9.3 C
Northampton
Sunday, April 5, 2026
Home Blog Page 6

SOLD: Kuumba Nia Arts tells the story of Mary Prince

Tré Ventour-Griffiths
-
0
SOLD: Kuumba Nia Arts tells the story of Mary Prince
Source: Facebook (Kuumba Nia Arts)

Born into enslavement on the Caribbean island of Bermuda in 1785, Mary Prince was the first woman to present an anti-slavery petition to Parliament. She also testified at two libel cases following the publication of her autobiography The History of Mary Prince (published in 1831). In its first year, it sold out three times. Mary Prince, after escaping servitude, became an autobiographer and abolitionist as well as activist. Her autobiography – that details her experiences of enslavement – includes the disabling impact of colonial violence on her body, furthermore to experiences of sexual violence.

On 27th April, I went to watch a dramatisation of her life by Kuumba Nia Arts in collabaration with Unlock the Chains Collective as part of their tour. Showing at Banbury’s Mill, it was written by Amanta Edmead starring Lola May as Mary and other characters. The play also co-starred Angie Amra Anderson who brought an added dimension bringing African songs as a layer to what was being performed on stage.

On the downside, the forced audience particpation was also ableist (hmmm). Aside from that, SOLD is a sound production with the beat of the drum coming with activist connotations juxtaposed to this slave story. Escaped from enslavement, Mary Prince vanishes from the records. But SOLD shows us creative interventions are needed when it comes to history, as Black voices in the archives have long been silenced – so it’s time we put those voices back!

‘Big Aunty’ got the Talawa

Tré Ventour-Griffiths
-
0
Alexia McIntosh, Keiren Hamilton-Amos, and Corey Campbell as Marcus (Credit: Nicola Young Photography)

For me, the only issue with The Belgrade’s Big Aunty is that audiences never get to see Big Aunty AKA Vivienne Mavis Taylor. She is the title character who we get to know beyond the grave. With numerous people talking about her death, we then begin to understand her life. Of Jamaica, she was a member of the Windrush Generation – named for the ship that came into Tilbury Docks in June 1948. However, the term ‘Windrush’ was then used to describe successive arrivals from the Caribbean too (up to 1971).

With the major theme of Big Aunty being death and grief in Caribbean communities, I was brought to revisit my own experiences. When I was twenty-one, my auntie died from a terminal illness called Scleroderma. Her funeral was a celebration of life and that she had now joined the ancestors. At this point, we as her family also took part in the African ritual of Nine Night – an extended wake that is practiced in many Caribbean countries (many of my Caribbean colleagues / friends reading this will relate).

Set between Jamaican and England, this show touched me: it reminds me that I am as much a child of England as I am the Caribbean (in my case Grenada and Jamaica). There sits a “double consciousness” of identity and the right to belong. It also showed me how ill-prepared I am for the passing of elder family members as tomorrow is not promised.

Corey Campbell’s play’s made me think about things I had put off, not so much about death but about life. This story walks behind slave ships, watching the dead as visual (un)conscious symbols of colonialism – and how the passing of the Windrush Generation is entangled in the afterlife of slavery. In places like Northampton, the fact we even have a Windrush Generation will become myth if we do not do more to protect this history.

In Big Aunty, there sits an indignation to the silence of whiteness that impacts Black elders – a discrmination that sees many dying early. Campbell shows how the mark of the slave ship still marks Black communities around the world today. Though dead before the play begins, Vivienne Mavis Taylor lays in the ship’s hold as a victim of containment and punishment. In a world where anti-Blackness and white supremacy are situated in a culture of normalised premature Black death, plays like Big Aunty are needed. “Wake work”, as discussed in Christina Sharpe’s In the Wake, can be done through art. Theatre is one site.

This show’s got the talawa, and the word talawa means ‘small but strong’. At only 75 minutes, this is a short play but it packs a punch. With the three central performances from Alexia McIntosh, Keiren Hamilton-Amos, and director Corey Campbell, they are all brilliant to see in action. Yet, Big Aunty shows Caribbean funerals are all alike in celebration: food, dancing, music, sound system. And through the white gaze, how we do things at our funerals may appear different to British funerals. But the point is not to feel sad (though you have every right to and people’s feelings can take them), but to celebrate having lived.

