John Shakespeare

I think it's been announced that we're having a shopping trip up to the Arena Park, which is going to be taking place on Wednesday, the 25th of...

November if you'd like to take part in that so basically you'll go up on the minibus there'll be some volunteer support as well and you can go and do a bit of Christmas shopping up at the many shops that there are up there and that will cost you £10 so sign up for that give us a call on 024 7671 7522 and put your name down with the wonderful people at reception We've got, again, this has been announced before, but the Shakespeare in Love trip down to the Criterion is happening on Wednesday, the 9th of December now.

We've had to go a day later because the Macula Group, I discovered after I'd made the original announcement, are having their meeting.

Christmas all day event pretty much on the 8th of December and it felt like it was going to be a bit too much because a lot of people from there would like to come on the trip to see Shakespeare in Love I do heartily recommend it not least because I'm directing it and it's going to be a fun show romantic funny and it's a good way to brush up your Shakespeare as Cole Porter had it We've also coming up, we've got the Christmas Fair, which is going to be on Wednesday, the 16th of December.

So this is in place of the winter one, which we normally have earlier in the month or at the very end of November on a Saturday.

Well, not only for reasons of me directing Shakespeare in Love are we not doing it at that time, but also we thought we'd like to ring the changes a little bit.

So it's going to be sort of more of an open day.

There will be food, there will be coffee and tea, and there'll be lots of other things happening all throughout the centre.

They make the argument that he can't have been intelligent and it's more likely he was actually illiterate.

Shakespeare's parents, Mary Arden and John Shakespeare, signed their wedding document with just a single mark, suggesting that they couldn't read or write.

If Shakespeare's parents were illiterate, the likelihood is that William Shakespeare was too.

There's also no evidence of Shakespeare's daughters, Judith and Susanna, being literate either.

in a place like Stratford-upon-Avon, they simply weren't.

Also, Shakespeare's plays discuss aristocratic sports in detail, sports which Shakespeare, coming from a lower-class family, technically shouldn't have really known the details of.

John Shakespeare did work as a glove maker, but he did also become a very important figure in Stratford.

He fulfilled all these civic positions in the town, so he did likely have an elevated status and a bit more money.

Here, in April of fifteen sixty-four, a child is born into a household that, for a time, stands comfortably among its neighbors.

His name is William Shakespeare.

His father, John Shakespeare, is a tradesman, working with leather and gloves, a respectable and practical occupation.

He is also involved in local government, holding positions that bring both status and responsibility.

The family is not wealthy, but they are secure enough to live with a sense of order and expectation.

He begins to understand, even at a young age, that people can live very different lives while sharing the same space.

At the same time, there is an underlying sense of expectation.

Families like the Shakespeares do not plan for distant fame or creative legacy.