Tudor historian Alison Weir‘s event on Tuesday 10th June, which features her new book The Cardinal, could not be taking place in a more appropriate venue than the magnificent Chelmsford Cathedral given its’ chief protagonist, Cardinal Wolsey’s East Anglian roots.

The same applies for our event with Edward Wilson-Lee whose latest book The Grammar of Angels tells the fascinating story of Renaissance prodigy and polymath Giovanni Pico della Mirandola who dedicated his short, brilliant life to a quest to find the sublime. With angels in The Cathedral’s stained glass, carved into its stones, stitched into its kneelers, and fashioned into its reredoses’, audience members will be in excellent company for Edward’s event on Friday 20th June.

As for St Leonard at-the-Hythe Church, our special 1-day event Spirits, Salons and Sanctuary undoubtedly ‘chimes’ with this wonderful redundant church in the heart of Colchester, which has more than a story or two to tell about spirits and sanctuary. Not so sure about salons!

Join internationally acclaimed cultural historian and writer Marina Warner as she illuminates the concept of ‘sanctuary’ past and present via her new book Sanctuary, which explores how the idea of ‘sanctuary’ has shifted from what was once seen as an ancient rite to something quite different these days.

Meanwhile, poet Philip Terry will take his audience on a tour of his reimagined Purgatoria, which is set on Mersea Island, and poet and novelist Clare Pollard will invite us into the magical fairy-telling salons of Sixteenth Century Paris with her fabulous new novel The Modern Fairies.

Tickets for all events are available now at essexbookfestival.org.uk/events.

The post Glorious Venues appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

Saturday 20 June, 2.00pm
Chelmsford Cathedral, New Street, Chelmsford, CM1 1TY

From an award-winning journalist comes the hugely timely story of Britain’s broken asylum system and the search for belonging in Britain today. With unique and unparalleled access, former Home Office insider Nicola Kelly takes us behind the scenes what happens when you arrive here in the UK, from boat to shore to holding room and beyond.

Tickets: £15 / £12 concessions (students, under 27s and unwaged)
Box Office: essexbookfestival.org.uk or Mercury Theatre 01206 573948

Event Information

💬 The event will include an audience Q&A session.
📚 Copies of the book can be ordered online from Chelmsford Cathedral. Copies of the book will also be available to buy at the event.
🖊️ After the event there will be an opportunity to get the book signed by the author.
🪑 Seats are unallocated.
☕ Refreshments will be available to buy at this event – cash and card payments taken
🚗 Chelmsford Cathedral is a 5 minute walk from the train station and bus station. The Cathedral does not have its own car park but there are a number of public car parks within a short walking distance: https://www.chelmsford.gov.uk/parking-and-travel/car-parks/.
♿ The venue is wheelchair accessible. There are disabled facilities on site.
📸 We will be filming and taking photos at this event.

Nicola Kelly

Photo of Nicola Kelly © Alice Zoo

Nicola Kelly is an award-winning investigative journalist and writer focused on UK immigration and asylum. Her reporting regularly appears in the Guardian, Observer, Independent, OpenDemocracy and elsewhere. Before moving into journalism, she worked as a diplomat for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, with postings in Brussels and Istanbul. Later, she moved to the Home Office, working in their press office, before leaving the civil service during the rollout of the hostile environment policy. Her reporting has been referenced in several legal challenges against Conservative Home Secretaries, as well as submissions and human rights reports.

Bluesky: @nicolakellywrites.bsky.social

X: @NicolaKelly

Anywhere But Here: Stories of the Search for Belonging in Modern Britain

From an award-winning journalist comes the hugely timely story of Britain’s broken asylum system and the search for belonging in Britain today.

Longlisted for the 2025 Moore Prize for Human Rights

What is it like to arrive on our shores with nothing and to be pushed to the margins?

‘Brilliant and hugely timely.’
– Caroline Lucas, author of Another England

‘Will ignite both your compassion and your rage.’

– Grace Blakeley, author of Vulture Capitalism

Each year tens of thousands of people risk their lives to cross the Channel in small boats hoping to find safety in Britain. Yet the very system designed to protect them has all but collapsed.

