LATEST EVENTS

LIVE DATES at a GLANCE 

(SHROPSHIRE and the BORDERS)

(keep scrolling for more detailed listings)

Shrewsbury library Saturday 12th October

Shrewsbury Pets & Friends Saturday 26th October

Oswestry Library Tuesday 29th & 30th October

Caffi Wyllfa, Chirk Friday 1st November

Coed y Dinas (Charlies) Welshpool, 2nd November

Shrewsbury Pets & Friends Saturday 23rd November

Hafan Yr Afon, Newtown Friday 29th November

Caffi Wylfa Chirk Saturday 30th November

OTHER UK VENUES

WCF Pet & Equestrian Ulverston, Cumbria October 19th

(keep scrolling for more detailed listings)

PET CARICATURING & BOOK SIGNING  

SHREWSBURY LIBRARY 

Saturday 12th OCTOBER 2024 10am - 4pm  

FREE EVENT

An opportunity to purchase a signed caricature of your pet from your phone photos. Drawings take approximately 10 minutes. My funny animal poetry books will be available.

Caricature prices start at £15 Book prices from £6.50

Venue Location; Castle Gates, Shrewsbury SY1 2AS     Phone; 01743 255308

PET CARICATURING & BOOK SIGNING  

WCF Pet & EQUESTRIAN, CUMBRIA

Saturday 19th OCTOBER 2024  9.30am - 5.30pm  

FREE EVENT

An opportunity to purchase a signed caricature of your pet from your phone photos. Drawings take approximately 10 minutes. My funny animal poetry books will be available, including 'DOGS'

Caricature prices start at £15 Book prices from £6.50

Venue Location; WCF Pet & Equestrian, Ulverston, Cumbria LA12 7LB     Phone; 01229 582401

Situated opposite Booths supermarket with convenient parking.

PET CARICATURING & BOOK SIGNING 

SHREWSBURY PETS & FRIENDS 

SATURDAY 26th OCTOBER 2024  9.30am till 5.30pm     

FREE EVENT

An opportunity to purchase a signed caricature of your pet from your phone photos. Drawings take approximately 10 minutes. My funny animal poetry books will be available.

Caricature prices start at £15 Book prices from £6.50

Venue location; Pets & Friends, Lancaster Retail Park SY1 3AZ Phone; 01743 440884

PET CARICATURING & BOOK SIGNING 

OSWESTRY LIBRARY

Tuesday 29th - 30th October  11am - 5.00pm  

Two Day FREE EVENT

An opportunity to purchase a signed caricature of your pet from your phone photos. Drawings take approximately 10 minutes. My funny animal poetry books will be available.

Caricature prices start at £15 Book prices from £6.50

Venue Location; Oswestry Library, Arthur Street, SY11 1JN  Phone; 01743 250351

PET CARICATURING & BOOK SIGNING 

CAFE WYLFA, CHIRK  

Friday November 1st 2024  9.30am - 5.00pm  

FREE EVENT

An opportunity to purchase a signed caricature of your pet from your phone photos. Drawings take approximately 10 minutes. My funny animal poetry books will be available.

Caricature prices start at £15 Book prices from £6.50

Venue Location; Caffi Wylfa, Castle Road, Chirk Wrexham LL14 5BS   Phone; 01691 770492

A beautiful location a short distance from the Llangollen canal, Chirk tunnel and aqueduct.

Great dog walking opportunities! Caffi Wylfa has a covered outside area with tables for dog owners.

https://caffiwylfa.com/

PET CARICATURING & BOOK SIGNING  

COED y DINAS Country Store Welshpool 

SATURDAY 2nd NOVEMBER 2024  10am till 5pm  

FREE EVENT

An opportunity to purchase a signed caricature of your pet from your phone photos. Drawings take approximately 10 minutes. My funny animal poetry books will be available.

Caricature prices start at £15 Book prices from £6.50

Venue location; Coed y Dinas, Welshpool SY21 8RP Phone; 01938 555 545

https://www.coedydinas.co.uk/

PET CARICATURING & BOOK SIGNING 

SHREWSBURY PETS & FRIENDS 

SATURDAY 23rd NOVEMBER 2024  9.30am till 5.30pm   

 FREE EVENT

An opportunity to purchase a signed caricature of your pet from your phone photos. Drawings take approximately 10 minutes. My funny animal poetry books will be available.

Caricature prices start at £15 Book prices from £6.50

Venue location; Pets & Friends, Lancaster Retail Park SY1 3AZ Phone; 01743 440884

PET CARICATURING & BOOK SIGNING 

HAFAN YR AFON, NEWTOWN 

Pop up Powys Trade fare

Friday November 29th 2024  10am - 4.00pm  

FREE EVENT

An opportunity to purchase a signed caricature of your pet from your phone photos. Drawings take approximately 10 minutes. Caricature prices start at £15.

My funny animal poetry books will be available for signing.

Venue Location; Hafan Yr Afon, Newtown, Powys SY16 6NH   Phone; 01686 880777

Located on the river side behind the main town car park and park. A modern events centre and café with ample public parking. Shopping centre nearby. 

PET CARICATURING & BOOK SIGNING 

CAFE WYLFA, CHIRK  

Saturday November 30th 2024  9.30am - 5.00pm  

FREE EVENT

An opportunity to purchase a signed caricature of your pet from your phone photos. Drawings take approximately 10 minutes. My funny animal poetry books will be available.

Caricature prices start at £15 Book prices from £6.50

Venue Location; Caffi Wylfa, Castle Road, Chirk Wrexham LL14 5BS   Phone; 01691 770492

A beautiful location a short distance from the Llangollen canal, Chirk tunnel and aqueduct.

