New poetry book by an 86-year-old
POETS Chris Bainbridge and Eve Nortley, authors of Love and Lust in Bury and Rochdale, launched at Touchstones in Rochdale and veterans of the Literature and Ideas Festival Writers’ Showcase, have compiled and edited a newlypublished poetry book.
Flights of Faith and Feeling is the first collection by 86-year-old writer Brenda Lynch.
Chris described the poetry compilation to me as ‘a sumptuous showcase for Brenda’s hitherto hidden talent, with its rich emotion and powerful imagery.’
He added: “Brenda’s Christian faith is evident in many of her pieces, but there are also strong themes of love, loss, war, urban stress and the beauty of nature, with which readers of any belief (or none) will readily identify.”
A resident of Radcliffe since 1967, Brenda was born in Enfield, Middlesex, in 1931 and left school aged 14.
While working in the BBC gramophone library, Brenda came into contact with Sir Adrian Boult.
A few years later she was working in the appointments department at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital when Prince Charles came in to have his tonsils out.
Brenda’s husband Frank, a keen amateur actor from Liverpool, passed away on October 7, 2017, before this book was ready. However, he did see an early draft and his suggestions have been incorporated into the final version.
Chris explained how he discovered Brenda’s talent for poetry, saying: “Brenda had heard that I wrote and one day I was passed a piece she had half written, asking if I could finish it.
“I was able to do so and performed the resulting piece in public on her behalf. I was later intrigued to receive a small exercise book, full of handwritten poems, which Brenda asked me to look at.
“This was joined later by a second exercise book – so many poems that I enlisted the help of my dear friend and colleague Eve Nortley.
“Eve and I were so impressed by the rich imagery and powerful emotion of Brenda’s words that we quickly decided that more people really should see her work.”
On reading Flights of Faith and Feeling, I was thoroughly engaged by her beautiful words, evoking powerful emotions.
Her Christian faith is evident in many of her poems, but - whatever the reader’s beliefs - Brenda’s poems will move and uplift.
Flights of Faith and Feeling costs £5, available by emailing hatchet_ bury@yahoo.co.uk or minervateaching solutions@gmail.com.