“That Astonishing Infantry”
Siegfried Sassoon Fellowship AGM and annual conference will be held in Wrexham this year, home of Sassoon's regiment the Royal Welch Fusiliers.
All timings are approximate.
11am Arrival and registration/Coffee
11.30am AGM of the Siegfried Sassoon Fellowship (agenda below)
1pm Lunch (included in conference fee)
2pm Welcome and introduction – Meg Crane, Chair of the SSF
2.05pm Speaker: Jonathan Hicks
“Voices from Mametz Wood, July 1916”
2. 40pm Speaker: Charles Mundye
"Graves, Sassoon and The Patchwork Flag"
3.15/3.30pm Afternoon tea
4.00pm Karen Murdoch, Collections Manager, Wrexham Heritage Services, will tell us something about the museum’s RWF archive, containing interesting documents relating to Sassoon’s career
4.45pm Closing comments – Dennis Silk, CBE, President of the SSF
SSF Annual Dinner (bookable separately)
The dinner will take place at the Ramada Plaza Hotel, Wrexham. The cost (based on the restaurant’s prices at time of writing) will be £27.00 for 3 courses, coffee and a welcome drink. Other drinks will be payable separately as consumed.
Friday and Sunday - optional activities
An informal meal is normally held on the Friday evening of our conference, for those arriving in time. No venue has yet been decided. Please let us know if you would like to join in. We hope to arrange an activity for Sunday morning; this will be entirely dependent on the level of interest expressed.
Please send completed booking forms to The Secretary, SSF, P O Box 11, Cowbridge CF71 7XT. Conference fee (including buffet lunch & refreshments) is £40
About the speakers:
Jonathan Hicks is an award-winning military historian and head teacher from South Wales, and an advisor to the Welsh Government on the commemoration of the centenary of the First World War. He is a member of the Royal Historical Society, Great War Society and Western Front Association, and Chair of the Hut 9 Island Farm Preservation Group. The first novel in his “Thomas Oscendale” series, The Dead of Mametz, was published in 2011.
Dr Charles Mundye is Head of Academic Development for the Department of Humanities at Sheffield Hallam University. He is interested in many aspects of war poetry, and has edited The Van Pool: Collected Poems of the Second World War poet Keidrych Rhys for Seren. He is a Fellow of the English Association, and President of the Robert Graves Society.
More on the SSF website at:
