BBC Radio 4 Extra to repeat ST IVES AND ME Wed 21st Dec 6.30am, 1.30pm and 8.30pm: presented by Anna Chen

Spend the longest night of the year with me on BBC Radio 4 Extra when St Ives and Me is repeated on December 21st

ST IVES AND ME on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

I've just learnt from my lovely producers, Mukti Jain Campion and Chris Eldon Lee at Culture Wise, that my BBC R4 programme about the history of artists in St Ives, Cornwall, is on again.

BBC Radio 4 Extra is repeating St Ives and Me on Wednesday 21st Dec 6.30am, 1.30pm and 8.30pm. And there may even be one at 1.30 the next morning if you haven't had enough of me by then or have rolled in merry from Christmas season fun and frolix and are in need of entertainment.

Available after broadcast here.

The original broadcast in 2011 was Pick of the Day for the Radio Times, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Observer and the Independent.

St Ives, a Cornish seaside town 300 miles from comedian and poet Anna Chen's London home has been attracting artists for two centuries. A varied assortment of eccentrics, entrepreneurs and free spirits have turned the pilchard-fishing and tin-mining town into a popular cultural haven.

Anna has been holidaying there since she was ten and knew many of the famous artists who've populated and popularised St Ives.

In the late 1970s the bohemian fashion journalist and novelist Molly Parkin was a regular on the St. Ives scene and she recalls how, in the dark recesses of Mr Peggotty's disco, she introduced Anna to artist Patrick Heron. In his Porthmeor studio by the Atlantic, Heron used to make Anna mugs of tea while he painted and sketched her and their conversations opened her eyes to the arts. Revisiting those studios, she meets two present day painters maintaining the St Ives' tradition.

On a personal tour of the town, she returns to Barbara Hepworth's sculpture garden, hears about the unique light conditions that attract so many artists and reveals the vital roles Napoleon, Von Ribbentrop and the 1960s hippies played in promoting and preserving St Ives.

At lunchtime, in Norway Square, Anna performs her comic poetry in the St Ives Festival, which has been attracting trendsetters for thirty years.

And she waits on the beach, with bated breath, for the legendary 33rd wave.

Producer: Chris Eldon Lee
A Culture Wise production for BBC Radio 4.

I may even be reading a bit of poetry. Here are a few photos from St Ives September 2011. For more pix, go here.

At Tate St Ives for Martin Creed's balloon installation

Jan Jefferies and Anna

Denise and Steve Ingamells at Tate St Ives

Jan Jefferies and Charles Shaar Murray at Tate St Ives

Producer Chris Eldon-Lee interviews Valerie Hurry in the Tate St Ives Rotunda

Chris recording in Fore Street, St Ives

Chris reads at a St Ives festival session in Norway Square.
Also present, artists Bob Devereux, Keir Williamson
and the late, much missed Colin Birchall

Bob Devereux hosts the St Ives Festival lunchtime sessions in Norway Square.
With Marc Jefferies and Charles Shaar Murray

Lol in Norway Square

Rod Bullimore, Norway Square, St Ives

Buffalo Bill Smith and Colin Birchall at the Frug in the St Ives Arts Club

With Clare Wardman in the studio she shares with Iain Robertson

Clare and Iain's view over the beach from Porthmeor Studios

Charles Shaar Murray in The Hub

Anna and Jan in Barbara Hepworth's conservatory

Anna and Jan on the Island below St Nicholas Chapel

Charles Shaar Murray and Chris Eldon Lee in The Mermaid

Jan, Anna and Denise in The Mermaid

Sunset over Porthmeor Beach and the Clodgy

INTERVIEWEES:

Molly Parkin
Bob Devereux
Valerie Hurry
Steve Dove
Tony Carver
Jo McIntosh
Denise Ingamells
Annie Jackson
Iain Robertson
Clare Wardman

MUSIC AND PERFORMANCE
Charles Shaar Murray and Buffalo Bill Smith — Walking Blues by Robert Johnson
Charles Shaar Murray — Dylan in '66
Bob Devereux — Queen of the Gypsies; Oak
Lol accompanying Bob Devereux
Rod Bullimore — Last Orders; Sewage Against Surfers
Anna Chen — Ode to a Detox on Leaving St Ives; Kicking a Dinosaur

Anna's poetry collection, Reaching For My Gnu is available here

More information on Anna's radio programmes here

St Ives & Me: BBC R4 11.30am today

St Ives & Me: BBC R4 11.30am Thursday 1st December 2011
Available to listen on iPlayer for seven days

Put a face to the voices: pix here

St Ives, a Cornish seaside town 300 miles from comedian and poet Anna Chen's London home has been attracting artists for two centuries. A varied assortment of eccentrics, entrepreneurs and free spirits have turned the pilchard-fishing and tin-mining town into a popular cultural haven.

Anna has been holidaying there since she was ten and knew many of the famous artists who've populated and popularised St Ives.

In the late 1970s the bohemian fashion journalist and novelist Molly Parkin was a regular on the St. Ives scene and she recalls how, in the dark recesses of Mr Peggotty's disco, she introduced Anna to artist Patrick Heron. In his Porthmeor studio by the Atlantic, Heron used to make Anna mugs of tea while he painted and sketched her and their conversations opened her eyes to the arts. Revisiting those studios, she meets two present day painters maintaining the St Ives' tradition.

