It is with great, great pleasure that I can say that the launch on Sunday for the photo book I helped out with for The Alzheimer’s Society went brilliantly. Katherine Elizabeth Lewis whose idea the whole thing was, and who’d been seriously under the weather for the whole of the week before, was able to come which made me very happy. And the turnout was splendid – the venue was full and a huge thanks to Julie and to Freya who provided first class service and cake.

The readings and readers were fab, and went down a treat (with one minor exception – here’s a Nik tip: If you’re thinking of getting very, very drunk and attending a book launch with the intention of making a scene you’re likely to make yourself look very, very silly).

Hearing the readers’ work aloud was, for me, the best bit – it was a powerful reminder of the quality of the work, both the stories, poems and haiku that are in the book and things people read that weren’t were all brilliant and varied. We even got to hear former Cheshire poet Laureate, Joy Winkler sing as part of a piece from the show she’s doing with other contributors Jo Bell and John Lindley. And I thoroughly enjoyed the reading work of people who weren’t able to attend, through bank holiday trains and living in foreign countries and being poorly (hope I did them justice!!).

And books were sold. Money was raised. And a good time was had by all.

And I got to go for a drink afterwards, and meet and chat, with some lovely people, including Janette Jones  Caroline Smailes, Mr Bubble Cow and many many more.

Brilliant. Brilliant night all round, really.

Here are some pics of some of the readers. There’ll be more to come.

And some photos courtesy of Rick Martindale