Sometimes the way they talk about Saints is pure snobbery

Steve
-
1
Sometimes the way they talk about Saints is pure snobbery

Twenty minutes into Saints home victory over Saracens, just after Moon and Ludlam had crossed the line to score and perhaps three more scoring chances were lost to butterfingers, BT Sport had a touchline chat with one of the visiting coaches.

He was asked to reflect on how well his side were controlling the game. To be fair, he did seem a bit wrongfooted by the question.

A lot of Sarries’ most famous names had been swapped out for this game. Duncan Taylor had been red carded for head contact in a tackle in the seventh minute. The visitors had just gone behind, a situation they would remain in for the rest of the game during which they would concede six tries and 38 points.

The narrative being offered in commentary was ‘how are they going to get this back?’

Every fumble and error by Saints, who did look like two weeks off might be good for their bodies but bad for their execution, was presented as evidence that this side (with a famously bad defensive record) was not top four material.

Now I’m not trying to alter reality here. Just like the players in any game, there is no Saints error that I wished hadn’t happened. But perhaps I am getting a little bit sick of the unconscious snobbery that swirls around the upper echelons of rugby in the coverage and the commentary.

Some of my beef is a product of the fact that the people covering rugby know the most about the most famous teams and the most famous players, so they can say more about them. The worst offenders are those covering international matches but it’s a factor in the mix. Back in the day we would have called it poor journalism.

Player pundits can give really good insights but they are most useful when talking about players and teams they know, which is of course also the most difficult stuff to talk about.

Northampton Saints match report

Breezing through some of the social media and national media match reports after the game I was reading dismissive accounts of a match rendered meaningless by a red card and the number of squad players in Sarries line-up. You would have thought Saracens had just sneaked a win in the dying moments rather than finishing two scores behind.

Saints have been in games where we got a battering and nearly clawed our way back, and we didn’t get handed a moral victory by the media afterwards. In the corresponding fixture at Saracens we lost by one score. Well, that’s pretty much a win isn’t it. I’m sure we had a couple of players missing. There were a couple of yellow cards.

It wouldn’t be so bad if we hadn’t been consistently hovering around the top four at the end of the season for the past few years. Sure, not feeling like we deserved it, feeling like the poor neighbours among rugby’s posher names, believing that we are too much of a nice community club to be a real sexy threat but it was us there, not one of the many teams with a better defensive balance sheet.

Pundits have got to stop wheeling out Saints’ defensive record as if it was conclusive proof of something when by now surely the more interesting question is the fact that it isn’t proof of anything at all.

How are Saints doing so well with that heavy chain of defensive sins strung about their necks? The only way to win a game of rugby is to find enough space between the meat to put the ball where you want it.

SaintsSaracens
Possession53%47%
Tackles made154151
Tackle success92.77%83.43%
Stats from Premiership Rugby

How much difference did Saracens being a man down really make? Obviously it’s an advantage but it doesn’t play out the same way it does in football. To some extent the gap it creates has to be manufactured by the attacking team. Saints still needed to do a lot right to put so many points past Saracens.

Dave Ribbans was awarded Player of the Match for his last home game for Saints but James Ramm and Alex Mitchell put in big big shifts and Courtney Lawes was applauded off the pitch when his turn came.

Ramm runs tricky lines with afterburner acceleration and ensures contact is never neat and tidy for the tackler. He’s fast and abrasive and rarely stopped by just one defender. Hopefully the injury that took him off the field has not ended his season.

There were times in this game when it really did look like Mitchell was motoring, delivering quick ball that was arriving back at the gain line before Sarries were reset.

Saints did plenty right in this game and they couldn’t do anything more in terms of points. Five against Saracens despite the upturned noses in the wider rugby world. I’m not even saying I want the snobbery to stop, but I would like us to harness it for ourselves.

