Having started life as an insurance agent, Sherriff began writing plays to help raise funds for his beloved Kingston Rowing Club. After five years and five plays he realised he had another calling and started a more personal work on his experiences of the front line. Journey’s End originally started as a novel but later turned into a play set in a dugout near St Quentin in March 1918, just before the last great German offensive of the First World War. The play was sent to the agent Curtis Brown, frowned upon by George Bernard Shaw, and was only produced by the Incorporated Stage Society on 9 December 1928 because they had a free slot. But the odds were still stacked against it when James Whale, an untested director, took over the helm with a rudimentary set and miniscule budget. Reputable actors refused to risk their reputation on a controversial play from a relatively unknown playwright. But, as David Grindley points out, this ‘allowed the little-known actor Laurence Olivier to be cast as Stanthorpe and, without a star, the play remained the focus of attention.’

With many more dramas unfolding that are straight out of an Ealing play, public taste was eventually deemed more sophisticated than commercial managements gave it credit for. With insurmountable odds stacked against it, by the end of 1929, 14 companies were performing the play with 17 translations running in Europe. The rest, as they say, is history. Sherriff went on to pen classics such as Goodbye Mr Chips and The Dam Busters. Just as the most difficult problem of his cast in Journey’s End is the concealment of fear, so too the playwright has kept his nerve in the face of adversity: an equally motivating testament.

Like many of his generation, Sherriff loathed war but took great pride in his regiment for whom he would hold a lifelong affection. Although his own personal experiences of war were relatively quiet by some standards – he narrowly missed out on the Battle of Loos which saw a platoon massacred as they approached the unbroken wire of the German Line and then Delville Wood in 1916, which was an equally vicious bloodbath – he was hit in the face by fragments of a shell burst at the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) and returned home. However, he’d seen enough to write a play that perfectly strikes a balance between humour and tragedy with characters drawn from an amalgam of people he had lived aside. It is as resonant now as it was then because it does the one thing that all good writing does; it brings in the human dimension.

Without wishing to sound flippant, buying a poppy is an important cultural gesture but it’s an empty signifier if you’re unable to connect with the subject – a bit like clicking ‘like’ on a Facebook Group. Two hours and forty minutes of a sparsely lit stage and I was right there in with the cast and it felt like I’d been with them for years. The play is a master class in empathy and should be compulsory viewing for students – if you want them to realise why hanging off the Cenotaph is so offensive.

Given the emotional force of the play, I’m stunned that commercial companies of the day couldn’t see the public interest. It enabled families to grieve their loved ones – remembering that there was barely a British family untouched by a loss which just goes to show the complete lack of perception on the part of those with the financial clout to make a difference, even when the critics were telling them otherwise. I can think of no better motivation for a writer to rip up their rejection slips and persevere with their work than Sherriff’s story. As Christmas looms and the celebrity novels pack out the shelves of Asda, perhaps it’s time that agents and publishers remembered that the public are far more sophisticated in their tastes than they are given credit for and that the current no-frills approach to commercial success is a cheap, quick-fix solution that could be resolved by having a little bit more faith.

Journey’s End runs until Saturday 19 November. Read a review here.

If you enjoy the play and want to know more about boredom in the trenches, then read Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia

On the other hand, the position of Poet Laureate has been afforded far more prestige and can be traced back to King James 1st when he created the position (as we know it today) for Ben Jonson in 1617. However, as is often the case with British history, there’s some ambiguity about specifics with evidence suggesting that Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 – 1400) was actually the first to receive the accolade when he was given ten shillings and an annual allowance of wine in 1389 to entertain King Henry 1st. Yet there is no such thing as a Novelist Laureate so this could be seen as another rare victory for poetry over fiction.

It’s also been a good year for poetry with regards to awards, with Mark Goodwin taking the inaugural East Midlands Book Award. It’s not often you see a poet usurp a novelist when it comes to prizes although having Ian McMillan on the judging panel would have helped.

So if you’d like to celebrate National Poetry Day this year, the theme set by Jo Bell – the NPD Director – is ‘Games.’ No big surprise here given that London (not Britain) is soon to benefit a massive cash injection from the Olympics. But forget sport and interpret this more widely, think of all the games politicians have been playing with our lives, that bankers have been playing with our money. Think of the games you have to play on the phone when you try to ring up someone at the bank and get held up in queues or sent from department to department. These are the kind of games I’d like to hear about so if you’re interested, then get down to Speakers’ Corner in Nottingham City Centre between 3-5pm. LeftLion have hooked up with The Nottingham Writers’ Studio to drag along as many poets as possible to have a poetical rant. Remember, we’re the only city outside of the Big Smoke to have this unique place dedicated to free speech so please join us.

Two other events going on locally include, ‘Breaking the Silence Open Mic’ at Central Library (11am -3pm). This is hosted by Mouthy Poets so expect something out of the ordinary. Rumour has it that they’ll be combining their poems with a DJ and if past performances are anything to go by, they’ll be expecting full audience participation. Alternatively, Mathew Welton has requested people bring six copies of their favourite poems to Trent Building, Room A46, University of Nottingham (6-8pm) to continue the celebration into the evening.

If you’ve read this blog early in the morning, then tune into BBC Radio Nottingham at 8.50am and you’ll hear Aly Stoneman roaring for LeftLion and explaining more about the Speakers’ Corner event.

