First Spark Has Led to This Blaze, The

A selection of the poetry of Henry Normal, illustrated throughout in full colour by Pete Ramskill. “Flooded with stabs of sadness, sprinklings of joy, splashes of humour and dashes of romance.” Nottingham City of Literature Henry Normal is a writer, poet, TV and film producer, founder of the Manchester Poetry Festival (now the Literature Festival) and co-founder of the Nottingham Poetry Festival. Setting up Baby Cow Productions Ltd in 1999, Henry Executive Produced all and script edited many of the shows during his tenure as MD, including the Oscar-nominated film Philomena, Gavin and Stacey, Nighty Night and Alan Partridge. Since retiring, he has written and performed eleven BBC Radio 4 shows for his award-winning series A Normal..., each combining poetry, comedy and stories about his life and family. In 2017 Henry was honoured with a special BAFTA for services to television. He has also had a beer and a bus named after him in his home city of Nottingham, and been awarded honorary degrees by both Nottingham Trent University and Nottingham University. Illustrator Pete Ramskill is also an award-winning designer, artist, sculptor and poet, who was Head of Design at Boots before setting up his own design practice in 2000. Pete has given lectures on design in the UK and Europe and been a judge on several design award panels. His paintings and sculptures have been exhibited in numerous galleries, public and work spaces. He used to perform his poetry regularly on Terry Christian’s Radio Derby show, has performed at the Edinburgh Festival for BBC Radio 4, and has appeared on BBC Three’s Whine Gums. Pete's most recent poetry collection, Selected Moments of Machine Life, also features several of his paintings.