The Heysham Viking Festival is in my opinion one of the best ”Viking Age“ shows in Britain. It is community led, unlike many of the identikit shows run by the big heritage organisations and the support from the locals brings the very best out in the groups that provide the living history and battle re-enactments.
Working with independent groups as well as the big re-enactment societies gives them a flexible, progressive approach that allows me to demonstrate fine craft work while wearing my glasses which is a bonus.
It is therefore a matter of some personal pride that I was awarded “Best individual living history exhibit of 2018”, which was judged by a secret family group over the weekend.
Since I was wearing my glasses for most of that weekend I can only assume they were not considered an issue and in fact only one member of the public commented about them all weekend to say, ”I hadn’t noticed you were wearing glasses” when I took them off to allow a photograph to be taken.
Over the weekend, I was working on a treasure cover for a new “manuscript” of Beowulf which is a project that has been long in the planning.