Latest news with #BritishLibrary
Irish Independent
19 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Madeleine Keane on books: Oscar Wilde's reader's card is ‘uncancelled' by the British Library, 130 years on
Plus the Cork Midsummer Festival, and something for Beatles fans too Today at 09:30 After 130 years, the British Library plans to symbolically reinstate the reader pass that belonged to Oscar Wilde. Wilde was officially excluded from the Library on June 15, 1895, following the trial and conviction he faced as a result of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, which criminalised acts of 'gross indecency' between men.
The Guardian
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Pioneering London playwright decried gentrification of ‘writer's paradise'
A groundbreaking Trinidadian-British playwright who paved the way for modern Black British theatre makers warned about the dangers of gentrification in Ladbroke Grove, which he believed would ruin the 'writer's paradise'. Mustapha Matura was the first British writer of colour to have work put on in the West End, and used the west London area as an inspiration for many of his plays, which were also staged at the Royal Court and National Theatre. In a letter written in 1992 that is part of the Matura archive acquired by the British Library, he decried the shifts in the west London area, which was home to a strong Caribbean creative community. 'What more could one ask for?' he wrote about the area. 'It's like being in a real-life, long-running soap opera, which I tell myself I'm only researching in order to write about but – not true … I'm a character and a 'writer fella' who prays that the gentrification process that is taking place in the area now does not totally destroy its unique character and characters.' The bohemian area that Matura found in the 60s and 70s has certainly changed, more synonymous now with rising house prices than creative freedom. In 2024, it was reported that residents of Notting Hill received more in capital gains from 2015 to 2019 than the combined populations of Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle. The son of a south Asian man and a creole woman, Matura left Trinidad for the UK in the 1960s. He worked as a hospital porter, frequented the Royal Court and ended up appearing in a B-movie western shot in Rome. It was in Italy where he saw a production of Langston Hughes' Shakespeare in Harlem and thought he 'could do better than that', and began writing. Like other Caribbean playwrights, Matura had a side job while getting his footing, working in a garment factory off Tottenham Court Road. He would jot down ideas and doodles on the back of order sheets, some of which have been retained in the archive. Matura's wife, Ingrid Selberg, said: 'He was supposed to be counting the rolls of material, and he was always skiving off and writing things on the back of the order forms.' Described by one writer as looking like 'a refugee from a 60s band' who wore sunglasses indoors and sported a 'morose walrus moustache', Matura fit into the countercultural world of Ladbroke Grove. He was a key part of a flamboyant group of Caribbean creatives who injected black consciousness into UK culture, along with Horace Ové (who directed the first Black British feature film, Pressure) and Michael Abbensetts (who went on to create Empire Road). Helen Melody, the lead curator of contemporary literary and creative archives at the British Library, said: 'I think he was aware of the political uncertainty and uprisings of the whole movement in the 1960s, which wasn't just in Trinidad but more widely. 'You can see his plays often chart the experience of people who'd traveled to the UK or elsewhere from the Caribbean, but he also still retained kind of an interest in what was happening in the place he left as well.' The archive contains unpublished work including two plays, one called Band of Heroes about Notting Hill carnival and the other about the real-life Trinidadian gangster Boysie Singh. Despite having no formal training, Matura became arguably the most significant playwright from the Caribbean diaspora in the 20th century. He was a founding member of the Black Theatre Co-operative, which was formed by a group of actors who had appeared in his 1979 play Welcome Home Jacko, while his first agent was the formidable Peggy Ramsay. Matura died in 2019 and a funeral was held in Ladbroke Grove, with a steel band sendoff. 'He was such a Trinidadian,' said Selberg. 'But he loved Ladbroke Grove, he loved Portobello Road. He was a kind of Janus with a two-sided head. Interested, equally interested in both Britain and Trinidad, and equally critical of both.'