Great dog walking opportunities! Caffi Wylfa has a covered outside area with tables for dog owners.

https://caffiwylfa.com/

'When I was Young and Foolish' official book launch

 When I was Young and Foolish was published in 2021, but because of Covid, I never really got around to a live launch event. Well here it is! And to celebrate, I will be drawing a free quick sketch in my illustration style for everyone who buys a book. So come to Shrewsbury Library and join in the fun. All three volumes are fully illustrated in colour. Check out my website for more info or for enquiries email; bardsleytart@gmail.com

My new Shropshire book, Bloom Town will also be available

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Bloom Town book launch at Shrewsbury library, June 1st 2024

 

Bloom Town

 'Bloom Town', published by Yew Tree Press, is my first collection of serious poetry. I explore a wide variety of aspects of my home county, Shropshire, lifting the lid on some of it's many intriguing secrets.

The overall approach is predominantly pastoral in feel and yet there is an urban flavour to this first volume, hence the title, which is taken from my piece set in Shrewsbury, Shropshire's medieval county town. The poem Bloom Town describes Shrewsbury's park and the sunken garden known as the Dingle (a repurposed quarry pit, often referred to as the Quarry). Some of my earliest childhood memories were formed in this evocative Victorian landscape and I am drawn back there constantly.

Locations covered also include the Iron Bridge Gorge, Lyth Hill, the Long Mynd, Wellington, Dawley, Badger, Wenlock Edge, Acton Scott, Bridgnorth, Uffington, Newport, Allscott, Ludlow, Alberbury, the Wrekin and Wem.

Shropshire like any other county in the UK is a rich vein for the poet, having been historically overwritten many times in terms of landscape, architecture and culture. The area is bisected by the Britain's longest river, the Severn, embracing moorland and peak reaching as high as seventeen hundred feet, and more often than not, crowned with the familiar ring ditch configuration of the enigmatic Celtic hill fort. The plains are equally dramatic, irrigated by rich water ways, meres and mosses -  home to a spectacular population of wildlife.

Bloom Town takes a tour of the landscape, stopping to muse on Shropshire's industrial and literary heritage. There are some famous names; 1930s long distance flyer, Amy Johnson who flew gliders on the Long Mynd, Mary Webb well known for her Hardyesque novels and exquisite poetry, Percy Thrower, the most memorable face of the BBC's Gardener's World program - he was the second presenter from 1969 to 1976, and of course the poet Philip Larkin who spent his first three formative working years at the Walker Street Library in Wellington, a place where I also spent many page thumbing hours as a teenager.

Bloom Town is illustrated with my own pencil sketches, some drawn on location others relying on an ever increasing photographic archive. I've tried to hint at things rather than depict too broadly, zooming in on detail in the same way that I hope the verses do.

This volume has 32 pages, is staple bound in silk finished stiff card and contains 21 poems with 21 accompanying monochrome graphite drawings. The water colour cover design uses a Rampion or Rapunzel flower (campanula rapunculus) as a motif and reflects Shropshire's county colours, Yellow-gold and dark blue.

Bloom Town can be ordered directly from Yew Tree Press (just hit the link on my website) or if you have a UK address, you can request a signed copy via bardsleyart@gmail.com, price £6.50 + £1.20 UK p&p. You can also pay via Paypal to the above email.

The Squatters Cottage, currently re-erected on a new site at the Iron Bridge Gorge museum.

 Squatters

We love to put ourselves there,

stooping over humility’s threshold,

drawn to the fire inside.

It does us good – life on a human scale;

two rooms, an eight out of nine survival rate -

notable for the time.

A family content to survive

beneath stones and boughs,

safe in each others arms,

counting themselves wealthy,

imagining themselves free.

When I Was Young and Foolish

 I came up with the title for my book about childhood (chiefly my own) as a tribute, partly to A.A. Milne and Ernest Shepard, the creators of Winnie the Pooh and who also gave us the delightful children's poetry collections, 'When We Were Very Young' and 'Now We are Six', and partly in memory of my Grandfather who was forever warbling snatches of the 1954 melody, 'Young and Foolish' made popular in the 1950s by the likes of Tony Bennet and Dean Martin.

Many of the poems are based on real events. At least 30 of them are very much the tale of my own childhood and others are ideas that were drifting around or came from other peoples experiences. I suppose I could very easily write another volume purely based on school experiences and one day perhaps I will.

The illustrations were tremendous fun to do and researching for some of the detailed elements such as the Corgi Chipperfield Circus lorry, the Apollo Lunar Module, Spitfire and Action Man, brought fond memories flooding back. The photo albums had to come out as well of course.

Incidentally the Chipperfield circus lorry was a cherished toy that I used to great effect in play ground long distance competitions. Toy company Corgi produced an extensive set of circus vehicles in the 1960s, complete with trailers, accessories, clown, monkey, giraffes, lions, etc. 

The closing verse of 'Chipperfield' laments the fact that my favourite truck had long gone the way of most old toys. I am, however delighted to report that recently its replacement came to light in a Shrewsbury antique shop. It even has virtually the same damage that mine had sustained after many high octane junior school contests.

'When I Was Young and Foolish' is a larger format paperback like it's predecessors 'Animal Poems and 'Dogs' and, like them, is also aimed at families in general. My hope is that parents and children can read together, the way my parents did with me when I was very young.

Copies can be ordered from Amazon, just click the book links on my website or if you are ever in my home town of Shrewsbury in the UK, the Raven Bookshop has signed copies.

If you are in the UK and would like to order signed copies you can do so by request at the email address on my website. The UK price is £14.99 + £2.40 p&p and you will get my free book mark too!