by Claire Ballinger, Rose Wiles and Pauline Bisson. The Black Lives Matter movement, triggered by the death of George Floyd in the US, created an impetus to better understand black experiences, both currently and historically. In late 2021, we joined a group of volunteers to explore links between artifacts...
Hampshire’s Blue Apple Theatre takes Frankenstein to Rome for Keats-Shelley 200 bicentenary celebrations
The #Keats-Shelley 200 campaign marks the 200th anniversary of the deaths of the Romantic poets, John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley, and focuses on the final years of the lives of both poets with events both in the UK and in Italy. Events celebrate the poets’ extraordinary legacies as...
Business directory 10 – 16 October
In Common has launched a new paid listings section. This is it! Please get in touch if you have an event or local business to promote. As a small, not for profit organisation, we rely on donations and low cost adverts like these and are very grateful to organisations...
Letter: Freemantle local history tour was a great success
The Friends of Freemantle Lake park were joined yesterday ( 9th October) for a very special morning of learning about local history. Martin Brisland, a local history tour guide for See Southampton and published writer, had agreed to research and delivery the tour totally free of charge to support...
Heritage: a look at Freemantle, Southampton
by Martin Brisland. The suburb of Freemantle lies between Shirley Road, Foundry Lane and the River Test. The Freemantle name may derive from Fromental which is found in several places in France. In Old French ‘froid’ means cold and mantel is cloak. It was mentioned in the Pipe Rolls...
Review: Easy Life at The Brook, Southampton
Photographs and words by Peter Nicholson. I had been looking forward to seeing Easy Life at The Brook, Southampton (8 October). I really like their studio work, but had been less than impressed by videos I’d seen of their live performances, so I wanted to see for myself. ...
October events at October Books
October is here, and that means independent bookshop October Books in Portswood, Southampton, has another month’s worth of events, from author talks to a cookery demonstration, to choose from, with events both in person and online. author talk: BLACK by Tobias Taitt TODAY Saturday 8th October at 2pm...
Suburban Safari: Netley Common
by Katie Isham. The leaves of the calendar are falling as their tree-based counterparts tumble to the ground; October is here and the season is perfect for booted adventures through a forest. No need for extended rural journeys when you can safari through the suburbs and step straight into...
Write a Note Poetry, September: Jo Fisher, Bobby Looga and Jack Dale and Bastien Terraz
by Anita Foxall. After a month’s break, Write a Note poetry evening returned in full force in September. Twelves poets read their words to a very attentive engaging audience. It was a busy dynamic evening with splendid spoken word and music. Meet two of the regular poets who attended...
Southampton’s first ever Transgender Pride comes to the city this month
On the 15th of October, Southampton will have its first ever Transgender Pride to celebrate all Transgender, Non-Binary, Gender Fluid, Gender Queer and gender non-conforming people. “The event comes after a tough couple of years for trans people; this year our government made the decision that trans people would...