War zone Kate gets posting to...Morley
She made her name as a BBC reporter in the war zones.
And organisers of Morley Literature Festival hope Kate Adie will be making headlines as one of the stars of their week-long event.
Ms Adie, Gervase Phinn, and Tony Hawks top the bill for the third festival which runs until Sunday.
Festival director Jill Morris, who is helped by a team of 12, said its growing popularity meant this year's festival was three days longer.
She said: "Last year we sold about 800 tickets altogether and we hope to do much better this time.
"Gervase Phinn and Kate Adie are proving the most popular, but Tony Hawks is also selling well and we might even have three sell-outs."
The Town Hall and library are the main venues but there will also be events at the Borough Cafe and Cuccina cafe and authors will be visiting local schools. Yorkshire-born former schools inspector Phinn speaks on Sunday in the Town Hall.
Foreign correspondent Kate Adie, who frequently donned army uniform during her BBC days, will talk about her new book, Into Danger, and why some people are attracted to danger at the same venue on Friday.
Comedian Tony Hawks, a regular on radio's Just A Minute, will recall how he was inspired to travel around Ireland with a fridge – an experience which he turned into a book - and will also talk about his forthcoming volume, The Fridge Hiker's Guide to Life.
Duncan Hamilton, now Deputy Editor of the Yorkshire Post, spent 20 years covering Nottingham Forest during the Brian Clough years. He chronicled that time in his book Provided You Don't Kiss Me which won the William Hill Sports book of the Year Award in 2007. Duncan will talk about sports reporting on Thursday at the Town Hall.
The persecution of Nigerian vagrant David Oluwale by Leeds police caused a sensation in the 1970s and led to the establishment of the first police public relations officer in Britain.
That was the response of Home Secretary Reggie Maudling at the time.
Oluwale was last seen alive on a night in 1969 when he was beaten by two police officers and two weeks later his body was pulled out of the river.
Eighteen months later the story emerged that he had been victimised and two officers were jailed – the only time British police officers have been convicted of a police-related death.
Canadian-born writer Kester Aspden, raised in Todmorden, stumbled across the case when working at Leeds University. He interviewed many police officers before writing Nationality: Wog – The Hounding of David Oluwale. He will talk about it on Sunday in the Town Hall.
Posted: Tuesday, October 14, 2008
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