Name: VERA BRITTAIN AND BUXTON – A DIFFERENT STORY Talk and book launch.
Start: 2024-12-14T19:00:00+00:00
End: 2024-12-14T20:00:00+00:00
Location: Buxton Crescent Heritage Trust

$VERA BRITTAIN AND BUXTON \u2013 A DIFFERENT STORY Talk and book launch.$

Talk
Saturday 14th December 7.00pm
£12 per ticket
Available in the Pump Room or online https://buxtoncrescentexperience.com/tour/vera-brittain-and-buxton-a-different-story/
In her internationally acclaimed 1933 memoir Testament of Youth, Vera Brittain proclaimed to the world how much she hated ‘provincial young ladyhood’ in Buxton between 1905 and 1915. Vera was even ruder about the town and its residents in an autobiographical novel, Not Without Honour, published in 1924.
To this day, the idea that Vera Brittain detested her time in Buxton remains unchallenged. Perhaps this explains why the town has no formal commemoration of its most significant resident and offers visitors very little information about her.
Inspired by living in the former Buxton home of Vera and her family, Kathryn Ecclestone’s new biography draws on Vera’s letters and unpublished diary to tell a rather different story about her Buxton upbringing in the halcyon days before the First World War.
In this event to launch the book, Kathryn talks with John Phillips, former editor of the Buxton Advertiser, about Buxton’s role in shaping an intriguing young woman who went on to become one of the twentieth century’s most significant literary and political figures.

Kathryn Ecclestone is a retired Professor of Education and a well-known author and public speaker in that field. She is a member of the Buxton Civic Association and a Friend of the Buxton Crescent Heritage Trust. Testament of Lost Youth is her first biography and accompanies a new website dedicated to The Life and Testaments of Vera Brittain. In a 50-year career as a journalist, John Phillips was a reporter for the Derbyshire Times, editor for the Buxton Advertiser and press officer for the University of Derby and Buxton International Festival. He now writes for the Buxton Civic Association and International Festival in a voluntary capacity.