PUPILS at St Briavels Primary School found out about Winifred Foley, one of the Forest’s best loved writers, as well as learning about local dialect with a whole day exploring local writing.

Class teacher Jeremy Gazzard said: “Years Four and Five Speedwell class looked at the opening passage from A Child in the Forest which describes growing up in Brierley in the early days of the twentieth century. Inspired by this, pupils went on to write their own descriptions of life today growing up in the Forest.”

Rachel Griffiths, the schools’ adviser to Reading the Forest project, then played audio clips of Winifred Foley talking about her memories of the village, and about leaving it to take up work in service at the age of fourteen.

Rachel said: “They were really interested in what life was like back then and it was lovely to see them inspired by a local writer.”

In the afternoon pupils were introduced to Forest dialect by listening to recordings of Coleford poet Keith Morgan performing his work.

“They used the glossary in Harry Beddington’s Forest Humour and were soon putting together their own dialect writing,” said Jeremy. “It was a great way to get children interested in where they live and to find out more about local writers.”

Schools that would like to get involved can get in touch via www.readingtheforest.co.uk. The programme is run by the University of Gloucestershire working with the Foresters’ Forest programme, and wants to work with Forest schools to develop resources for teachers drawing on the rich history of Forest of Dean writing.