In lesser hands this could potentially seem contrived, like some technical skill learned by an overzealous MA student. But Munro’s writing is effortless, perfectly weighted and emotional. You really get inside the characters heads. Here’s an example of one story. A man is buried but we quickly discover he’s ‘beat’ his wife to it as she has terminal cancer. A few days later a man knocks at her door. She lets him in and he turns out to be a psycho. He insists she makes him a tea and gets threatening. With nothing to lose, she lies and tells the man she’s poisoned his drink. Shocked at her confident defiance, he becomes rattled and demands the keys to her car. She hands them over. Later the police knock at the door. They inform her that the car has been in an accident and the man has died. He’s wanted for murder. She acts coy and says she left the keys in the car. The policeman patronises this supposedly doddery old woman, telling her to be more careful. The reader knows what she has been through and you can’t help but admire her dignity as well as her will to live. The event gives her life so much meaning.

My synopsis might not convince you, which is more reason to read the book and see how bizarre twists can be perfectly sutured together. Deconstruction is also a useful writing tip. For the past month I’ve been going through my own book, writing a one sentence summary of each chapter for an agent who’s interested in it. He says this is essential to see where the story is going and it’s been incredibly useful. It’s got me viewing my work with more detachment. Try it next time you write something, but first of all get down the library. I’ll be resentfully returning my copy on Monday.

A group of people who weren’t out rioting were Safe and Sounds, a Nottingham-based collective committed to raising awareness, money and support for all those affected by natural disasters. ‘We find it hard to sit back and watch the lives of others – whose shoes we could so easily walk in – get turned upside down by forces beyond their control… and so we decided to do something, and have called upon a spectrum of talent to help.’ You could be part of that talent and score some Pearly Gate points in the process. 

After a successful launch party in May – the proceeds of which went to the Japan tsunami relief fund - they have now set their sights on a much bigger venture. And so, on Sunday September 25th they will be holding an all-day, multi-venue event across the city centre, to raise money for the British Red Cross’ Disaster Fund, and six other relevant charities which will be decided by the public. Given the growing frequency of natural disasters, expect many causes desperately fighting over the pennies.

Artists, poets and writers aren’t traditionally the wealthiest of people as they are usually the first to feel the brunt of the cuts. Take BBC Radio 4. The short story in the Afternoon Reading was recently reduced from five days a week to three and now it’s going down to one a week. At this rate we’ll be down to 140 characters next. This is of course the same BBC that introduced the National Short Story Award a few years ago. So if there’s anyone likely to loot for trainers it is those with pen in hand. But the good thing about being skint and unappreciated is it gives you plenty of material to write about which you can then perform for free for noble causes.

The next Safe and Sounds event will be spoken word at Lee Rosy’s Tea Room (Broad Street, Nottingham) starting at 7pm (finish time tbc). Nicola Monaghan (The Killing Jar, Starfishing) will be taking part so it’s also a great opportunity to perform with an established author and local favourite. You can do this by filling out the contact form on their website or by joining their Facebook Group for more information. The woman with the big heart driving this project is Hannah Elizabeth Boylin. Respect.

I was really eager to get an interview with each of the ten authors over the proceeding weeks to help promote the event. This was important as LeftLion has been more of a meow than a roar when it has come to discussing gay culture (barring of course the excellent ‘Gay up me duck’) so this was a chance for us to really redeem ourselves as well as widen our audience.

It was inappropriate for me to do the interviews which led to an interesting discussion as to why. As obvious as this might seem, is it any different to say interviewing a refugee from Somalia? Both identities are equally disparate to that of my own. And as I soon discovered, reading Sarah Waters doesn’t count as some lesbians feel she doesn’t go into enough sexual detail – which reminded me a little of the Larry Kramer (The Dead Heart) argument about homosexuals being defined by promiscuity.

The great thing to come from this discussion was the discovery of local author Rebecca S Buck who is now our resident expert on gay and lesbian culture who kindly did all of the interviews currently online. This is fantastic news, as along with the acquisition of Ian Douglas as our young adult fiction reviewer, and Christie Fearn as our new ‘local history’ reviewer, we are really starting to get a team of genre specialists together.

But the best laid plans of mice and men…our server went down a week before the BSB launch which meant we couldn’t feature all of the writers that Rebecca had worked so hard interviewing. There were other consequences as well. Firstly, we had to prematurely migrate to a new server which has meant we’ve had to launch our new website early –glitches and all. Secondly, I don’t have administration rights yet and so I’ve been unable to upload new content and so the home page is full of lesbian interviews that led up to the event! Talk about feast or famine. I’ve also potentially lost five years of contacts as I can’t access my old email account. But enough of that, LeftLion 42 made it out on to the streets and features an interview with Roman Nottinghamshire author Mark Patterson.

With regards to future reviews of lesbian fiction in LeftLion, these will go in ‘normally’ like any other book. I think it’s important not to make a big thing of sexuality as defining an author although obviously it needs to be mentioned if it’s essential to the narrative. I’ve never been a fan of colour coded reviews. The ‘pink press’ is as bad as calling elderly writers the ‘grey press’. But we can be more sensitive in the magazine whereas we had to be more explicit promoting the Bold Strokes Books event online as it was a specific gathering of lesbian authors.

Writing the front page intros for these interviews was fun, particularly given the LeftLion house style: Lesley Davis ‘Imagine a Gotham City full of lesbians all playing Mario and you have a little insight into the mind of this author..’ or Gill McKnight ‘Romantic lesbian fiction that features werewolves. What more do you need to know?’ Yeah, I was right not to do the interviews…