These people don’t think we deserve what we have got through bringing on young talent, buying smart and investing in the community. The snobs don’t look at Northampton and see big news stories about huge transfer payments and salary scandals. They don’t understand us. They think we’re an easy win. It makes me angry. That’s part of our story and we should use it.

Pictures by Dave Ikin

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel welcomes you in Northampton this May

Hilary Scott
-
1
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel welcomes you in Northampton this May

The hugely popular adaptation of Deborah Moggach’s story of pensioners seeking a new life in India comes to Royal & Derngate with a star-studded cast.

Based on the Sunday Times bestseller which inspired one of this century’s most treasured films, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel comes to Northampton’s Royal & Derngate this spring, from Tuesday May 9 to Saturday 13, with a cast including Paul Nicholas, Belinda Lang and Tessa Peake-Jones.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Picture by Mikal Ludlow Photography

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel takes us on a journey to India with an eclectic group of British retirees as they embark on a new life. The luxury residence is far from the opulence they were promised, but as their lives begin to intertwine and they embrace the vibrancy of modern-day India, they are charmed in unexpected and life-changing ways.

L-R Tessa Peake-Jones (Evelyn), Paola Dionisotti (Dorothy), Shila Iqbal (Sahani) and Belinda Lang (Madge) Picture by Mikal Ludlow Photography

The cast includes much-loved comedy actress Belinda Lang (2 Point 4 Children, Oklahoma!), playing Madge, stage and screen star Paul Nicholas (Jesus Christ Superstar, Just Good Friends, EastEnders) as Douglas, Graham Seed, best known for his award-winning long-running performance as Nigel Pargetter in Radio 4’s The Archers, as Norman, Paola Dionisotti (Game of Thrones) as Dorothy and Tessa Peake-Jones (Raquel in Only Fools and Horses) as Evelyn. Nishad More (King Lear, RSC) plays Sonny Kapoor the put-upon owner of the past-its-best hotel for ‘the elderly and beautiful’.

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL Credit: Johan Persson/

Deborah Moggach has adapted her bestselling 2004 novel These Foolish Things for the stage, it previously having inspired the BAFTA and Golden Globe-nominated film. The play is directed by Royal & Derngate favourite Lucy Bailey, who has delighted Northampton audiences with her productions including Gaslight and Love from a Stranger, and who will be back to direct And Then There Were None this autumn.

Credit: Johan Persson/

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a joyous, feel-good comedy about taking risks, finding love, and embracing second chances, even in the most surprising of places. It takes to the Derngate stage from Tuesday 9 to Saturday 13 May at 7.30pm, with matinees at 2.30pm on Wednesday and Saturday. Tickets – priced from £13 – can be booked by calling Box Office on 01604 624811 or online at www.royalandderngate.co.uk.

Weetabix pledges another three years of support for Northamptonshire food and drink awards

Steve
-
0
Weetabix pledges another three years of support for Northamptonshire food and drink awards

The Weetabix Northamptonshire Food and Drink Awards is back for its fifteenth year with another sensational set of categories and sponsors. 

The Awards are a celebration and recognition of excellence within the Northamptonshire food and drink sector. It is a toast to all that is great about local produce and drink and rewarding those who work so hard to achieve the best within the culinary sector.  

The team behind the Awards are delighted to announce eighteen fantastic categories this year, which includes the introduction of a debut category: Event Venue of the year and with that, welcomes a fresh sponsor, the Hilton Garden Inn, Silverstone. New sponsors also joining the competition this year are, Greedy Gordons (Restaurant of the Year), University of Northampton (Food and Drink College Student of the year) and new Associate sponsor, Bedford College. 

New sponsor Greedy Gordons Pub Group, winner of Booker Dining Venue for the Snooty Fox at Lowick last year, is now sponsoring Restaurant of the Year. Richard Gordon said ‘we have had huge success over the last five years in this great competition and it’s time to make way for others to take these accolades and all the glory that goes with it. We could not be more thrilled to sponsor this fantastic category and are excited and looking forward to this year’s events.’ 

