Calligraphy Classes in Sunderland and South Shields

Winter term classes will be starting in the week commencing 17 January. The venues are the Sunderland Museum on Monday mornings, St Bede's in South Shields on Thursday mornings and Age UK on Wednesday mornings. All classes are taught by Susan Moor. Newcomers are welcome and if you would like further information about fees and times please contact Susan on susan.moor (at) givemail.co.uk.

Twenty Four Hour Party People

Well, it was more like five hours really, but the Northumbrian Scribes Christmas meeting is a highlight of the calendar and much looked forward to and we know how to enjoy ourselves. Above you can see Maureen Ormston, Judi Postle and Margaret Empson setting out the lunchtime goodies. The other picture shows the winning team in our post-lunch calligraphy quiz where we proved that only some of us can tell out Carolingian from our Rotunda. The lucky winners got a print of a calligraphic piece by Tom Fleming.

There was also an identify the scribe from a baby photograph competition. Some of the images of the lettering-babies are shown below. As some of us go back quite a long way the photographs were in various shades of sepia through to black and white.














There was an extra treat in the afternoon. Tim Sokell's wife, Brenda, sang for us. Brenda recently won a singing competition and her prize was to make a recording with the Chelsea Pensioners of the Christmas song 'White Christmas'. Although her recording was not due to be released for a few days yet she let us have a preview and sang some other seasonal songs for us too.

November workshop with Jilly

The meeting was at Sunderland University rather than our normal venue but two dozen scribes came to the workshop to explore how to modernise a traditional hand with Jilly Hazeldine. Using Insular Capitals as the model Jilly explained that we would need to keep some features to maintain the essential nature of the script. First to go were the archaic letterforms, the g, the r and the d, while Jilly suggested retaining the insular-style serifs in a lighter form would help preserve some essence of the script. The photographs show Jilly teaching and demonstrating during the workshop.

Party animal at 90

These photographs (courtesy of Manny Ling) show Northumbrian Scribe John Loftus enjoying his 90th birthday party celebrations. The hall was full with children, grandchildren and friends and John was up for every dance, a huge smile on his face and endless energy. Happy birthday John.