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GEORGE EWART EVANS AT 100

Photograph: GEORGE EWART EVANS AT 100

A celebration of George Ewart Evans, author of The Voices of the Children.

Blaxhall, Suffolk

25 & 26 July 2009

£10 per seat, includes a buffet lunch

Contact Blaxhall Archive Group on archive@blaxhall.com or phone 01728 688611 to book.

From the late 1940s onwards, George Ewart Evans was the pioneer in recording and archiving the memories, not of the rich and powerful, but of the ordinary working man and woman. In so doing he helped establish a field of study and method of working which has since found academic respectability in many British universities. George began his work in Blaxhall from 1948 onwards - his source material was the Blaxhall folk that lived around him. This research eventually culminated in his first book about the spoken word, now a classic, called Ask The Fellows Who Cut the Hay, published in 1956 by Faber & Faber.

George was also a prime mover in the creation of the Museum of East Anglian Life based at Stowmarket, Suffolk. By his work and endeavours he helped create a new appreciation in traditional life and local dialect as something to be proud of rather than ridiculed.

Under the auspices of the Blaxhall Archive Group, a two-day event on the 25 and 26 July in Blaxhall is being organised to celebrate the George Ewart Evans centennial year.

The event features:

- One-day seminar on the Spoken Word (some of the finest experts in the country will be speaking)

- Whole day series of film shows (some films not seen since the 1950s)

- One marquee full of local history groups from all over Suffolk

- Another marquee also with history groups plus the East Anglian Music Traditional Trust

- A Memory Marquee with family history information and elders willing to chat and explore your ancestry

- Refreshments and a beer tent on site

- East Suffolk Morris Men on the Saturday

- Steel Quoits league match on the Sunday

- Music on Saturday evening in The Ship

- Sing, Say or Pay at the Ship Sunday from noon

- Displays about George’s life in Blaxhall at the Youth Hostel all weekend