Sunderland History Fair - An amazing day in a great city

Saturday 21 May was the day of Sunderland History Fair, held in the beautiful Bethany Church in Sunderland.  There were over 70 stalls inside from heritage societies, history societies, writers, artists and many other organisations. There were battle re-enactments! A wooden ship in the car park!. There were Romans and Normans fighting with swords and shields! In short, it was a fantastic event, packed full of wonderful things. Right up my street.  

I was honoured and proud to be asked to officially open the event.  I'm still on cloud nine after everything that happened yesterday and wanted to write it all down so that I didn't, wouldn't ever, forget what an amazing day it was.

Here's the Bethany Church where the event was staged.

Here I am giving my speech. Put me in front of a microphone and I either want to run away and hide, or sing karaoke. I wasn't sure what to do for the best, so I read my prepared speech instead! It was short and sweet as I knew everyone would be itching to get on with the fair.  Yes, I was nervous and my leg started twitching with nerves towards the end of my speech, but I made it!

Here I am with one of the organisers from Sunderland Heritage Forum, Stuart Miller. He's a great writer and a wonderful historian.  A few years ago I attended one of his courses on the history of Sunderland. He told me then that his daughter has a cat who gets looked after by her neighbours. Then I told him that my brother and sister-in-law take a cat in and look after it. Yup, same cat! Small world!

And there was a lovely big cheer at the end when I announced the History Fair officially open!

Then, what a lovely suprise!  I was given a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

As an honorary committee member of Ryhope Heritage Society, I was very pleased that the society were at the History Fair too. In fact, we had our stalls next to each other so that we could tell everyone about Ryhope's history and heritage. I grew up, was born and bred in Ryhope, attended school there and lived there until my 30s. I still have family there and return often. Ryhope is where my bestselling historical novels are set at the end of the first world war.

One of the highlights of the History Fair for me was to meet this lovely girl called Amira. She's one of the youngest readers of my books, and I was amazed that she enjoyed the books so much. She'd already read one of them and bought another yesterday. If I can reach out to anyone through my books and get them interested in history and heritage, in writing and reading, in following your dreams, then my work here is done. What a lovely girl she was.  I'm still in awe.

Here are the flowers I was given at the fair, they're now in my living room and smell divine.

The History Fair was incredible. So friendly, and very well organised. The only problem I had was that because I was working so hard on my stall selling books and chatting to people, I didn't get a chance to walk around the event and meet as many other people as I'd have liked to.  And yes, while I sold a TON of books (thank you, everyone!) what was important was talking to people, sharing our love of Sunderland's history and heritage, meeting new people, introducing them to my books and working alongside Ryhope Heritage Society to let the world know about our little village that had one of most productive coal mines in the northeast, as well as a thriving farm community.

When I could nip away from my stall for a few moments, I chatted to author Margaret Hedley, author of these amazing books which I always use in my research for women's lives in a north east pit village. I wanted to say thank you to her as her books are full of real-life information about women's lives that I write about in my fiction.  

It was also wonderful to meet Neil Sinclair, author of books on Sunderland's railways. Neil has helped me with research for many of my books as they include railway journeys of the past. 

And while walking through the cafe yesterday, a woman called out to me: "Are you Glenda Young?" and when I said "Yes, I am," she pulled a copy of my cosy crime Murder at the Seaview Hotel out of her handbag and asked me to sign it. She told me she couldn't put it down, it went everywhere with her and she was getting nothing done at home as she was glued to the book. I was delighted, what an amazing thing to happen!

You can find out all about Sunderland History Fair at their Facebook page where there are lots of pictures from yesterday's event. It's all here.

Thank you to Sharon Vincent, Stuart Miller and Sandra Lane for all of their support.

__

Glenda Young

Twitter: @Flaming_Nora

Facebook: GlendaYoungAuthor

Website: GlendaYoungBooks.com