13th June is the birthday of Dorothy L Sayers. Please join our celebrations with:
tea and cake
re-read your favourite DLS work
celebrate your favourite DLS fictional character
visit a special DLS place
your favourite quote from DLS
Post one, some or all of the above on social media, using #happybirthdayDLS
A message from Society Chair, Seona Ford:
DLS and Zoom
A number of you have been able to enjoy the Zoom talks by Suzanne and Mo (do look at the reports of the talks elsewhere in this Bulletin). How lovely it was to see so many familiar faces, all looking pleased to be engaging with an interesting DLS-related topic. Suzanne and Mo did us proud with very different talks; the third one in March by BJ Rahn promises to be different.
I do wonder what DLS would make of Zoom. I actually think she might have approved. On 7 May 1941 she wrote to her son:
“I have been galloping round the country addressing meetings, carrying your letter with me in the hope of getting it answered, but I never seemed to get a moment for thinking in.”
That mention of thinking time is significant; she didn’t drive, so one might presume she had thinking time in the car, even writing time but then one remembers the condition of the roads in those days and the rough, cold and uncomfortable ride one had in many cars. I can remember the car we had inthe late 1940s – not a smooth ride – and we sometimes drove all the way from Essex to Scotland (400+ miles) with not amotorway in sight – most memorably in 1950 with Mac’s ashes in the boot after DLS had asked my father to scatter them in Scotland. So I think DLS might have appreciated Zoom. She would have been able to attend meetings and speak if requested; she would have made good use of the mute and no video facilities – and probably delighted audiences at less formal gatherings by allowing the appearance of a cat or two!
Winter at the Society
Despite lockdown the Society has been busy over the Winter. We’ve had online talks and we’ve also been planning events for the Spring and Summer. In addition to that we’ve been attending events organised by other organisations and institutions. One of the pleasures of our Zoom meetings is seeing the faces of members from across the globe.
Please do look at the Events page for more information about our plans for 2021 and if you are thinking of joining, please do get in touch. As we say, there is no entrance exam and it isn’t necessary to have read everything Dorothy L Sayers wrote. We’re an inclusive society and welcome everyone.
We were delighted to hear that writer and broadcaster Richard Osman has discovered the pleasures of reading DLS. He wrote on social media:
“I am currently reading a Dorothy L Sayers novel set in a 1930s advertising agency, and I now want to work in a 1930s advertising agency.”
We’ll leave you to guess the title of the novel.
Below are some of the interesting things we’ve been up to over the Winter:
· A talk from Professor Suzanne Bray on DLS and other members of the Detection Club broadcasting at the BBC;
· A talk from Dr Mo Moulton, author of The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L Sayers and her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women
If you are interested in reading reports of these events, they can be found in the Members’ Bulletin https://www.sayers.org.uk/bulletin. If you are thinking of becoming a member, we’d be happy to send you a copy of our latest Bulletin, so get in touch.
Spring and Summer Events
·A talk from Professor BJ Rahn on the illustrations for the short story ‘The Haunted Policeman.’
·An Easter get-together, either online or in person, as restrictions allow in your part of the world.
A May online play reading.
A June get-together on Dorothy L Sayers’ birthday, the 13th, online and in person according to restrictions.
Our Annual Convention in August at Somerville College, Oxford.
DLS in other spheres
The Man Born To Be King - broadcast
We are delighted to announce that there will be readings of DLS’ The Man Born to Be King broadcast during Holy Week and Easter. These are being performed by members of the First Congregational Church of Hamilton, Boston. The recordings of the plays will be available on the Church’s website until 25th April. Please see below for further details.
‘Must it be a Man?’ Women’s Contribution to the University of Oxford
This online conference was held on 2 March to celebrate the centenary year of Oxford degrees for women. Speakers from Oxford and other universities joined together to celebrate in a day of discussion on women’s contributions to the OED, the Bodleian Libraries, Somerville and other women’s colleges, women service sector workers, the presence of women in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, women college principals and early women geography students at Oxford. Mo Moulton spoke about Somerville College and student life, including one of Somerville’s best-known students, Dorothy L Sayers. It was an interesting day and we were struck by how often DLS was mentioned. The talks are all recorded and available as podcasts here
International Women’s Day Symposium, 8 March
Retrieving Women from the Archives
This was held by SASiety, the student-led body of SASiety News at the University of London
The speakers were:
Sarah Churchwell - ‘In Search of Fugitive Archives’
Francesca Wade - ‘Laundry Lists and Manifestoes’*
Godela Weiss-Sussex – ‘German-Jewish Women Writers of the Early 20th Century’
*Francesca Wade is the Author of Square Haunting a multiple biography of the women, including Dorothy L Sayers, who lived in Mecklenburgh Square in the first half of the 20th Century. Francesca spoke to Society members at their Winter Lunch in 2020.