Channel 4
2 days ago
- General
- Channel 4
Groundbreaking project gives a voice to people with learning disabilities
By Rosie Baldwin For decades, the voices of people with learning disabilities were overlooked, their stories pushed to the margins of history. As the historian Jan Walmsley has pointed out: 'Before about 1963, there are no voices of people with learning disabilities in their own words. Nothing.' But a new initiative from the charity United Response is ensuring their stories will be heard and remembered for generations to come. Across the UK, people with learning disabilities are taking part in a groundbreaking oral history project called Our Life Stories. For the first time, their personal lives are being recorded by peers with similar experiences, to be featured in a touring exhibition, before they are permanently archived in the British Library. By training participants to interview each other, the project makes sure these stories are collected by people who genuinely understand the reality of living with a disability. We went along to a two-day training course in Devon, where a group taking part in the project learnt the craft of listening, asking meaningful questions, and recording powerful life stories. The atmosphere was warm and open, and people felt safe enough to talk about things that really mattered to them – from coming to terms with their sexuality, to dealing with the pain of losing loved ones, to the lasting impact of being bullied. It was moving, honest, and full of heart. These interviews reveal a rich tapestry of life, resilience, and change. A chorus of voices that reflect the breadth and diversity of experience within the learning disability community. In one moving story recorded last October, a man named Mark interviewed Tess, a woman who spent much of her life in institutions. Today, she lives independently in her own bungalow in Newcastle, with a rescue cat and a new sense of freedom. But her journey there was harrowing. Tess was just 14 when she was first placed into institutional care, a stay that ultimately lasted 40 years. During that time, she was subjected to treatments including electroconvulsive therapy, as well as being restrained and put into prolonged seclusion. Now, with support and autonomy, Tess has rebuilt her life. Sitting alongside Mark in her home, she told Ruben Reuter about the importance of sharing her story, not only for her own healing but to help others understand the injustices people with learning disabilities have endured. For both Tess and Mark, the interview was a deeply emotional experience. Mark pointed out the significance of this moment: 'Understanding history is important, and not allowing the fact that these things used to happen to just get brushed under the table and forgotten about. I think it's important that people are aware that this sort of thing was going on… to make sure that we don't go back there.' For many taking part, it's the first time they've been asked to reflect on their past, and the first time their experiences are being taken seriously by the wider world. For Tess, knowing her story will be preserved in the British Library is a source of hope: 'People like myself just get forgotten about. We don't get listened to enough. It doesn't matter what your disability is, you should still be listened to.' This is more than an oral history project – it's a movement toward inclusion, understanding, and justice. And this is just the beginning, with the voices now part of the national record. As Ruben Reuter points out: 'This is just the beginning. These voices are now part of our national record. They will help build a future where everyone is better understood, included and valued.' The long wait for homes to be made accessible for disabled people Number of disabled people who can't find a job is increasing Is travel for disabled people getting any easier?
Indian Express
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Oscar Wilde's reader pass reinstated: Perhaps the library ought to pay a fine
Quoting Oscar Wilde is usually an exercise in creative writing, a test of one's aphoristic talents; if there's nothing handy, just make something up. In that spirit, here's how he might have reacted to his British Library reader pass being reinstated 130 years after its cancellation following his conviction for 'gross indecency': 'Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.' That's one of those wild(e) witticisms, of uncertain lineage, that prowl the drawing rooms of the internet. Wilde was convicted in 1895 and sentenced to two years' hard labour after he fell afoul of the Marquess of Queensberry, who had found out that the Irish playwright and his son, Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas, were lovers and accused him of being a 'sodomite'. The hardships of imprisonment shaped the emotional and spiritual meditation that was De Profundis, written as a letter to Douglas. Exile, penury and death followed soon after his release. It would take nearly 70 years for consensual homosexual acts between men over 21 to be decriminalised in England, and another half-century for more than 50,000 people convicted of the former offence to be pardoned posthumously. The pardons were issued under a piece of legislation popularly known as the Alan Turing law — after the pioneering computer scientist who was subjected to the cruelty of chemical castration for his sexual orientation. Whether Wilde was among those pardoned is a little ambiguous as no names were released. In any case, as his grandson told a UK newspaper, 'all it would do is make the British establishment feel better about itself… History's history, and you can't start rewriting it.' Nevertheless, an acknowledgement of past injustice and persecution is always welcome, and the same goes for the British Library's decision. It's a tad late, though — perhaps the library ought to pay a fine. As Wilde almost definitely said, 'The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.'
Indian Express
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
British Library to reinstate Oscar Wilde's reader pass 130 years after ‘gross indecency' conviction
The British Library will reinstate Oscar Wilde's reader pass 130 years after it was revoked by the British Museum's Reading Room following his conviction for 'gross indecency'. The pass will be presented to Wilde's grandson, Merlin Holland, at a commemorative event in October 2025. Wilde, who had first obtained his card in 1879, had it formally cancelled on June 15, 1895 after he was imprisoned following one of the most infamous trials of the Victorian era. The chain of events that ultimately culminated in Wilde's expulsion from the library began with a calling card. Left at Wilde's club by the Marquess of Queensberry, father of Lord Alfred Douglas, with whom Wilde was in a relationship with, the card accused him of being a 'posing somdomite.' A grave charge as homosexuality was a criminal offence at the time. Rather than ignore the jibe, Wilde sued for libel. At trial, the defence seized on semantics, insisting Queensberry had meant 'posing as a sodomite', not asserting it as fact, otherwise, the Marquess asserted, he would have shot Wilde 'on sight'. Though Queensberry was the defendant, it was Wilde who found himself under scrutiny. The libel case collapsed. He would go on to face two further trials, eventually being convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years in prison. Shortly after his sentencing, the British Museum's trustees recorded the cancellation of his privileges in their minutes: 'The Trustees directed that Mr Oscar Wilde, admitted as a reader in 1879 and sentenced at the Central Criminal Court on 25th May to two years' imprisonment with hard labour, be excluded from future use of the Museum's Reading Room.' It is unclear whether Wilde knew of his expulsion. In a June 13 interview to The Guardian, Holland said: 'Oscar had been in Pentonville prison for three weeks when his pass was cancelled, so he wouldn't have known about it, which was probably as well. It would have added to his misery to feel that one of the world's great libraries had banned him from books just as the law had banned him from daily life. But the restitution of his ticket is a lovely gesture of forgiveness, and I'm sure his spirit will be touched.' In 2017, more than a century after Wilde's death, the UK government issued posthumous pardons to thousands convicted under historical anti-homosexuality laws.