Thanks to ongoing support from headline sponsor, Weetabix has committed to another three years with the competition representing the Burton Latimer company’s commitment to the county’s hard working food and drink sector. The breakfast giant will once again be joined by existing category sponsors All things Business, Booker, Daily Bread, Delapre Abbey, Whitco, Heygates Flour and Animal Feed, Howes Percival LLP, Moulton College and Whitworth Bros Ltd Flour Millers. 

Stuart Branch, Group People and Technology Director at Weetabix said ‘We’re thrilled and proud to be headline sponsor to the Awards for a fourth year. Being directly involved with the judging process, seeing first-hand the impact these awards can have on local businesses growth and development is an honour. We are proud to see the vast range of venues, producers, chefs, businesses and organisations that these prestigious Awards support and celebrate.   

The full details of the latest competition were revealed by Awards Director, Rachel Mallows MBE, at the launch which took place at Silverstone Circuit, Silver Award Winners of the Healthy Food and Wellbeing Award 2022.

Rachel set off the Awards launch with: “Super close to the country’s iconic starting line, the county’s foods and drink and hospitality sector gets ready to be nominated, entered, judged, and have the chance to win and celebrate their achievements. I want to highlight the Importance of recognition through the Awards, so I start here today thinking about last year, hoping the launch of 2023 is going to be about moving into prosperity after Brexit, Covid and cost of living. We can’t kick off this competition without mentioning the hard work of this sector, the hundreds if not thousands of individuals who work so hard in Food and Drink and in hospitality. We not only nourish ourselves through food and drink consumption, but we also build friendships, we enjoy our family’s and communities through this sector, through our home cooking to eating out. Let’s see what 2023 will bring!’

Rachel also revealed an exciting change to the dining categories. Booker will now sponsor both the Young Chef of the Year and revised category ‘Gastro Pub of the Year’. 

This year’s launch also revealed new Awards Patron, David Foskett MBE, member of the Royal Academy of Culinary Arts, Craft Guild of Chefs and a fellow of the Institute of Hospitality. He’s also been voted one of the most influential people in the hospitality public sector. The Awards team are very excited to have David on board. 

Previous Award winners like John Folliot-Vaughn, Artisan Local Drink, Gold Award winner 2022/23 Stonyfield Wine were able to reflect on their successes of the competition since winning: “You don’t realise until afterwards how much difference it can make to your business.”

Katie Steele from the Towcester Community Larder, who won Gold in the Local Food Hero category last year said: “Our success in the Awards has been fantastic for our profile and making ourselves visible to not just businesses within the community but also to users of our service. Having this acknowledgement that we are open to everyone, and our purpose is about saving food from waste and getting it out to the communities was invaluable.” 

The free-to-enter categories in this year’s Awards (with their respective sponsors) are:

Artisan Local Drink of the Year 

Artisan Local Product of the Year (Heygates Flour and Animal Feed)

Artisan Local Vegetarian / Vegan Product of the Year (Daily Bread)

Booker Gastro of the Year (Booker)

Booker Young Chef of the Year (Booker)

Community Café of the Year (Supported by The Good Loaf)

Event Venue of the Year (Hilton Garden Inn)

Farming Environment Award (Weetabix Growers Group)

F&B Achiever of the Year (Howes Percival LLP)

Food and Drink College Student of the Year (University of Northampton)

Healthy Food and Wellbeing Award (Delapré Abbey)

Local Food Hero of the Year (Moulton College)

One To Watch (Whitworth Bros. Ltd Flour Millers)

Outstanding Contribution to Food & Drink (All Things Business) 

Restaurant of the Year (Greedy Gordons)

Weetabix Sustainability Award (Weetabix)

Whitco Chef of the Year (Whitco)

World Cuisine Restaurant of the Year 

The results of the competition, which will again see finalists awarded Gold, Silver or Bronze, will be announced at the Awards celebrations taking place on 1st November 2023 at The Royal & Derngate Theatre, supported again by caterers Portfolio Events. 

