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Cheltenham Literature Festival
''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'' Cheltenham Literature Festival, a large-scale international festival of literature held every year in October in the English spa town of Cheltenham, and part of Cheltenham Festivals: also responsible for the Jazz, Music, and Science Festivals that run every year. Introduction and history Formed in 1949, ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'' Cheltenham Literature Festival is the longest-running festival of its kind in the world. The Festival was founded by the Spa Manager George Wilkinson, in conjunction with the Tewkesbury-based author John Moore, who served as its first director. Actor Ralph Richardson, who was born in Cheltenham, launched the festival, and poet Cecil Day-Lewis, who taught at Cheltenham College, read a selection of contemporary verse. The Festival currently has the national newspaper ''The Times'' and ''Sunday Times'' as its 'title' sponsor: therefore making the full name of the festival ''The Times'' and ''The Sunda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spa Town
A spa town is a resort town based on a mineral spa (a developed mineral spring). Patrons visit spas to "take the waters" for their purported health benefits. Thomas Guidott set up a medical practice in the English town of Bath in 1668. He became interested in the curative properties of the hot mineral waters there and in 1676 wrote ''A discourse of Bathe, and the hot waters there. Also, Some Enquiries into the Nature of the water''. This brought the purported health-giving properties of the waters to the attention of the aristocracy, who started to partake in them soon after. The term ''spa'' is used for towns or resorts offering hydrotherapy, which can include cold water or mineral water treatments and geothermal baths. Argentina *Termas de Rio Hondo *Presidencia Roque Sáenz Peña Australia There are mineral springs in the Central Highlands of Victoria. Most are in and around Daylesford and Hepburn Springs. Daylesford and Hepburn Springs call themselves 'Spa Countr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Rosen
Michael Wayne Rosen (born 7 May 1946) is a British children's author, poet, presenter, political columnist, broadcaster and activist who has written 140 books. He served as Children's Laureate from 2007 to 2009. Early life Michael Wayne Rosen was born into a Jewish family in Harrow, Middlesex, on 7 May 1946. His ancestors were Jews from an area that is now Poland, Romania, and Russia, and his family had connections to The Workers Circle and the Jewish Labour Bund. His middle name was given to him in honour of Wayne C. Booth, a literary critic who was billeted with his father at Shrivenham American University. Rosen's father, educationalist Harold Rosen (1919–2008), was born in Brockton, Massachusetts, but grew up in the East End of London from the age of two after his mother left his father and returned to her native England. Harold attended Davenant Foundation School and then Regent Street Polytechnic. He was a secondary school teacher before becoming a professor of Eng ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kate Atkinson (writer)
Kate Atkinson (born 20 December 1951) is an English writer of novels, plays and short stories. She is known for creating the Jackson Brodie series of detective novels, which has been adapted into the BBC One series ''Case Histories''. She won the Whitbread Book of the Year prize in 1995 in the Novels category for ''Behind the Scenes at the Museum'', winning again in 2013 and 2015 under its new name the Costa Book Awards. Early life The daughter of a shopkeeper, Atkinson was born in York, the setting for several of her books. She studied English literature at the University of Dundee, gaining her master's degree in 1974. Atkinson subsequently studied for a doctorate in American literature, with a thesis titled "The post-modern American short story in its historical context". She failed at the viva (oral examination) stage. After leaving the university, she took on a variety of jobs, from home help to legal secretary and teacher. Writing career Her first novel, ''Behind the S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Boyd (writer)
William Andrew Murray Boyd (born 7 March 1952) is a Scottish novelist, short story writer and screenwriter. Biography Boyd was born in Accra, Gold Coast, (present-day Ghana), to Scottish parents, both from Fife, and has two younger sisters. His father Alexander, a doctor specialising in tropical medicine, and Boyd's mother, who was a teacher, moved to the Gold Coast in 1950 to run the health clinic at the University College of the Gold Coast, Legon (now the University of Ghana). In the early 1960s the family moved to western Nigeria, where Boyd's father held a similar position at the University of Ibadan. Boyd spent his early life in Ghana and Nigeria and, at the age of nine, went to a preparatory school and then to Gordonstoun school in Scotland, and, after that, to the University of Nice in France, followed by the University of Glasgow, where he gained an M.A. (Hons) in English & Philosophy, and finally Jesus College, Oxford. His father died of a rare disease when Boyd was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prue Leith
Dame Prudence Margaret Leith, (born 18 February 1940) is a South African restaurateur, chef, caterer, Television presenter, television presenter/broadcaster, journalist, cookery writer and novelist. She is Chancellor (education), Chancellor of Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. She was a judge on BBC Two's ''Great British Menu'' for eleven years, before joining ''The Great British Bake Off'' in March 2017, replacing Mary Berry, when the television programme moved to Channel 4. Early life Leith was born in Cape Town, South Africa. Her father, Sam Leith, worked for African Explosives, a subsidiary of Imperial Chemical Industries, ICI, producing dynamite for use in mines, and ultimately served as a director. Her mother, Margaret 'Peggy' Inglis, was an actress. From the age of 5 until she was 17, Leith attended St Mary's School, Waverley, an English independent private boarding school for girls in Johannesburg run by Anglican nuns. She left with a first class matriculation and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
