Peter Mortimer

Peter Mortimer - poet, playwright, journalist, publisher - has lived in the North East for thirty years, and many of his books and plays have been published and performed here. His books include: The Last of the Hunters: Life with the Fishermen in North Shields; I Married the Angel of the North (poetry); Off the Wall: the Journey of a Play; and Cool for Qat, which grew out of his commission to write a play about the 1930 Yemeni seamen's riot in South Shields.

Peter was recently in the Lebanon, spending three months in Shatila, the refugee camp in Beirut. He talked about his experiences there to The Journal, where you can also read an edited version of the blog he wrote. Or hunt out Peter's dispatches from Shatila as they originally appeared in the Inpress blog.

Shatila Ramble

Now Peter is planning to bring the Shatila students and teachers to the North-East in the Autumn to perform the play they created together in the Palestinian Refugee Camp. The Trades Union, UNISON, North Tyneside Council and Arts Council England North-East are all involved and the writer is trying to raise £3000 of the required funding from a charity walk, The Shatila Ramble.

This seven mile hike takes place on Sunday June 7 starting and ending at the writer's Cullercoats house where a party will be held at the finish for the sturdy foot soldiers. Sponsorship is eagerly sought, and few walking places remain - walkers need to guarantee £100 sponsorship. Contact Peter Mortimer on 0191-2531901 or for more details.

For five years Peter Mortimer wrote a weekly column for the North Tyneside based News Guardian series of papers; Mortimer at Large, a collection of those columns, is published by IRON Press / North Tyneside Libraries.