For more details on all the categories in the Weetabix Northamptonshire Food and Drink Awards 2023/24, including entry and nomination forms, please visit the Awards’ website – www.northamptonshirefoodanddrink.co.uk – or call Sophie on 01933 664437 or email sophie@themallowscompany.com

You can also follow the Awards on Facebook at @foodawards or Twitter and Instagram at @foodawardsHQ or on LinkedIn at @weetabixnfadawards

Copy supplied

Forwards march for Saints and deliver the reaction we were waiting for

Steve
-
0
Forwards march for Saints and deliver the reaction we were waiting for

To some degree rugby operates in its own reality of outrageous expectations. Little guys bring down big guys. Un-kickable objects get booted through impossible gaps at unlikely angles. Players go forwards but the ball goes backwards. The team that got spanked last week will do the spanking this week.

It’s the ‘reaction’ game. A team takes a shock result (like Bristol rugbying the bejesus out of us in the previous round) and takes it forward as motivation for the next week. Phrases like ‘setting the record straight’ and ‘putting things right’ get used and it works a ridiculous amount of the time.

If you play a team the week after they got a surprise monstering you will find out something about who they really are. And Saints were very determined to tell that story at home against Bath.

Northampton SaintsBath Rugby
Tackles Made110118
Tackles Missed1124
Tackle Success90.91%83.1%

Player of the Match was Saints Hooker Robbie Smith who spearheaded an all round awesome performance from the pack with two tries of his own. His lineout throwing was on point and he was busy around the pitch, putting in ten tackles.

Newly and spectacularly blond Juarno Augustus consistently skittled his way through to Bath’s defenders in Gold Mode while Scott-Young showed a sixth sense for collecting Smith’s lineout throws and also put in a shift as the home side’s top tackler.

Saints own match report here

Saints top performing players were all doing more than one thing very right, such as Fin Smith, who not only made the most metres for the home side but also slotted all six of his conversions and contributed 11 tackles.

In the midst of all this Bath still managed four tries of their own with three conversions and must be wondering what it takes to get a win with Tom de Glanville and Tom Dunn putting in noteworthy performances for the visitors.

Northampton SaintsBath Rugby
Most MetresFin Smith 64Tom de Glanville 67
Most CarriesJuarno Augustus 12
Fraser Dingwall 12		Tom de Glanville 15
Most TacklesAngus Scott-Young 14Tom Dunn 15

Saints have London Irish, Saracens and Newcastle to come with Irish and Newcastle both being away games. So far this season Saints have won at home and lost away to all our opponents apart from our derby spouses Leicester where we lost at home and won away. It sounds more like a genie’s curse than a win/loss record. You shall score the most tries but you shall also concede the most…

Nothing has been achieved yet but it feels good to be in the mix at this stage of the season with a team that blends stars with homegrown talent and entertains so much. Rugby is about taking what is dished out to you and giving more back and Saints certainly did that against Bath on Friday night. Pictures by Dave Ikin

  • Juarno Augustus and Robbie Smith

Review: Henry V, Royal and Derngate, Northampton – Once more into those ugly breeches, dear friends, once more…

Hilary Scott
-
1
Review: Henry V, Royal and Derngate, Northampton – Once more into those ugly breeches, dear friends, once more…

Stripped back history play brings Shakepeare’s Globe and Headlong to Northampton stage

Like this pared back, stark adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry V, the audience was much reduced on Wednesday’s Press Night, due to heavy snowfall.

But those of us who made it were tucked warmly into the Royal, watching the 20-something, newly-anointed King, bruised by his dying father’s distain, wreak havoc across France after being ‘dissed’ – if you will – by the delivery of a tennis ball.

Enraged by Charles VI of France’s apparent slight and determined to become a warrior king and claim France as his birth right, as his dead father had done, Henry invades, and begins a bloody campaign that culminates in the battle of Agincourt. (Read up on your history if you didn’t do Henry V at school, as it gets pretty complicated, with references to English subjugation of the Welsh, who ultimately provided the 500 longbow archers who laid waste to the French bogged down in the muddy battle.)

