Upcoming Society Events for 2025

Wednesday 13 August 2025 — Llewelyn Powys birthday walk

From Neil Lee-Atkin:

This year The Sailors Return will be open and happy to host us again, so it will now be back to the usual format; meet at 12 noon at The Sailors Return for lunch, reading, and annual toast, and then set off for Llewelyn’s memorial stone via Chydyok around 1.30pm. 

All are welcome to participate in the meeting and walk.

Tuesday 23 September 2025 — Women of the Powys Circle:

Latest in the series of zoom discussions curated and led by Dawn Collins.

Dorothy Richardson, Pointed Roofs (First book in the Pilgrimage Series)

At 19:00 BST

All those wishing to participate in the ZOOM discussion please e-mail Dawn Collins at photowink@me.com
ZOOM connection details will be emailed to individuals well before the meeting.

Dorothy Richardson's outstanding sequence of thirteen autobiographical novels starting with Pointed Roofs (1915) was a groundbreaking modernist representation of life and consciousness: as daring and radical as anything by Virginia Woolf or James Joyce. She has been credited as the first “stream of consciousness” writer but she disliked the term. JCP admired her greatly as a writer and their correspondence (available from Dawn via the Cecil Woolf books page) is outstanding.

Saturday 11 October 2025 — A Discussion of Weymouth Sands, Chapter 1 ,
Led by Kevin Taylor, editor of The Powys Journal

Venue: Friends Meeting House, 120 Heath Street, Hampstead, NW3 1DR
Time: 14.00-16.00

In honour of our late President,
Timothy Hyman, RA

We have chosen Weymouth Sands for this day honouring Tim because it was his favourite novel by JCP. In Chapter One, which establishes the atmosphere and landscape of the novel, readers may detect JCP’s influence on Tim’s own artistic practice: panoramic scenes, evocations of childhood memories (“Weymouth is my home and ever will be” said JCP in his diary), the topographical representation of real places, landmarks, streets and buildings, the elemental world “between the land and the sea”, and especially a cast of extraordinary characters. In Chapter One we are introduced to Magnus Muir, a teacher of Latin, who JCP described as the hero of the novel, and who is clearly a self-portrait. We are also introduced to other characters, their individual stories and interactions - Perdita Wane, Jobber Skald, Sylvanus Cobbold and Curly Wix all of whom have important roles later in the novel. The characters of the book, said JCP, seemed to him to emerge in a rush out of limbo and airy nothing. They are portrayed convincingly with empathy and a vivid sense of physical presence. But JCP found working on the novel, including Chapter One, difficult to achieve. He worked slowly and carefully, like a craftsman, utilising he said the powers of a magician. He experienced several false starts but retained the first paragraph of Chapter One which is a magnificent description of the sea and waves. JCP commenced writing Weymouth Sands at the beginning of February 1932, using his father’s quill pen, and finished the novel in 1933.

Weymouth Sands was first published in USA in 1934. The novel first appeared in the UK in 1935 under the title Jobber Skald and included many alterations and substitutions of names to avoid accusations of libel. A complete edition of Weymouth Sands, emending the earlier version published as Jobber Skald, was first published in UK by Macdonald in 1963. Other modern editions have followed. An e-book, published by the Powys Society, is available on Kindle.

Suggested background reading:

• Dry Sand and Wet Sand – a close reading of Weymouth Sands, by Anthony Low in In The Spirit Of Powys, New Essays, 1990
• Mysticism, Trivia and Sensations – Observations on Weymouth Sands by Susan Huxtable Selly in Powys Review No.11, 1982/1983
• JCP diaries 1932-1933: A Selection on the Writing of Weymouth Sands, introduced by Morine Krissdóttir, Powys Journal, Vol. II, 1992

— Chris Thomas.

All are welcome
Refreshments will be provided
The event is free.

Tuesday 1 July 2025 — Women of the Powys Circle 5

Gamel Woolsey, One Way of Love and Patterns on the Sand     

At 19:00 BST

All those wishing to participate in the ZOOM discussion please e-mail Dawn Collins at photowink@me.com
ZOOM connection details will be emailed to individuals well before the meeting.

Gamel Woolsey was the lover of Llewelyn Powys, friend of Alyse Gregory, and the wife of Gerald Brenan.

Saturday 31 May 2025 — Llewelyn Powys as regional writer

The meeting will be introduced and led by Anthony Head

Venue: The Dorset Museum, High West Street, Dorchester DT1 1XA
Community Space on the ground floor adjacent to the reception area.
Time: 13.00-16.00

A meeting to discuss some of Llewelyn Powys’s West Country essays, mostly written from the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s, especially those collected in the various editions of Earth Memories, Dorset Essays, Somerset Essays and A Baker’s Dozen. Members are invited to present for discussion their own choice of works by Llewelyn and give readings of their favourite passages.

Anthony Head has edited many well-known Powys titles. These include JCP’s letters: Powys to Sea Eagle and Letters to a Japanese Friend and JCP’s 1929 Diaries. He has also edited A Struggle for Life (Oneworld Classics, 2011) which includes essays spanning the whole of Llewelyn Powys’s career as a writer, and a modern edition of Earth Memories (Little Toller Books, 2015).

Attendees are also invited to meet for lunch in the restaurant of the Kings Arms Hotel, 30 High East Street, Dorchester DT1 1HF
Time: 11.30-13.00

Thomas Hardy mentions the Kings Arms in Far From the Madding Crowd, The Mayor of Casterbridge and The Woodlanders. On the way to the Museum attendees may wish to note the plaque erected in memory of JCP at 38 High East Street.

The event is free with the exception of lunch which is optional. A contribution towards the cost of refreshments at the meeting would be appreciated.

Everyone is welcome.

Tuesday 6 May 2025 — Women of the Powys Circle 4

Gamel Woolsey, Death's Other Kingdom

At 19:00 BST

All those wishing to participate in the ZOOM discussion please e-mail Dawn Collins at photowink@me.com
ZOOM connection details will be emailed to individuals well before the meeting.

Gamel Woolsey was the lover of Llewelyn Powys, friend of Alyse Gregory, and the wife of Gerald Brenan.

Wednesday 26 February 2025 — Women of the Powys Circle 3

Philippa Powys, Sorrel Barn and The Tragedy of Budvale (Sundial Press)

At 19:00 GMT

All those wishing to participate in the ZOOM discussion please e-mail Dawn Collins at photowink@me.com
ZOOM connection details will be emailed to individuals well before the meeting

In these two West Country novellas, first published by Sundial Press in 2011, Philippa Powys pursued a theme that was central to all her fiction — the entanglement of human passions caused by unrestrained desire.

Philippa Powys (or Katie) was 9th of the Powys siblings.

Tuesday 7 January 2025 — Women of the Powys Circle 2

Alyse Gregory, King Log and Lady Lea (Sundial Press)

At 19:00 GMT

All those wishing to participate in the ZOOM discussion please e-mail Dawn Collins at photowink@me.com
ZOOM connection details will be emailed to individuals well before the meeting

In her second novel, Alyse Gregory recounts the story of Richard and Mary Holland, a married couple whose seemingly conventional relationship is threatened by the arrival on the scene of Celia Linton, once the object of Richard’s attentions several years earlier and now an alluring young woman.

Alyse Gregory was the wife of Llewelyn Powys.