TUDOR Day Centre was celebrating the power of words last Friday and Saturday as they held a number of fringe events for the Abergavenny Writing Festival.
After five years of gathering dust and being left to rot and ruin, the writing seemed to be on the wall for the Tudor Day Centre.
Yet the iconic Abergavenny building turned a page earlier this year when The Gathering Community, now an official charity was given the keys to open the Day Centre back up and carry on the good fight.
A new chapter was about to be written!
As part of the process of becoming a pivotal part of the town again, the Gathering Community’s Owen Lewis got in touch with the organiser of the Writing Festival, Lucie Parkin, and asked if it would be ok to run a few Fringe events.
Lucy gave them the green light and the rest was history and two days of page-turning action.
Owen told the Chronicle, “Since we opened again in January the response has been great. Everybody’s been so keen to help out and even though there is so much more work to do, we’re getting there thanks to the support of the community.
“We’re only open on Monday and Tuesday at the moment but we already have a full range of activities such as the community cafe, drumming, dance, and martial arts.
“And holding these fringe events for the Writing Festival has really helped put us back on the radar and promote the fact that the doors of Tudor Street Day Centre have reopened and plan to stay that way.”
Sarah Griffiths was a regular user of Tudor Day Centre before it closed and many times during the last five years she doubted if it would ever open again.
However, when she walked back through those doors in January she told the Chronicle, “It was like coming home. I never thought it would happen. There’s so many memories here and it’s great to be back, especially on days like this when the Writing Festival has helped create a real buzz about the place.”
Alongside a pop-up Bookish store, where people could buy books from visiting authors and also get them signed, there were talks and workshops from an eclectic range of writers including authors John Alex Taylor, Colin R Parsons, Julie Pike, Chris Meredith, Kathy Biggs, Stephanie Burgis , Tim Lebbon, Jack Strange, Helen Comerford and many more.
Author Kathy Biggs told the Chronicle that although she visited Abergavenny a lot with her husband, she had never visited Tudor Day Centre before and added, "It's such a lovely building and it's great to be here to help out with such a good cause. It really is a wonderful place."
All proceeds raised from ticket sales for the day will be reinvested by the Gathering Community Charity back into the maintenance and restoration of the Tudor Street building as well as providing activities for the wellbeing and social life of the community.