Georgia Frost in Henry V. Credit Ant Robling

This lauded production, a collaboration between Shakespeare’s Globe, Headlong and Royal & Derngate, started its creative life at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, essentially the indoors bit of the Globe, which seemed to use chandeliers and candlelight to give the production a switch from light to dark. On the Royal stage, the set is starker, with rows of green chairs facing each other to indicate the French and English, and a ruched green curtain drop alternating with an impressive and effective distressed mirrored backdrop. In Northampton, the chandeliers looked more like suspended light-sabres, which didn’t have quite the same effect.

Oliver Johnstone as Henry V . Photos by Ant Robling

The company of ten actors share all the parts, and while this is a very ‘male’ play (and on International Women’s Day I did feel a bit exhausted by the angry, entitled violence of it all), the mixed gender cast do a sterling job of keeping the dialogue comprehensible.

However, the adaptation has them in quite possibly the worst collection of ill-fitting chino trousers I’ve ever seen outside Twickenham on a match day.

OK, so there’s no cliched armour, swords or period frocks, but the contemporary clothing just made it more confusing to keep up with the character switches – apart from shrugging off the odd shirt to reveal white ‘wife-beater’ vests during the fighty bits.

Oliver Johnstone and Dharmesh Patel in Henry V. Credit Ant Robling (5)

Strong among the performances were Georgia Frost (Nym/Rambures/Williams) who brought a fizz of energy to every scene, James Cooney’s subtle side-eyeing which could be detected even several rows back, Joshua Griffin’s frustrated and almost controlled Fluellen and Jon Furlong’s impressive pre-interval death (no spoilers). Emotional performances from Helen Lymbery (Henry IV/Uncle Exeter) and Oliver Johnstone as the titular King must be exhausting.

Oliver Johnstone as Henry and Joséphine Callies as Katherine/Boy. Credit Ant Robling (1)

It’s a lot of story to cram into a couple of hours, and I kind of missed the context of the Pistol/Bardolph/Nym spoils of war link. And I’d have like to have lingered a little longer over the forced marriage/courtly love scene, where the teenaged Princess Katherine (of Valois, she’s buried in Westminster Abbey btw, and would go on to produce the Tudor line) is offloaded by her parents to the King who just slaughtered their citizens.

I’d be surprised if the schools haven’t snapped up the matinees because this production is a total shoo-in for an English or drama essay in future studies, especially with the sharp (and I meant total switcheroo) final scene, which slams us into a present-day immigrant citizenship exam. The roar of laughter from the audience confirmed the direct hit, although Shakespeare purists may not agree.

Henry V runs at Royal & Derngate until Saturday March 18, box office 01604 624811

The performances on Wed 15 March 7.30pm will be Audio Described and will be preceded by a pre-show Touch Tour. All patrons attending the tour should meet at the Box Office at 6.30pm, where a member of staff will then take them into the auditorium. Please email boxoffice@royalandderngate.co.uk to book the Touch Tour.

The performance on Thu 16 March 7.30pm will be performed with integrated British Sign Language (BSL) interpretation 

Have we just seen Saints’ try of the season? Maybe Netflix will tell us

Steve
-
0
Have we just seen Saints’ try of the season? Maybe Netflix will tell us

Northampton Saints 41-34 Gloucester Rugby * Pics by Dave Ikin

The Netflix cameras are currently circling over rugby union in the hope of emulating the success of their Formula One fly on the wall hit Drive to Survive and this Gloucester game might have been ideal subject matter.

It’s not a bad idea at all. Drive to Survive has helped me understand how the human element integrates with the technicalities of motorsport as the engineers of south Northamptonshire pit their skills against each other around the world every year.

That mix of explanation and story telling could really open up rugby which has its own context of arcane laws, conventions and objectives to unpick as well as a surprisingly diverse range of participants despite a reputation as a ‘posh’ sport.

The main problem seems to be finding a name for the series that is both meaningful but also carries the reduplicated rhyming structure of Drive to Survive. For instance: Pass to Surpass? What? Tackle to… no. Ruck to… definitely no. Lucky Rucky? Ok send the cameras away.

