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The all-night reading of Byron's epic Don Juan which took place on Hallowe'en Night at Earls Court Square raised both publicity and funds for the Byron Memorial Appeal. There were radio interviews on Today and Late Night Extra, and The Daily Mirror reporter was with us until 3 a.m. (although he failed actually to get a paragraph in his paper). The Daily Telegraph printed two photographs, and managed to give the impression that the whole poem had been read, non-stop, by Margaret Rawlings!

In fact (after a preface by Norman Hidden, the Society's chairman) the reading was started by the actor/producer Richard Wordsworth, whose descent from William Wordsworth might well have provoked Byron to one of his more extrovert demonstrations. Nicolette Bernard, Derek Parker, George MacBeth, Peter Porter, Gavin Ewart and a panel of over forty readers continued until morning, when Odette Tchernine, Robert Armstrong and Margaret Rawlings brought the poem to an end. There were no major mishaps; one forty-verse slab admittedly appeared twice, and at one stage Michael Mackenzie (the General Secretary) had to step in in lieu of an absent reader—one should not perhaps class this as a mishap! The poem stood up extremely well; and if it had its slow patches, it also had its lively ones—I am told that Mike Chapman's dramatic reading at about 4 a.m. raised the dust in the square to some effect.                                        

D.P.