In just over a week from now, the docks and marinas of Hartlepool will be a forest of masts and rigging, as the magnificent Tall Ships race comes to Teesside – and we’ll be there, performing poetry in the personae of historic Hartlepool women!

Sarah Crutwell is your host Fish Annie, who is joined on Friday by St Hilda (Kym Deyn) and her contemporary, a ‘friend of Hilda’ (imagined by Jacqui Lovell.) You’ll hear the story of the accused witch only recorded as “distraught woman” (Sarah York), and your ears will ring with the rallying cry of Seaton’s suffragette Amy Norman (Dianne Casey).

Fish Annie returns on Saturday with more female voices, from the anonymous to the infamous. ‘Friend of Hilda’ is back, this time alongside Margaret, once of many caught up in the WW1 Heugh bombardment (Kirsten Luckins) and a WW2 munition worker (Eden Mason). And watch out for the near-mythological cudgel of Navvy Nan, queen of the press-gang! (Caroline Walling)

As a special treat, we’d like to share another poem with you now that emerged from our initial writing workshops, written by Eithne Longstaff.

The Cure

From ‘The History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham: Volume 3, Stockton and Darlington Wards’: ‘[on] 28 July 1582, Office of Master Chancellor [said] against Allison Lawe, of Hart: ‘she is a notorioussorcerer and enchanter’. Sentenced to do penance once in the marketplace at Durham, ‘with a papir on herhead’, once in Harte Church and once in Norton Church. Janet Bainbridge and Janet Allenson, of Stockton, were accused of ‘asking counsell at witches’, and resorting to Alison Lawe for cure of the sick.’

The lavender at my feet sweetens
the soft air and clouds leap across
the sky like lambs. The wooden gate
presses solid against my stomach
while below, a scuttle of red-faced men
climb the path. Their coats flap around
spindly legs and they wring their
hands like dishcloths. I will not hide.

I buried the potato halves just there,
in the fresh turned soil. Janet came
with her bairn yesterday, her apron
dotted with blood from the raw
warts that pocked his small hands.
He’s tortured at school she wept, he can’t
sleep with the itch, he can’t mend the pots
for his da. The boy was silent beside her,
his curls barely reached her waist.

I bent down, don’t thank me I said,
you mustn’t or it won’t work, the cure.
I split a new pink potato, took his hands
in mine, rubbed the white starchy flesh
on his affliction, murmured the words
my mother taught me, her mother
taught her and further back the same.

The warts fell off last night and now
the men come. They’ll prise my fingers
from my post, drag me down
and the lavender mask will fall
and give way to the smell of the sea,
rotting fish, cold, blue, wet. They’ll
label me and stand me and laugh at me
and then? Then, I’ll come back.

One night there will be a knock
on the door and I will do my job,
and I will pull my daughter into the lamp
light; to learn, to follow, to descend.

“I took part in the TWP workshop ‘In her voice’ where Sarah Crutwell expertly guided us through a process to pen words in the voice of women, past and present, from the Hartlepool area. I was struck by the story of Allison Lawe, who in the 16th Century was deemed ‘a notorious sorcerer and enchanter’. She was chastised and publicly humiliated following an incident where women had asked her to help cure the sick. Using these facts as a springboard and drawing on some of my own memories of growing up in the North of Ireland, I wrote the poem ‘The Cure’ by placing myself in Allison’s shoes and imagining a specific instance of curing the sick and the ensuing arrest.

I attended the workshop via Zoom (Humira Imtiaz ensured a smooth and professional technical delivery) and particularly enjoyed the techniques Sarah used to help me make the poem – we were encouraged to root ourselves in a moment, imagine the sensory details of that moment, and then use the historical research as a starting point to create a narrative.  

Thank you to Tees Women Poets for running the workshop, for providing a nurturing community and an opportunity for me to find my own voice“

Tall Ships runs from Thursday 6th to Sunday 9th July. Information about site map, park and ride, musical acts, ship tours, and family activities can be found at The Tall Ships Hartlepool 2023