Sometimes it can be quite tricky to pin down what rugby is really about. Saints home victory over Gloucester is a great example. Watching the game it felt like it all came down to that period around the hour mark when Alex Moon, Sam Graham and Tommy Freeman all crossed the whitewash within eight minutes of each other.

Northampton Saints full match report

Saints now have a reputation with the punditry as a team that likes to play and run. On a surface level that kind of explains the game: a tight first half arm wrestle with both sides on ten at half-time until the Saints flying circus took off in the second half.

But the best try wasn’t in that little haul. It was Fraser Dingwall on 68 minutes, finishing off a zigzagging cascade of passes that began with Salakaia-Loto snaffling a rebounding ball, sending it to Hutchinson who found Graham who found Braley who found Dingwall who found the whitewash.

That try was pure Saints DNA. Opportunity + skill + belief = points. It might be our try of the season. However in the following 14 minutes before the game ended Gloucester managed to score three more times themselves, resulting in a tally of six tries each. So in that Netflix kinda way, it’s not the full story of this episode.

This wasn’t a BT Sport game so we didn’t have Ben Kay or Austin Healey in the commentary box to tell us who the Player of the Match was but individually James Ramm had a really strong game. His breaks ate up metres and he also provided the wow kick of the contest launching a spectacular 50-22 shot that put Gloucester back on the defensive.

(This is the rule that rewards the attacking team with a lineout if they kick the ball from their own half into the opposition’s 22 metre zone and it bounces once before going into touch. You can just imagine Netflix cutting to a rugby pundit to explain what’s going on.)

At a glance
Northampton SaintsGloucester Rugby
Most CarriesSam Graham 16Ruan Ackermann 12
Most MetresJames Ramm 107Santiago Carreras 60
Most TacklesAlex Moon 13
Angus Scott-Young 13		Ruan Ackermann 12
Stats from Premiership Rugby

If you are looking for stories in the game there is also one which gives us a salutary lesson about statistics. Former Saintsman Jamal Ford-Robinson came on for Gloucester around the hour mark. He made five metres, executed one tackle and carried the ball three times – two of which were the tries he scored against his old side in the final minutes.

The points difference between the teams came down to the fact that James Grayson nailed more conversions than his opposite number Santiago Carreras and also slotted a penalty.

You can watch your team do a lot of impressive, courageous, inspiring things in rugby without seeing them score but eventually someone has to bank actual points and Grayson, who has not had many chances lately, put in a really composed performance at fly-half.

Grayson is one of those Saints who has the burden/honour of having a famous Saint father who played in the same position, England fly-half Paul Grayson. I can imagine the collective sigh from people who already know that and who also know that comparison is unfair and not really meaningful. But let’s be honest. Netflix would lap that up. Paul and James giving each other a sheepish hello as they take their seats next to each other on a minimalist interview set. I can picture it.

I guess it is up to rugby how much it can bear to share (hmmm…) with the Netflix documentary makers but that naming problem is not going to go away. The sport is in a perilous position in the islands that invented it. The Welsh RFU is in all sorts of bother and the collapse of Worcester and Wasps proves that there are no names too big to fail.

The game really does need something that reveals its fascinating stories to new audiences so the game can grow and the balance sheets can start to make sense. Otherwise the name of the show will be Try to Survive.

Pictures by Dave Ikin

University of Northampton Avenue Campus demolition – the end of the start of the School of Art

Hilary Scott
-
0
University of Northampton Avenue Campus demolition – the end of the start of the School of Art

Historic campus making way for housing after the main campus moved to Waterside in 2018

It’s difficult to count the number of students who must have passed through the doors of Avenue Campus in Northampton, now under demolition to make way for a housing estate.

From its official opening by the late Queen’s mother and father, the then Duke and Duchess of York in 1937, Avenue Campus in St George’s Avenue has had several names and purposes relating to education. From the purpose-built Northampton Technical College in 1924 through incarnations including the Central College of Technology, Northampton School of Art, Nene College, University College Northampton and eventually University of Northampton. Eight decades of students and staff have worked and studied on the site (and no, it was never a mental hospital as the rumours had it.)

Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and the Queen Mother

According to the University archives, On March 11, 1867, a free public lecture on Science and Art was held by the Museum Committee in the town hall (maybe the Guildhall, which had just been built in the same year?) It was so popular evening classes in painting and drawing started in October.

Art evening classes continued and expanded, closely linked to science classes, until in 1894 the Northampton and County Modern and Technical School was established.

The (ugly) central Maidwell building was reception, with the library above and classrooms below – Image
StJaBe via wikimedia commons

In 1907 the evening class organisation became the Northampton and County Technical and Art School, with the Art School functioning separately. A further name change occurred the following year, to Northampton and County Technical School and School of Art.

One source states that the Northampton School of Art was re-designated the Northampton School of Arts and Crafts in 1917, but there are no documents in the archive from this date. However, two documents contained in the archive dated 1934 and 1937 use this form of name for the Northampton Art School.

The School of Art continued to grow, working in overcrowded rented accommodation, until new purpose-built premises were opened in 1937 next to the Technical College on St George’s Avenue.

In 1954, the Central College of Further Education was established, to include both the School of Art and the College of Technology. The School of Art appears to have continued to function as a separate college. It is likely that relevant papers were destroyed by a fire in a County Council records store.

The former staff parking entrance next to Newton building (now Bosworth College). At the back is Malcolm Arnold prep school on the site of the former Trinity Upper School swimming pool

In 1972 the School became known as the College of Art and 1975 saw the establishment of a college of higher education, Nene College. The Northampton colleges of Education and Technology along with the School of Art were amalgamated to form this new higher education college.

The Walgrave and Isham buildings, along with the old SU, have been demolished. MB5, my old classroom, is just about still standing at the bottom on the right

After many years as a journalist, I joined the university as a part-time lecturer on the journalism degree in 2009 and quite liked the building. My former classroom/newsroom was called MB5, later renamed the Matthew Engel room, down the hill opposite the rather useful cashpoint at the base of the Bassett Lowke halls of residence. It had a beautiful parquet floor and students in Year 1 could pretty much roll out of bed and into my lectures, but often still managed to be late. Many times the fire alarm would go off and see students having to stand on the Racecourse in their pajamas at all times of the day, waiting to be allowed back to bed. The radio studio on the same floor was named after Jo Whiley.

The old MB5 newsroom
Clive Lewis MP came to visit, having worked with me in the Chron days at Upper Mounts

I have plenty of good memories of the place, but also of the people. My first mentors were the now retired Richard Hollingum and Ted Sullivan. Avenue had plenty of great guest speakers, from Chris Mason, now BBC political editor, to the late Faye Weldon and comedian Stewart Lee.

The offices for staff were up the stairs, but due to the layout of the building, on a steep slope, they were really on the ground floor. I shared an office with the journalism and media staff, and it was a welcome hideaway where we could support each other, get marking done in peace and swear loudly when necessary.

One area, tucked away behind a large weeping fig, disposed of by the authorities in the move to the new campus, was a small sofa and this became ‘Hilary’s crying corner,’ not for me, but for students, when the pressures of academia all got a bit too much. We were lucky to have our own space and students – although they may not felt so at the time, had a brilliant location for studying – even the day I sent them out to report on a solar eclipse with paper plates.

Our media and journalism office during the clear-out before the move in 2018

Despite its whiff of furniture polish, mixed with multitude different cheap perfumes and body odour, I liked the place. Navigating it often felt like going in circles, due to its multilevel design on the only hill in the area. It had brass handrails and tiled walls in the old sections, some of which will stay – with the two ‘end’ buildings saved from destruction due to their listed building status, along with the old caretakers’ house/security building, Quinton Lodge.

It’s the second building I’ve worked in that I’ve watched be demolished, as the old Chronicle & Echo Building at Upper Mounts is now an Aldi…

1...567...130Page 6 of 130
© Newspaper WordPress Theme by TagDiv