Daily Archives: 21 September 2013

Sep 21

The Greatest Dog Show on Earth!

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As you may be aware the LJST HQ, the Beaufort Arms in Hawkesbury Upton, played host to Harmony Gromit for ten weeks in the summer of 2013 and as a follow up, my wife Fiona and I went to the “The Greatest Dog Show on Earth!” last night as sponsors, and bumped in to some old friends, first and foremost being ‘Salty Sea Dog’ Harmony Gromit by the Founder and Creative Director of Aardman Animations, Peter Lord.

As my alter-ego ‘Long John Steedsy’ I couldn’t resist seeking out Salty and having my picture taken with him in the ‘Novelty Dogs’ category. Imagine my delight when buying the brilliant new book ‘The Art of Gromit Unleashed’, I discovered some of Peter’s preparation drawings for Salty himself. His tattoos are a real hoot.

Whilst there we met several other old friends, including Royston Griffey and Bob McKeown from the Long John Silver Trust (this time representing the Matthew, host to Newfoundland Gromit) and Bristol Mayor George Fergusson, resplendent in his red trousers as usual and cock-a-hoop at the success of the Gromit Unleashed Trail.

We joked with them about Bristol’s successor to Gromit and while Royston was keen on Unicorns, George was all for pirates, he could envision a stack of Long John Silvers around the city and I was with him all of the way.

Mark Steeds (Secretary and LJST Trustee, and landlord of the Beaufort Arms)

Photos below, click an image to enlarge …

Royston Griffey and Bob McKeown from the Long John Silver Trust  

Salty's Tattoos 

Mark at "The Greatest Dog Show on Earth" 

Sep 21

Historic Walks, Talks and Re-enactments

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So far, 2013 has been a great one for historic, walks, talks and re-enactments.

The Long John Silver Trust has been involved in many things ranging from Medieval re-enactment on the Matthew to helping promote Pirates of Penzance at the Bristol Hippodrome for Scottish Opera and Promenade Productions. We also helped Knowle West Media Group with their work on the Temple Development Zone as history consultants.

Our bread and butter however is talking to people either in their meeting rooms or taking them around and about Old Bristol. We can even do readings of Treasure Island in costume, the highlight being our participation in the RLS Club’s celebration of Stevenson last year (2012) at the Scottish Portrait Gallery actually on RLS Day – 23rd November.

We’ve given talks all over the West and topics range from Pirates and Privateers out of Bristol to Bristol’s Reforming Women (others include the anti-slavery campaigners Wulfstan and Clarkson, the Knife and Fork Man [Charles Redrupp] and the Clevedon Car Man [Richard Stevens]).

Please get in touch if any of the talks interest you, all proceeds go to the LJS Trust.

The picture below is a water colour sketch of LJST vice chairman Prof ‘Billy Bones’ Fairney (as Blind Pew) and LJST secretary Mark ‘Long John’ Steedsy (as Silver). The sketch was done by Sam Kendon after our appearance at St Michaels-on-the-mount-without Primary School in Bristol.