Happy ending for this year’s Bookends fest

Bookends fringe comes to a close tomorrow night (Friday October 5) with ballads and a humorous Room 101-style rant from grumpy old women.

Singer-songwriter Chris Bennett will be in the Reading Room at Benderloch’s Victory Hall from 7pm before a panel of grumpy old women take over, inviting the audience to join them in a mass venting of spleen and frustration.

The bar opens at 6.30pm and the evening will end with the ‘always unpredictable post-fringe surprise’ says Bookends founder Joy Cameron.

Today (Thursday) Bob Toynton will be in the Reading Room giving a talk at 2pm about getting poetic works published and at 7pm there is a film showing of In Our Hands, hosted by Awakening in Argyll, a documentary about small-scale agro-ecological producers.

The week-long fringe followed a successful festival packed with visiting authors, music, theatre and workshops.

Seil-based poet and author Kenneth Steven met local writers to offer supportive criticism, Bookbug was a huge hit with toddlers and youngsters from Lochnell primary and nursery, and Tobermory Mainstreet Players, who brought a wonderful collection of seasonal poetry and song to embrace autumn, collected £100 in donations in aid of Home-Start Lorn.

Fiona Anderson’s workshop on Bookbinding and Gold Tooling sold out so quickly there are plans to run a second one next year.

Breege Smyth, Sheila Quillan and Marc Headley submitted their writings to author Kenneth Steven to read and comment on as part of this year’s Bookends Festival opportunities. The Oban Times was one of the festival’s media partners.

Volunteers and helpers from the Victory Hall team who were on hand to help at the bar.