Helen Darby will be hosting a poetry and spoken word session on the theme of ‘sea folk’ - from ballads of pirates, seafarers and their ships, to tales of merpeople and selkies - at Saltburn Folk Festival on the North Yorkshire coast. The event is on Saturday 12 August at Gun’s Basement Lounge from 12-2pm.

Helen says: “This is a free/fringe event so you don’t need to have a ticket for the festival itself, just turn up. Sign up on arrival and we will be doing it in rounds, i.e. everyone does one poem and it goes around until we run out of poems or time. Feel free to read your own work or just something you like on the theme.”