Higham Ferrers Arts Weekend: perigrines, pilots and a paperback

Now, having returned to the town for the day, she and guest of honour Lisa Rowley from the Wildlife Trust unveiled her latest work which features two peregrine falcons which had made a home at the St Mary's Church spire during her time in Higham Ferrers.

''This work is a tribute to living in Higham Ferrers. It really is a lovely place to have a home'', Ophelia told the audience at the Chantry Chapel, next to the church.

Ophelia the 2021 Sky Landscape Artist of the Year, put her final touches to the her peregrine painting, just before leaving for her new home in Norfolk for Higham Ferrers and the town's first Art Weekend, where she was one of the speakers.

The special weekend, which featured several events, was organised by the The Friend's of St Mary's - a secular group dedicated to the preservation of the Town's grade 1 listed buildings (the Church, Chantry Chapel and Bede House).

The afternoon with Ophelia and a friend- author Artem Mozgovoy- was organised by Higham Ferrers Tourism, which partnered with the Friends of St Mary's for the inaugural Arts Weekend.

Ophelia plans to put a photograph of the peregrines on her website and will sell prints of the birds, with a percentage of the proceeds going towards the costs for the restoration of St Mary's bellcote.

Ophelia gave her talk in the Bede House before everyone moved across to the nearby Chantry Chapel where her peregrine painting had been under wraps.

She spoke about her life as an artist and the various styles and techniques which had influenced her, including those of her grandparents, who were both acclaimed painters.

When Artem- a prize winning writer and journalist from Siberia took over the microphone, it was to tell the audience that he had written his book ‘Spring in Siberia’ 10 years ago, but it was only after Sir Stephen Fry had read the original manuscript that he finally found an agent and a publisher. Sir Stephen had hailed the book as ‘touching and.. genuinely compelling’.

Launched in London a year ago, Spring in Siberia is labelled as a novel, but Artem said it was more a family story.

Artem moved to Europe in 2011 when Russia began legalising its persecution of gay people and he had a series of jobs- including being a magician's assistant, before settling in Brussels, Belgium.

He read extracts from his book and afterwards was kept busy selling- and signing-copies.

Artem volunteers at the Ukranian Refugee Centre in Belgium and his next book, which will be published in September, is based on stories he had collected in his diary while volunteering.

The Arts Weekend also included '' An evening with the Wellingborough Community Gospel Choir'' and a talk by Victoria Wickes, grand-daughter of the prolific author, H E Bates CBE which focussed on his time as an RAF officer.

Victoria recounted how HE Bates had written under the pseudonym of Flying Officer X and had produced 24 stories portraying the lives of bomber and fighter pilots.

In keeping with the wartime theme, several people were dressed in 1940's- era clothing. Meanwhile in the kitchen, Ria Jeffers and her mother, Jane Chambers, part of the wartime re-enactment group 'Family at War' were preparing to serve WWII fare , corned beef and cheese and onion pies, and other delights. They had already baked dozens of Spitfire-shaped biscuits.

Ria's son Thomas, 7, part of the Family at War group, was also there, and dressed as a wartime pilot.