in the gutter, looking at the stars again. As his dispatches to some of the world's great writers resume, Ian is increasingly shocked by their unexpectedly frank and direct answers... 'Dear Dante, Did you really meant all that stuff about people being thrown into boiling pitch and tar..?' In his on-going epistolary quest, Ian attempts to find out everything we wanted to know but were too afraid to ask. Why did Mary Shelley start so young? How did William Trevor keep going for so long? And what exactly is the significance of Marianne Moore's tricorn hat? Producer: Conor Garrett

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