THE MAN BORN TO BE KING
RADIO PRODUCTION
First Church Congregational of Hamilton, a small New England church north of Boston, are presenting four of the radio plays based on Dorothy L. Sayers’ epic BBC classic, The Man Born To Be King. It features a cast of professional and amateur actors drawn from the Greater Boston area. These are free presentations, at no charge to the public.
Directed by Professor of Theatre at Gordon College, Jeffrey Miller, the radio plays will be broadcast during Holy Week, March 29-April 4, 2021.
The week before Palm Sunday (beginning March 21), the renowned expert on Dorothy L. Sayer’s The Man Born to Be King, Dr. Katy Wehr, will be doing a virtual
pre-recorded presentation to teach, inform, inspire, and prepare us for the airing of the radio plays.
The following 4 plays will be aired on these dates at 7.00 PM (ET):
The King’s Supper
(Mon, March 29)
The Princes of the World
(Wed, March 31)
King of Sorrows
(Fri, April 2)
The King Comes To His Own
(Sun, April 4)
We hope you will gather together, as you can, with family and/or friends to listen to these special performances by our company of actors. Each play will be available through our website for encore listening after the first airing, until April 25, 2021.
Registration is limited, so please be sure to visit our website to register by email.
For more information, send an email to arts@fcchamilton.org
With permission of the literary agent, David Higham Associates, London, U.K., the plays have been minimally adapted to accommodate COVID protocol restrictions for size. The overall spirit and meaning of the plays have not been altered.
This year has been challenging for many in our community. For those in the arts the year has been very difficult. The Trustees of the Dorothy L Sayers Society have agreed to increase funding for our annual Arts Awards from £500 to £750.
Each year we fund the following awards:
Music Award: In collaboration with the Royal College of Music, we provide funding for outstanding young musicians;
Actor Award: This award is made in collaboration with the Theatre Centre, providing funding for early career actors;
The Norah Lambourne Design Award: This award is made to students on the Royal Opera House Apprenticeship Programme.
Chair of the Society, Seona Ford said:
“We recognise the tremendous challenges that those in the arts have faced in 2020. In recognition of those challenges we agreed to increase the funding for our awards. We greatly value our connections with the Royal College of Music, the Theatre Centre and the Royal Opera House and support them in their work of training future actors, musicians and stage design professionals.”
More information can be found on our website here
Kimisha Lewis and Sam Kacher, joint winners of the Actor Award with Jill Paton Walsh
Almida Lille, 2015
The Geography of Literature
25th November, 7.30 p.m. via Zoom
The event will be hosted by Galloway Glens’ Nick Chisholm and we shall have speakers on a wide range of subjects. Chris Rollie (ex RSPB man and Burns aficionado) will talk about how Burns came up with and wrote the “Scots Wha Hae!” while riding along the banks of Loch Ken. Cally Phillips (author and organiser of the Galloway Raiders) will talk about “Men of the Moss Hags” and other books by S R Crockett. Sarah McConnel (accountant and bookworm) will be talking about Dorothy L Sayers’ novel “Five Red Herrings”. And Dr Gerrard McKeever (of Stirling University) will be talking about Alan Cunningham’s radical novel “Paul Jones”. All the works will be linked back to local places via maps. Instead of just using the estate maps we will also be exploring the other National Library of Scotland Resources and be looking at County maps and OS maps as well. In addition our partners in this affair, the Galloway Glens Landscape Project, have gone the whole hog and the talks will be illustrated with some stunning drone camera work as well as other sources of pictorial excitement. It is sounding like a pretty comprehensive package for the evening with plenty to see and hear about.
Bookings via Eventbrite here
We regret to announce that our President, Jill Paton Walsh, has died.
Chair of the Society, Seona Ford, said “Jill was a highly skilled writer. She continued the Wimsey-Vane novels by working on DLS’s own manuscript to produce Thrones, Dominations, then continued with A Presumption of Death, The Attenbury Emeralds and The Late Scholar. Jill was a loyal President and supportive of our endeavours. She attended our Annual Convention at the University of East Anglia in 2019. She will be greatly missed.”
