From Roman Britain to Rebecca: New courses for Autumn at Frome Community Education

Frome Community Education’s Autumn term gets underway on 21st September, and booking is already open with courses selling fast. 

Alongside its existing programme of Arts & Crafts, Languages, Words & Literature, History & Culture and Health & Wellbeing courses, there are a whole crop of brand-new courses this term – from Roman Britain and Frome’s own literary past to new language classes, poetry and the meditative art of Vedic chant.

Languages wise, Sara Gibbons is introducing “Holiday French” and “Holiday Spanish”: friendly, informal five-week courses (on Wednesday mornings and Thursday afternoons) that will get you ordering food, booking a hotel and chatting to locals, so you can leave the phrasebook at home and forget Google Translate the next time you go away.

There are also three new literary courses. Harriet Derioz introduces “Read With Me: Rebecca”, a five-week evening course on Monday evenings that unpicks Daphne du Maurier’s Gothic tale of complicity and control – not, as Harriet points out, the love story that film has often made of it. She also brings “Poetry A-Z”, a 10-week Thursday-morning journey through the poetic alphabet from Auden onwards, reading and discussing two poems a week with no experience necessary – just a love of words. And author Rob Hollier, whose own book on the poet is due out in 2027, leads “Coleridge: The Somerset Poet”, a five-week course on Tuesday mornings from 3rd November exploring how Somerset shaped “Kubla Khan”, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and “Frost at Midnight”.

Local author and historian David Lassman has completely overhauled his ever-popular Frome history course as “Frome Local History Revamped!” – you can choose from Monday afternoons or evenings, drawing on 15 years of his own research to show the town’s past anew. He is also behind a run of four brand-new one-day Saturday sessions: “Jane Austen And Bath” (10th October), “When Worlds Collide” (7th November), a one-off co-run with tutor Alan Butcher that brings together earth history and human history for a ‘Big Bang’ of learning; “Literary Frome” (21st November), tracing the town’s connections to writers from Christina Rossetti to Virginia Woolf; and “Victorian Crime In Frome” (5th December), on the notorious Maggs-Sparrow gang and the murders that brought Scotland Yard to town.

Completing the set of new History & Culture courses, Richard Massey turns a familiar story on its head with “And What Did The Romans Ever Do For Us?” – a 10-week Thursday-afternoon course from 8th October that views four centuries of Roman rule from the perspective of the conquered Britons.

Health & Wellbeing welcomes a new hybrid class from Elaine Marie Ewens: with her “Vedic Chant Circle”, exploring the ancient Sanskrit chanting tradition either in person at Christ Church Hall or via Zoom. There are no auditions and no ability to sing is required. And for anyone wanting easier, more comfortable movement in everyday life, there are new Thursday-morning sessions of Jackie Adkins’s gentle “Move With Ease – The Feldenkrais Method”.

Frome Community Education Chair, Malcolm Lloyd, said: “In our 15th Anniversary Year, this is one of the most varied programmes we’ve ever put together – in a single term you could solve a Victorian murder, learn to chant in Sanskrit or finally get to grips with Artificial Intelligence.

“There really is something for everyone. Courses are already booking well, so we’d encourage people to book as soon as possible to be sure of a place.”

Frome Community Education is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company, founded in 2011 and run by a team of volunteers, which works to keep its classes affordable and open to all.

The Autumn term runs from 21st September to 4th December. For the full programme and to book, visit www.fromecommed.org.uk or the Box Office at the Cheese & Grain (01373 455420). You can also pick up a brochure around town.