“Don’t worry”, Xanthe Gresham told a packed Bookshop, “we always feel sad at the end of summer. Plants give up such hope and then suddenly they’re not there anymore.”
It was good to know that it was more than the incessant rain. This year a dismal summer has turned to a wet autumn and our audience arrived sodden, happy to swap their umbrellas for warming glasses of wine or apple juice and find a seat, late-comers stacked on the stairs.
Xanthe has written three books. Sussex Folk Tales (for children), The beautiful Herba Mythica and her latest Gods and Goddesess. Her aim was to combine the three, choosing Sussex plants, linking them to Sussex Folk Tales and then linking all of that to Bridget, Sussex's very own Goddess. Xanthe also brought her accordian, marking the beginning of each story with what was presumably Sussex folk music (I forgot to ask her!). Our spirits were lifted with stories of sunflowers and dandelions, of journeying, and highwaymen - and the hope of the spring, never too far away. Xanthe’s words are as beautifully put together in her storytelling as her books. I am still wishing that my dreams could be lines of bunting down which I could abseil.
Xanthe is one of our most brilliant Storytellers, and we were fortunate indeed that our lives were brightened by an evening with her in The Bookshop.
Wednesday 25th September 2024, a Storytelling evening in The Bookshop
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