Friends of Batley Library

Batley Library celebrated Shakespeare week last month with a reading of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

During a typical sleepy Sunday afternoon in Batley, sixteen readers came together to read one of Shakespeare’s most popular comedies.

The event was a joint venture between the Friends of Batley Library and the Batley Poets.

Mohammed Barber, one of the volunteers for the Friends of Batley Library who organised the event said, “most people’s relationship with Shakespeare starts and ends at school. I was lucky in that I had a great teacher who inspired a love for the bard. I know that not everyone has that.

“All the thy, thine, and thou can be intimidating. Couple that with theatres which can be expensive and a bit snobby, it can be a massive turn off for working class people. That’s why I wanted to have a stripped-down performance in the library. The play and a bunch of people who want to read the play, irrespective of experience; that’s it.”

A Midsummer Night’s Dream brings together love, magic, fairies, and an overzealous weaver whose head gets transformed into that of a donkey by a goblin, all set in Ancient Greece. The comedy remains hugely popular with audiences and is consistently performed on stage. The play has given rise to several famous phrases such as “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”, “The course of true love never did run smooth”, and “Though she be but little, she is fierce!”.

The afternoon was a great success, full of great readings with no shortage of laughs, or biscuits.

Mohammed Saloo from the Batley Poets was one of the readers, who had never read Shakespeare before. “In a way I’m surprised I’d never read Shakespeare before”, he said. “I suppose it’s because the opportunity hadn’t arisen, which is why I’m glad I took part in this session.

“When I found out I was reading Puck I had no idea who or what Puck was, or the relevance or importance of the character. I have to admit, I did follow the script with a radio play the day before, to be a little more familiar with the character. On the day itself I was nervous but once I’d read a few lines and heard the others, especially the laughter, I really enjoyed it. I loved having the last monologue, it just felt special.”

Plans are afoot for more readings of the bard’s plays in the coming months.

We applied to the Aviva Community Fund for some funding to run adult education classes at Batley Library and the good news is, we made it through to the voting stages! 

This is a project designed to deliver adult education from September 2019. This is an area that has become non existent within the local area, with people having to travel miles to enable themselves to achieve the education they would like and need at a later stage in their lives. 
This will be a huge boost to our community and provide much needed skills to those benefiting from it. 

The aim is for the participants to achieve a GCSE in Sciences as a stepping stone to continue studying at A level (this would be done locally too with the funding). 
The money will make a difference, as it will be used to equip a classroom with an interactive whiteboard and Tablets / IT equipment, which are vital to the course criteria. 

There are also course books and fees for exams, which would enable the participants to fully engage in the project. 
The money would also enable the participants to take part regardless of their own financial situation / background. 

We would like to encourage people to vote for this project to inject some much needed further education into the area and enable people to reach their potential regardless of circumstances.

You can sign up to vote for the project here. You get ten votes so you can use them all on our project, or spread them out amongst other worthy causes, whichever you choose!

At the moment, Batley Library is very proud to be hosting The Women’s Peace Blanket, a piece of art inspired by the life of Batley and Spen MP Jo Cox, who was killed in 2016. The blanket is the creation of artist Di Hewitt and was put together by women, mainly in the Stockton area. The aim was to bring women from different communities together to create something beautiful.

It’s display in Batley Library is the first time that the blanket has been on display outside of Stockton and we are honoured to have it.