Far from the Madding Crowd

[Daogroupie]

It is a U, it has one brief bed scene. I will recommending Y4's and Y5's to go. For girls especially Bathsheba is a really terrific role model. DG

[Amber]

Ooh - must go and see this. Studied it for English Lit O-Level (showing my age!)

Me too Mary-Lou. And I hated it. Beginning to think there is something wrong with me as everyone else loved it. I think I'm going to have to tackle it again...

Maybe you can come with me to see it scary? No one here can bear going to the cinema (dark when it might be sunny outside, you have to sit still for so long, people eat disgusting foods in disgusting quantities, etc etc ).

[Daogroupie]

We had a lovely quiet cinema with hardly anyone there. I can't stand the continual eating throughout films. I was far too absorbed to even think of eating or drinking. DG

[Amber]

I can't stand the continual eating throughout films.

I remember taking the children when they were quite young to see a film which started at about 12.30pm. We wondered how people managed to fit lunch around it - either shove a sandwich down them before you go or hope they don't start moaning about being hungry halfway through the film. Then we realised that people actually ate 'lunch' - foul smelling hot dogs mostly, but also troughs of popcorn and sack loads of sweets, while drinking from buckets of coke - all through the film. My children remembered that more than the thing they had gone to see.

[scary mum]

Ooh - must go and see this. Studied it for English Lit O-Level (showing my age!)

Me too Mary-Lou. And I hated it. Beginning to think there is something wrong with me as everyone else loved it. I think I'm going to have to tackle it again...

Maybe you can come with me to see it scary? No one here can bear going to the cinema (dark when it might be sunny outside, you have to sit still for so long, people eat disgusting foods in disgusting quantities, etc etc ).

Great idea. I promise not to eat:)

[Amber]

Great idea. I promise not to eat:)

We can do that afterwards. Some great restaurants round here.

Actually the idea of people trenching disgusting food en masse in a film of that title has a certain irony doesn't it?

[Peridot]

Amber

I dimly remember going to the cinema as a small child when there would be a B feature before the main film. I can remember my mum making sandwiches to take with us and we had our tea during the interval. Very exciting.

[Amber]

Amber

I dimly remember going to the cinema as a small child when there would be a B feature before the main film. I can remember my mum making sandwiches to take with us and we had our tea during the interval. Very exciting.

Sounds like my mum too. We had no money so there was never going to be a 'bought' tea - always cheese sandwiches in foil or greaseproof paper if we went out for the day. Occasionally we went on the train to Birmingham which was a major treat and the sandwiches always came out then too. I remember really really wanting a 'bought' birthday cake like other children got, so one year my parents bought one. It was absolutely horrible and I was sick. I still don't like 'bought' cake now.

This is starting to sound like that Monty Python sketch isn't it? Sorry.

[Marylou]

Ooh - must go and see this. Studied it for English Lit O-Level (showing my age!)

Me too Mary-Lou. And I hated it. Beginning to think there is something wrong with me as everyone else loved it. I think I'm going to have to tackle it again...

Thomas Hardy must have known how to appeal to adolescent girls with his storyline involving an anonymous valentine card!

I was motivated enough to persuade my dad to drive me and a friend the 100 miles or so to Dorchester, which was marking the 50th anniversary of Thomas Hardy's death with various walking tours and events. We picked up a leaflet and looked for the places mentioned in the book, including Puddletown (Hardy's Weatherbury) with Waterston Manor which was the inspiration for Bathsheba's house, the little church which was the scene of the wedding mix-up and the gargoyle incident, Maiden Castle where Troy impresses Bathsheba with his fancy sword work, and various other places in and around "Casterbridge". The museum is still a centre for Hardy memorabilia and has many relics of rural life before the Agricultural Revolution, a subject close to Hardy's heart.

The English teacher clearly thought this was a good idea, so the following year organised a coach to take the entire class who were studying The Mayor of Casterbridge for A-level. And, as fate would have it, I ended up marrying someone from that area so have been back there many times since.

[KS10]

I cried when I read Michael Henchard's will at the end of TMoC. I loved the name Michael after that and ended up marrying a Michael. And yes, his surname begins with an H. That wasn't why I married him though.