Cuckfield Bookfest - ÐÔÊÀ½ç´«Ã½

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At the beginning of October, pupils and staff attended two events as guests of the

On the Saturday, ÐÔÊÀ½ç´«Ã½ pupils and teachers were lucky enough to see John Crace, the political journalist. The hall was absolutely packed as John is a great raconteur. There were laughs from the audience as he wondered why Liz Truss didn’t suffer from imposter syndrome. He compared last year’s Labour conference, which was full of optimism, to this year’s much more dour affair, suggesting they were feeling the reality of being in government. The very Lib Dem audience cheered when he pointed out you could now walk from Barnstaple to Eastbourne without ever leaving a Lib Dem seat! He also spoke of his shock watching Joe Biden speak and admitted the liberal media had avoided mentioning his cognitive decline. As he pointed out, political leaders in the UK interact with people much more regularly than US Presidents, so Biden’s degeneration was less obvious. ÐÔÊÀ½ç´«Ã½ pupils loved hearing about his experiences within politics and laughed a lot. We are all looking forward to reading what Herbert, his talking dog, has to say about working for the last five Tory Prime Ministers.

On Sunday ÐÔÊÀ½ç´«Ã½ pupils sat in awe as Clare Mulley brought to life the amazing war career of indomitable Polish resistance fighter Elżbieta Zawacka. Agent Zo, as she was called, was a courier, carrying secret documents out of Nazi-occupied Poland, sometimes to Berlin itself. She led a charmed life, evading the Gestapo multiple times, even jumping from a moving train on one occasion. She was the only Polish female paratrooper and parachuted into occupied Poland in a dress! A powerful feminist advocate, Zawacka never stopped championing the role of women and continued to collect stories of women’s resistance during the war to throw light on this mostly hidden part of history, which really resonated with our pupils. Georgie was bowled over by what she managed to accomplish and asked whether Zo had spoken the languages of all the countries she travelled through fluently. Mulley explained that she took a crash course in the language before she travelled to a country so that whilst she wasn’t fluent in all languages she could converse with people. Emily said that the talk made her want to learn about more female-focused history in her A Levels. The pupils all left the hall humbled by Zawacka’s achievements.

Overall it was another successful bookfest for ÐÔÊÀ½ç´«Ã½.

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