With unique and unparalleled access, award-winning journalist and former Home Office insider Nicola Kelly takes us behind the scenes what happens when you arrive here in the UK, from boat to shore to holding room and beyond.

Here we meet the under-resourced coastguard overseeing search and rescue operations. The decision-makers hired from fast food outlets to conduct ‘life and death’ asylum interviews. The immigration barristers securing last-minute reprieves for deportees. The people rioting outside asylum hotels because ‘nobody is listening’. And we step inside the Home Office corridors as ministers and advisors respond to emerging crises and scandals, from Windrush and Rwanda to the ‘one in; one out’ policy.

Situated on the beaches and the ports, in the hotels, the courtrooms and the detention centres where futures unfold, these are the extraordinary stories of struggle, survival and hope that come in the search for belonging in Britain today.

‘Puts the stories of displaced people front and centre.’

– The Herald

Praise for Anywhere But Here

‘A tour de force of reporting, a harrowing tale of human experience and a devastating indictment of serial failures by Britain’s political class. With her roadmap for reform, Nicola Kelly’s book should be required reading for every incoming Home Secretary.’

– Ben Rawlence, author of City of Thorns

‘Sharing the powerful human stories behind the statistics, Kelly shines an unflinching spotlight on the scale of injustice and incompetence at the heart of Britain’s broken asylum system … Beautifully written, bold and brave, Anywhere But Here … should be on every desk not just in the Home Office, but throughout government.’

– Caroline Lucas, author of Another England

‘A stunning expose of the UK’s broken asylum system … This book will ignite both your compassion and your rage.’

– Grace Blakeley, author of Vulture Capitalism

‘An urgent and searing expose of the British immigration system and its failings, Anywhere But Here draws from a range of eyewitness accounts from refugees, politicians, coastguards, and more to reveal the full extent of the injustices and tragedies of the small boat crisis.’

– Waterstones

‘Kelly’s book, Anywhere But Here, brings such a human and humane perspective to an issue that is politicised and toxic.’

– The Guardian

‘Kelly remains poised, articulate and informed by exhaustive knowledge. Above all, to read Anywhere But Here is to follow her in the search for justice.’

– New Statesman

‘A deeply reported, richly textured expose… This isn’t just a story about how Britain’s asylum system fails those it is supposed to protect, it’s a vital account of how a broken system fails all of us.’

– Peter Geoghegan, author of Democracy for Sale

‘Reporting the subject of asylum, and telling the stories of those who try to claim it, is essential work, but in Kelly’s hands it is also elegant, gripping and lucid … This is a remarkably human book.’

– Sophie Elmhirst, author of Maurice and Maralyn (winner of the Costa Book Award)

The post Anywhere But Here appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

Friday 19 June 2026, 2.30pm
Chelmsford Cathedral, New Street, Chelmsford, CM1 1TY

2026 marks the centenary of the publication of Winnie-the-Pooh, one of the best-selling children’s books of all time.  Best-selling biographer Gyles Brandreth knew the real Christopher Robin and his new book is both an intimate and revealing biography of A A Milne (to whom there was so much more than Pooh) and a fascinating exploration of fathers and sons, children and their parents and the nature of childhood itself.

‘Gyles Brandreth has a touching access to the secrets of the human heart.’

– The Times

2026 is also the centenary of Elizabeth II.  Gyles Brandreth is also the author of the number one Sunday Times best seller Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, and the late Queen had a special interest in Winnie the Pooh which Gyles may be talking about too!

Tickets: £15 / £12 concessions (students, under 27s and unwaged)
Box Office: essexbookfestival.org.uk or Mercury Theatre 01206 573948

Event Information

💬 The event will include an audience Q&A session.
📚 Copies of the book can be ordered online from Chelmsford Cathedral. Copies of the book will also be available to buy at the event.
🖊️ After the event there will be an opportunity to get the book signed by the author.
🪑 Seats are unallocated.
☕ Refreshments will be available to buy at this event – cash and card payments taken
🚗 Chelmsford Cathedral is a 5 minute walk from the train station and bus station. The Cathedral does not have its own car park but there are a number of public car parks within a short walking distance: https://www.chelmsford.gov.uk/parking-and-travel/car-parks/.
♿ The venue is wheelchair accessible. There are disabled facilities on site.
💬 There will be live subtitles by Stagetext for this event.
📸 We will be filming and taking photos at this event.

