Role of a female Reiver is explored

Nov 19 2009 by Tony Henderson, The Journal

POET Pippa Little was drawn to the Border Ballads and their stories of the raiding Reiver clans and lawless times.

But she was taken by the way women were relegated to the background in the tales of days more than 400 years ago when families were forced to live in bastles, or fortified farmhouses.

Around 1,000 bastles were built in Northumberland, of which about 200 survive.

Now Pippa has decided to at least partly restore the balance by devoting her new collection of poems – Foray – to the Reiver women.

Pippa, 51, who lives in Cramlington, said: “The Reivers subject is all very macho and when I started my research I found that there was not much about the women, and so I imagined what it must have been like from their point of view.

“Life then was hard and tough and very violent, and the bonds of family must have been very important.

“But women were referred to just as somebody’s wife or somebody’s mother and I thought it was a real shame that they had been sidelined.”

Foray, which is published by Biscuit Press at £6.99, was launched last night at a reading by Pippa at South Shields Central Library.

As the winner of last year’s Biscuit International Poetry Prize, Pippa’s choice was either £1,000 or the publication of her latest collection.

On Sunday at 2.30pm Pippa will also give a reading at Bellingham Heritage Centre in Northumberland with fourth-generation fiddle player Rachel Pearson.