Photo of Jill Paton Walsh courtesy of Lesley Simpson
The Chair of the Society, Seona Ford, has been delving into Dorothy L Sayers’ letters. Our late President, and friend of Dorothy L Sayers, Dr Barbara Reynolds, undertook the mammoth task of editing the letters of DLS and produced five handsome volumes. These are a treasure trove of information about DLS’ - often robust - views on many things and a chronicle of the daily life a writer. Seona wrote the following for our September Bulletin:
“This year we have missed our usual celebration of the birthdays of DLS and Barbara Reynolds. When I was thinking about this the other day I thought I would go back to The Letters and see what I could pick up about birthdays, particularly those of DLS of course but also in the last few years, those of Barbara as well, after they discovered that they shared the same birthday. Naturally the selection of letters precludes the likely mention of birthdays every year but a pattern emerges, based on age and mortality. The earliest mention is in 1909 and from there until 1926 the selected birthday letters written to her parents show that they displayed generosity to her for which she reciprocates with real affection. There is no mention between then and 1932 when it is greetings from Cousin Ivy that she acknowledges (her parents had both died in the late 1920s). From 1938 until 1952 we only hear about DLS’ birthday in response to greetings from John Anthony. Then the last few exchanges in the 1950s are between DLS and Barbara. In 1909 she thanks her parents for organising a theatre trip for her; she went with her cousin Raymond to see The School for Scandal – she had the “most superlatively glorious time”. In 1914 she thanks them for a “ripping” brooch which was “exactly the colour I was pining for.” She also attends a dinner at which they “made me sing two folk-songs”. By 1918 she is receiving “very generous cheques” with which she intends to buy “all sorts of useful and decorative things…”. In 1920 she is in France working with Eric Whelpton and has made a “daring speculation” with her birthday money and bought a “very decent viola”. In 1922 she thanks her mother for the birthday present and good wishes – “bless you lots of times!” She sends a similar message in 1923 saying she intends to buy “something suitable to whatever weather is then current!” In 1924 she says she will buy a “late extravagance in the way of stockings!” In 1926 (now married) she sends thanks for “your letter and good wishes.” After a gap Ivy is thanked for her good wishes in 1932 and between 1938 (when he was 14) and 1952 a number of birthday greetings are recorded from John Anthony (JA) . Perhaps the most interesting of JA’s letters comes on 23 June 1940 when she writes: “…As regards the Harvest Camp – of course there ought to be no question of asking my permission. You must do whatever the Government wants you to 4 do, as we all must, without delay or question. Tell your school authorities so. Harvest camps are asked for, and obviously every able-bodied citizen of school age (JA was 16) must take part. Apart from that: stay where you are. You are probably as safe in Oxfordshire as anywhere. This part of the country (DLS means southeast England) is more immediately threatened. If I should be killed in an air-raid, you and Aunt Ivy must at once get into communication with my solicitors, (name and address given) who have my will and know how to act. There will not be very much money I am afraid – nobody will have much money when this is over, even if all goes as well as we can hope. It is not possible to plan out anything for the future. I shall try to pay out the school fees as long as is necessary. In the event of a German occupation of this country, which is possible, though I think not probable, be careful not to advertise your connection with me; writers of any sort will not be popular with the Gestapo. If there should be any question of evacuating to the Dominions, on the other hand, I will take what measures I can. But we are in the front of the battle now, and the great thing is to stay put and work at whatever the defence requires…Do not be troubled because you are afraid of being afraid. Everybody feels like that. It doesn’t matter, and is nothing to be ashamed of. Do what is asked for – that is all that matters.” She ends the letter with the quotation associated with St Julian of Norwich: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all shall be very well.” If you have the opportunity to read all of this letter please do so. I find it fascinating on several counts: the honest appraisal of the situation, including the likelihood of her being persona non grata with the Gestapo, the way in which she is writing to a 16-year-old with blunt advice and the reference to her possible death – and her faith. Finally in 1955 and ’57 letters are included in response to greetings from Barbara. In ’55 she simply says “thank you so much for your birthday card – Many happy returns!” but in 1957 she writes “thank you for the birthday verses and Adrian for his card”. We can only wonder about the verses, presumably written by Barbara herself – perhaps in terza rima to emulate their beloved Dante! I fully expect that some of you will now find more birthday references – in fact I think there are some letters to her parents that refer to how birthday money has been spent at a later date. However I think I have gathered nearly all the references that are published. I also perused My Edwardian Childhood in Volume 5 but could find no more references. My tentative conclusion is that birthdays were not very important to DLS and suggest two reasons why: the overt/lavish celebration of birthdays is a more modern phenomenon on the whole, and the fact of DLS being an only child meant that occasions such as birthdays would have probably been low-key affairs without even a sibling to share a family occasion.” Seona
