Hilaire Belloc bought King's Land (in Shipley, Sussex), 5 acres and a working windmill for £1000 in 1907 and it was his home for the rest of his life. Belloc loved Sussex as few other writers have loved her: he lived there for most of his 83 years, he tramped the length and breadth of the county, slept under her hedgerows, drank in her inns, sailed her coast and her rivers and wrote several incomparable books about her. "He does not die that can bequeath Some influence to the land he knows, Or dares, persistent, interwreath Love permanent with the wild hedgerows; He does not die, but still remains Substantiate with his darling plains."

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Tuesday 16 August 2011

Hilaire Belloc set to Opera




Published in 1907, and never out of print since, Belloc’s Cautionary Tales Designed for the Admonition of Children between the Ages of Eight and Fourteen Years, to give its full title, has inspired composers from Peter Warlock to Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd. Now Errollyn Wallen has crafted a selection of the stories into a dramatic cantata delivered by a stern quartet of scary schoolmasters...

Courtesy of Opera North...


Cautionary Tales

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