August 2009

Details of the Annual Meeting are now available and can be found here. The meeting will include presentations on Baring-Gould's novel Margery of Quether (including an excursion to the scenes of the novel), Baring-Gould and folklore, with a particular focus on A Book of Werewolves, and on the photography of BaringGould's friend, Robert Burnard. There will also be opportnities to socialise with other members, to buy books and to attand the annual general meeting of the Society.
Once again Shan and Martin Graebe will be featured in a concert during the Baring-Gould Folk Song Festival. This year they will be performing a new show called 'Old Country Life', including songs and readings based on Baring-Gould's book of that name and other sources. It will take place on the afternoon of Saturday 24th October at 14:00 in the Baptist Church, Okehampton - for details of the rest of the programme check the festival website - www.baring-gould.co.uk.
Watch this space for news of the 'Devon Tradition Project'. Wren music have secured funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund for the next stage of didgitisation of the Baring-Gould song manuscripts which will enable us to put quality images of the manuscripts onto a new website in the next two years. The project will also fund the digitisation of the Paul Wilson collection of songs collected in Devon. Full details will be published by Wren shortly.
Philippe Riviere has written to me from France to tell me about his home, which is part of one of the cliff castles described by SB-G in his book 'Cliff Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe. It is at Le Gue du Loir, near Vendome. He was very excited to discover Baring-Gould's description and one of his drawings and has put the text and the picture onto his website - http://troglo.rezo.net/Un-dessin-de-Sabine-Baring-Gould.html
The number of e-texts of Baring-Gould's books on www.archive.org is now over 450 and continues to grow. There are a number of duplicates but, even so, tis is an impressive and useful source for some of the harder to find titles. It is particularly valuable to be able to read some of the original versions of his two and three deckers that were 'cut' when the single volume was prepared. I am particularly pleased to see that there is a copy of the first version of 'Songs and Ballads of the West'. SB-G was particularly keen that this should be re-published - he could not have foreseen the way in which it has been done!

January 2009

Slow but steady progress is being made with putting past newsletters onto this website. Many of the early newsletters were produced before home computers were widely used and the quality of the print means that they do not always allow the process of scanning and converting to text without  the need for re-typing some passages. I have now reached Newsletter No 20 (Feb 2006), about the time at which I joined the Society. I have enjoyed the process of transcribing the articles greatly - there is a lot of very interesting material in them and I would urge you to read (or to re-read) them. They are to be found in the 'Archive' section of the website or by clicking here.

• This year's Baring-Gould Folk Festival will take place between (Friday) October 23rd and (Sunday) 25th in Okehampton. It will be followed by the Baring-Gould Song School from (Monday) 26th to (Friday) 30th October. During that week, the 11th Annual Baring-Gould Lecture will be delivered. Details will be appearing on the Wren website www.wrenmusic.org nearer the time - but put the dates in your diary.

 Baring-Gould Song-School participants at Lewtrenchard, October 2008

The 2008 issue of the Transactions of the Sabine Baring-Gould Appreciation Society was published in the Spring of 2008. This issue contains:

Talks given at the annual meeting of SBGAS at Hurstpierpoint College, 27^th – 28^th Oct 2007:
      Sabine Baring-Gould at St John’s College, Hurstpierpoint by Becky Smith
      Farewell Heat and Welcome Frost - Sabine Baring-Gould in Iceland by Martin Graebe
      Sabine and the Ministry of the Keys by Ron Wawman

Supplementary material:
       Sabine Baring-Gould’s Mission Paper
      The 9:30 Up-train – a ghost story by Sabine Baring-Gould

Copies of the Transactions were sent to every member of SBGAS as part of their membership package. Additional copies are available from Martin Graebe. The 2009 Transactions are currently in preparation.

The 2008 Annual Meeting was based in South Zeal, near Okehampton and took for its theme SB-G's novel John Herring, which is based in part on the area but also in Cornwall. Roger Bristow arranged a complex agenda of talks about the novel (Becky Smith), the archaeology relative to the novel (Jane Marchand), the Nymet Savages, who appear in it (Noel Parry) and an analysis of a mining scam similar to that in the novel (Richard Scrivener). Lunch was followed by the AGM of the Society. In the afternoon the group visited sites associated with the novel in the area before dinner at the Oxenham Arms. Entertainment was provided by Paul Wilson and Marilyn Tucker who sand some of the songs that Baring-Gould collected in the Oxenham Arms in August 1894.  The following day the group made a tour of other locations associated with the novel in West Devon and Cornwall. A full report of the meeting appears in the October Newsletter (No 58)

March 2008

The 2008 Annual Gathering will be held at South Zeal on 26th - 28th September. Talks already confirmed include The Nymet Savages (Noel Parry), and Mining and Mining Scams in the South Zeal Area (Richard Scrivener). It is intended that, on the Sunday, we will follow the tracks of  John Herring into Cornwall. Roger Bristow is still working on the details of the  programme and the full programme will be published here and in the SBGAS Newsletter when available.

• David Shacklock is currently selling a number of books on e-bay, including a number of Baring-Gould titles. His e-bay identity is 'sharmanriley' and a search for that name will show you what he is offering. He has asked me to say, though, that if there are titles that you are looking for, contact him by e-mail and he may be able to offer you a deal before the book goes to auction.
• If you have used the 'Links' page on this site you will know that I have, in the past, included a number of links to electronic texts of Baring-Gould's books. I have now revised this page and added a number of new items. I would particularly recommend that you visit 'The Internet Archive' (www.archive.org) where a search for 'Baring-Gould' will give you access to more than 50 titles. This site allows you to download these as PDF or text files or to read them using the excellent screen reader.