Gyles Brandreth

Gyles Brandreth has been fascinated by the world of Winnie-the-Pooh since he was a small boy being brought up in London a few streets away from the house of Pooh’s creator, A A Milne. In the 1980s Gyles began researching the life of A A Milne and became friends with Milne’s only son, the real Christopher Robin. That friendship has led to this book. And to his surprise, the research for the book has led him to Jamaica and the USA, as well as Buckingham Palace and the Ashdown Forest.

Gyles Brandreth’s best-selling books include biographies of Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, as well as the actor Sir John Gielgud and the Victorian music-hall star, Dan Leno. He is the author of seven Victorian murder mysteries (featuring Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle as his detectives), two volumes of diaries and an acclaimed childhood memoir, Odd Boy Out.

As well as a writer, he is a broadcaster, podcaster, trustee of The Queen’s Reading Room charity, former MP, Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the University of Chester, probably best known for his appearances on shows like Just a Minute, Countdown, QI, Celebrity Gogglebox, Would I Lie to You? and This Morning.

As an actor he has appeared as Malvolio in Twelfth Night, Claudius in Hamlet and Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest. Since 2017 he has been appearing on stage with Dame Judi Dench in a show celebrating her life and on tour throughout the country with his own one-man show. An award-winning podcaster, he hosts the multi-million-download Top Ten podcast Rosebud exploring the first memories and childhoods of remarkable people.

Website: www.gylesbrandreth.net

Somewhere, a Boy and a Bear: A Biography of A A Milne, Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh

Gyles Brandreth both explores – and explains – the phenomenon of Winnie-the-Pooh and tells the remarkable story of A A Milne, a playwright, a crime writer, a poet, a polemicist and humorist.

When Winnie-the-Pooh first appeared in print on Christmas Eve 1925, his creator had no idea that this bear, and the fellow inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood, would go on to capture the imaginations of people of all ages all over the world for the next hundred years.

In this new biography Gyles Brandreth tells the remarkable story of A A Milne – and of the ‘bear of very little brain’ who went on to become a global phenomenon.

Drawing on his friendship with Milne’s son, the real Christopher Robin, Gyles Brandreth has produced a revealing and intimate portrait of a prolific author whose legacy came to be defined by his most famous creation, and of the divided Milne family who for many years had a conflicted relationship with the iconic bear.

This is the story of a man, a boy and a bear – but it is also a gripping family drama, and a fascinating exploration of the complicated nature of growing up, and the impossible longing for a return to the enchanted places of childhood.

Order a copy of the book for £19.50 (RRP £25.00) from Chelmsford Cathedral.

A Compelling Storyteller

As a royal biographer, the author of a Sunday Times bestselling poetry anthology and as the nation’s greatly loved broadcaster, Gyles Brandreth is the ultimate author to tell the tale of Winnie-the-Pooh and the man behind the iconic bear. Brandreth is also the founder of the award winning teddy bear museum at Newby Hall, The Bear House

Unrivalled Access

In the 1980s Gyles Brandreth wrote a play about the Milne family during which became friends with the real Christopher Robin and his wife, Lesley, and began to discover the complex story of Christopher Robin’s parents

Centenary Publication

The book will coincide with Winnie-the-Pooh’s 100th birthday – for which Gyles has campaigned to have Christopher Robbin’s original childhood toys to be returned to England from the New York Public Library

Exciting and Diverse Characters

With an extraordinary cast list (including Winston Churchill, Elizabeth II and Walt Disney), love affairs and litigation, idyllic games of Pooh sticks and heart-rending family rifts, this is the remarkable story of one of Britain’s most brilliant yet least known writers and of his most famous creation.

The post Somewhere, a Boy and a Bear – SOLD OUT appeared first on Essex Book Festival.