It's 130 years since the notorious 'killing of the bears' - an incident that has reverberated down the years as one of the indicative stories of the Forest of Dean. Reading the Forest is marking this grizzly anniversary by exploring the fictions, histories, poems and films that have drawn on those gruesome events -  130yrs of bear stories. Join us on the exact anniversary, the 26th April, at The Malt Shovel for the Un-bear-able Pub Quiz - an evening of local history and bear themed questions to test your trivia knowledge. On Saturday 27th April we're at Ruardean Memorial Hall for an exhibition, screenings, talk and discussion. Amongst the display will be original documents from the trial, and examples of the poetry and prose inspired by the events. Amongst the film clips being shown will be the BBC feature from 1964, whilst the talk, 1'30 years later: Bear facts, Bear stories and Bearing history’, will be focusing on how the story has been used and abused down the years. The day will be rounded off with a local panel discussion chaired by BBC Gloucestershire's Kate Clark and hopefully lots of lively debate from everyone at the event. 

Friday 26th April: The Unbearable Pub Quiz
The Malt Shovel, Ruardean, GL179TW.
8pm start.
£1 per-person to join the quiz, proceeds to animal charity World Animal Protection. Maximum team size 6 people. 

Saturday 27th April: Bear Stories
Ruardean Memorial Hall, Ruardean, GL179UP
Free entry
​(donations accepted to animal charityWorld Animal Protection)
Exhibition opens 12noon, screenings from 12.30, talk at 2pm, panel discussion & open forum from 3.15. 

Jean Mohr’s photographs for his 1967 book with John Berger, A Fortunate Man, drew nearly three hundred people to the Assembly Rooms at the heart of St Briavels in an exhibition over the 30th and 31st of March. Twenty of Mohr’s original photographic prints for the book were on display for the first time in the UK on loan from the photographic archive at the Musee de l’Elysee in Switzerland. The St Briavels show was the culmination of month-long project that saw a new generation of photographers inspired by to Mohr’s work to take their own photographs reflecting life in the Forest of Dean today. 

The first part of the exhibition opened at University of Gloucestershire’s Hardwick Gallery in Cheltenham with an expert panel and invited guests discussing the photographs and asking what subjects might reflect the reality of the Forest today. Students form the University’s Documentary Photography course then spent two days with a range of groups in the Forest taking pictures for display alongside Mohr’s. The whole exhibition then moved to St Briavels were Mohr had worked with Berger, following the work of local GP Dr John Eskell and his patients. Opening the exhibition, Dame Janet Trotter remarked on the power of the Mohr’s pictures, and reflected on her own career journey working in both the health service and academia, and on the changes in the NHS since Eskell’s time. Also at the opening were Ivy Gunter and Brychan Gretton whose portraits featured in the book.  Over the next two days people from near and far visited to see Mohr’s photographs and those taken by the students.  
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Brychan Gretton holding his original portrait, a gift sent from Switzerland by Jean Mohr

Millie Wasley wife of the late Garnet Wasley who features in the photograph

Some of the twenty Mohr prints on show at St Briavels