On a personal tour of the town, she returns to Barbara Hepworth's sculpture garden, hears about the unique light conditions that attract so many artists and reveals the vital roles Napoleon, Von Ribbentrop and the 1960s hippies played in promoting and preserving St Ives.

At lunchtime, in Norway Square, Anna performs her comic poetry in the St Ives Festival, which has been attracting trendsetters for thirty years.

And she waits on the beach, with bated breath, for the legendary 33rd wave.

Producer: Chris Eldon Lee
A Culture Wise production for BBC Radio 4.

St Ives Storm Claims Lives

So here I am in St Ives, Cornwall, for my birthday break and the Spring Arts Festival.

We packed the car up to the driver's eyeline with Stuff, mostly comprising my summer frocks, shorts, bikinis (a frightening proposition now that the clotted cream and pasties are taking their toll on my summer silhouette), suntan lotion, even a cute summer hat to keep the ravaging UV rays off my face.

Friends assured me they'd had five weeks of lovely weather so I was confident of resuming my life as a beach bum (my current year-round ambition).

I should have guessed something was amiss. After all, this winter they had snow settling for the first time in an age.

We drove down Friday from sunny London. That night it set in.

It's worse than Hurricane Gordon which hit the town in September 2006. We've had unprecedented storms, horizontal rain pounding the double-glazing, an unusual high tide and freezing cold. To cap it off, the new £10 million flood-prevention system they built last year to stop the Stennack road turning into a raging river every time there's a downpour, failed spectacularly.

It poured, the road turned torrential, and many of the shops and businesses in Tregenna Place and lower Stennack have been flooded. This includes one of our hangouts, the Kettle & Wink Bar in the Western Hotel; the butchers; Yeung's Chinese where they do great ribs, and the bookstore much of whose stock has turned to pulp.

Locals are muttering darkly about someone forgetting to turn on the flood system's pump!

But, worst of all, there's been loss of life. Several young locals were in a car that was swept into a stream at Zennor that usually stands a couple of inches deep. On Friday night it reached ten or fifteen feet. The chef from a local restaurant managed to escape but others are missing. Deepest sympathy to all concerned.

Today I ventured out and was immediately bombed by a seagull — bullseye! Not a normal white squelchy one, but one of those splatterers, heavy and dark with sand. I'm telling you, Mother Nature wants us gone and she's not averse to using both comedy and tragedy to get what she wants.

For anyone interested in this sort of thing, I'm performing Anna May Wong Must Die! Friday 8th May at the Salthouse Gallery, 7pm. Charles Shaar Murray performs with Buffalo Bill Smith at the (hopefully dried-out) Kettle & Wink Bar at The Western Hotel on Sunday 3rd May. And the next day (May 4) he gives us the first-ever public reading from his forthcoming novel The Hellhound Sample (published this autumn by Headpress) along with a few thoughts on The Unified Field Theory Of The Blues, a tribute to the late, great JG Ballard and a few songs with Buffalo Bill at The Salthouse Gallery.

Thanks to Steve McIntosh for the video.

St Ives Storm Claims Lives

So here I am in St Ives, Cornwall, for my birthday break and the Spring Arts Festival.

We packed the car up to the driver's eyeline with Stuff, mostly comprising my summer frocks, shorts, bikinis (a frightening proposition now that the clotted cream and pasties are taking their toll on my summer silhouette), suntan lotion, even a cute summer hat to keep the ravaging UV rays off my face.

Friends assured me they'd had five weeks of lovely weather so I was confident of resuming my life as a beach bum (my current year-round ambition).

I should have guessed something was amiss. After all, this winter they had snow settling for the first time in an age.

We drove down Friday from sunny London. That night it set in.

It's worse than Hurricane Gordon which hit the town in September 2006. We've had unprecedented storms, horizontal rain pounding the double-glazing, an unusual high tide and freezing cold. To cap it off, the new £10 million flood-prevention system they built last year to stop the Stennack road turning into a raging river every time there's a downpour, failed spectacularly.

It poured, the road turned torrential, and many of the shops and businesses in Tregenna Place and lower Stennack have been flooded. This includes one of our hangouts, the Kettle & Wink Bar in the Western Hotel; the butchers; Yeung's Chinese where they do great ribs, and the bookstore much of whose stock has turned to pulp.

Locals are muttering darkly about someone forgetting to turn on the flood system's pump!

But, worst of all, there's been loss of life. Several young locals were in a car that was swept into a stream at Zennor that usually stands a couple of inches deep. On Friday night it reached ten or fifteen feet. The chef from a local restaurant managed to escape but others are missing. Deepest sympathy to all concerned.

Today I ventured out and was immediately bombed by a seagull — bullseye! Not a normal white squelchy one, but one of those splatterers, heavy and dark with sand. I'm telling you, Mother Nature wants us gone and she's not averse to using both comedy and tragedy to get what she wants.

For anyone interested in this sort of thing, I'm performing Anna May Wong Must Die! Friday 8th May at the Salthouse Gallery, 7pm. Charles Shaar Murray performs with Buffalo Bill Smith at the (hopefully dried-out) Kettle & Wink Bar at The Western Hotel on Sunday 3rd May. And the next day (May 4) he gives us the first-ever public reading from his forthcoming novel The Hellhound Sample (published this autumn by Headpress) along with a few thoughts on The Unified Field Theory Of The Blues, a tribute to the late, great JG Ballard and a few songs with Buffalo Bill at The Salthouse Gallery.

Thanks to Steve McIntosh for the video.