Poet to launch first book at Sidmouth Methodist Church

YOU are never too old to publish a book, as one Sidmouth resident has shown.

Dr Stewart Gordon, of Primley Mead, is 85 and will be launching his first book of poems he has compiled over 40 years, at Sidmouth Methodist Church hall from 10.30am to noon on Saturday, October 29.

“I have published 150 copies and they will be for sale at �10.90,” said Stewart, who is a member of the church and of Sidmouth Poetry Readers.

He will also make a donation to Save the Children Fund.

“When I started writing poetry early on, I would have been interested to be published by someone like Faber and Faber. But they don’t accept poems easily. I sent one or two off, but never a collection,” said the retired teacher and lecturer.

He has written booklets of poems about Sidmouth and The Byes and of the spirit, which, he said made �200 for the Methodist Church.

Also a keen artist, Stewart’s book is called Bromham Days and After, and he describes his poems as of “life, levity and love.”

With about 157 poems, written over a lifetime, he has had the book published by Margot Collingbourn-Beevers of d’Arblays Press, a former member of Sidmouth Poetry Readers.

A doctor of philosophy and the Yeung discipline, Stewart was headmaster of Bromham Primary, hence the title of his book.

He was “introduced to the Muse” while walking along a beach in Blackpool when he realised it was Spring and says the poem, On the Beach, which came from the experience, was written five years later.

Other topics he has written about include dogs; he has two, Topsy and Trudie, his days in Bromham, Devon, and alchemy, realism and enchantment.

Bromham Days and After will also be for sale at Paragon Books and The Mustard Seed, Sidmouth.