Litfest

To Maryport, for the annual Literary festival at the Senhouse Roman Museum.  This is an event not typical of the working-class community who live in Maryport, to say the least.  A night out at the Rugby club would be nearer the mark.

In the museum, over twenty of these red sandstone altars, excavated from the site of the Roman fort.  Some were used as rubble in the foundations of a Christian temple on the same site.

Essentially, these are thank offerings to specific gods for favours received.

The Serpent stone, phallic in more ways than one.  

A carving of a boar, now used as the emblem for the museum itself.

We heard talks from people with books to promote: a retired doctor who had examined post mortem reports to answer the question "Who killed Percy Topliss?"

 A train-driver's son who had written a novel about a local rail tragedy. 

 A lady who had set herself to walk around Morecambe Bay, chronicling its edgelands. 

 And a retired professor who had looked closely at the landscape and place-names in Lorton, one of our favourite haunts.  

A whole winter's reading lies ahead.