December 2007

Ron Wawman writes to say that the long awaited DVD of the play 'Like A Buoy' is now available. It has been re-mastered since the official showing and is awaiting the design and printing of a simple cover but this can be forwarded later to all who wish to purchase the DVD now. It is a double disk package and is priced at £7.50 per set. Please contact Caroline Stuart on 01822 870111 or homosassa2001@aol.com    should you wish to purchase a copy. 
 
Charmiene Maxwell-Batten has written to say that her father Julian Maxwell-Batten, who was the son of Diana Amelia Baring-Gould and her husband Hugh Maxwell-Batten and so one of Sabine Baring-Gould's grandchildren, died on 1 November 2007. He left five children, who are deeply saddened at the loss.
 
 On a happier note our President, Merriol Almond, tells me that she has recently returned from Mexico where she had a wonderful celebration of her 70th birthday at her daughter and son-in-law's house. On your behalf I would like to send her our love and our best wishes to her and to Doug for continuing health and happiness.
 
The 'Songs of the West' website has been completely redesigned and new material added. To celebrate it has a new identity www.sbgsongs.org - do pop along and have a look.
 
 The Transactions of the Sabine Baring-Gould Appreciation Society for 2007 are now available. They can be obtained in three different formats - as an A4 format, punched for ring binders, as an A5 booklet or as a downloaded PDF file for printing in the format of your choice. Details here.

It was agreed at the annual meeting that, from 2008, the Transactions will be sent to all members as part of their subscription package. From this time the A5 booklet will become the only format available. It is hoped that it will be possible to retrospectively create the 2006 Transactions - more news on this soon. The 2008 Transactions will be available early next year.
 

It was unfortunate that Shan and I could not stay for the whole of the weekend at Hurstpierpoint College. We thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent there. Martin Williams was a great host and had worked hard with his colleagues to make us feel welcome  and to help us to understand the school and the part that Sabine Baring-Gould played in school life. His work was, of course, supplemented admirably by our colleagues in SBGAS. Becky Smith organised the meeting and she created a verbal collage of Sabine's time at Hurstpierpoint from the school magazine and other sources. This was supplemented splendidly by College staff and pupils who had created an imaginative 'pageant' based on the facts and fictions of  Sabine's life at the school. A tour of the College including a visit to the rooms that he used to occupy and where we saw the wall paintings that he created and enjoyed the view from the window towards Wolstonbury Hill (Danny Beacon) and the South Downs.

On Sunday the group viewed the magnificent College chapel and then took part in an act of worship, led by Martin Williams. Ron Wawman gave a talk about the development of Baring-Gould's religious life before  a quick visit  to see Danny House, the home of the Campion family who were benefactors of the College and friends of the Baring-Gould's. After lunch and the annual meeting (and, of course, the book sale) the meeting closed with thanks to Martin Williams and Becky Smith who were the prime movers in this enjoyable weekend.

July 2007

The next big event for SBGAS is the annual gathering, to be held at St. John's College, Hurstpierpoint, Sussex from October 19th - 21st. This is the school where Sabine Baring-Gould taught for seven years as a young man, until his father finally allowed him to enter the church. It is also the base from which he planned and carried out his expedition to Iceland in 1862. Baring-Gould was an active member of the school community and contributed a lot to the fabric and folklore of the school.  Becky Smith is putting together an interesting programme for this event.  The outline for this is as follows:

Friday evening
Committee meeting
Meal together

Saturday
9.30. Meet at College
10.00 Welcome and introductory talk ‘SBG at Hurst’ - Becky Smith
11.00 Guided tour of the main part of the school - Martin Williams
1.00-2.30 Lunch
2.30 Martin Graebe ‘The Iceland trip’
4.00. Pageant by members of the College.
7.00. Meal together

 Sunday
10.00 Tour of the Chapel, with talk about it by Martin Williams
11.30 Talk to be announced.
1.00pm Lunch
2.30 AGM and book sale.
3.30 Finish.

 

In January we were all looking to seeing the play 'Like A Buoy' performed by the Red Spider Company.  Those who were able to be there were unanimous in declaring it a success and a credit to it's author, Ron Wawman and, of course, to the production team, the cast and the musicians. If you re-visit the website, www.likeabuoy.co.uk, you can read what a number of people have said about the play and look at some photographs of the performance as well as being able to see who exactly did what.  Well done, everybody!

Personally I went through January with bated breath, waiting for the completion of  the long-term project that has led to the publication of a new editions of Baring-Gould's 'Iceland: Its Scenes and Sagas'.  This is now available and you can see details on http://www.signalbooks.co.uk/books/iceland.htm.

January 2007

We are all looking forward to March when we will finally get a chance to see Ron Wawman's play based on Sabine Baring-Gould's life, 'Like a  Buoy' performed.  Apart from Ron himself, I know that there are many people involved in the project and that they are all working very hard.  We wish them well with this ambitious project.  You can find further details and download a brochure at www.likeabuoy.co.uk.

The Annual gathering at Lewtrenchard was a great success and everyone left knowing a great deal more about Sabine Baring-Gould's life at Lew than they did when they arrived.  The team who organised the event, led by Ron Wawman, did a terrific job.  A note on the event can be found here

Some photographs can be found in the Photo Album for 2006 which can be found here

Display of pumpkins at Lewtrenchard - October 2006