Year 12 English Language and Literature A Level students went on a trip to Sheffield Millennium Museum to visit an exhibition about the work of the Bloomsbury group, a bohemian and modernist collection of artists and writers based in early twentieth century London. 

As part of the visit, they attended a lecture by Dr Nicky Hallet, an expert in life-writing from the University of Sheffield, about the role of the LGBTQ+ artistic community in the early part of the last century, transporting us to Paris and the work of non-binary Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore and their links with Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackvill-West; we learned how the latter two wrote letters to their respective husbands on the fly covers of books bought in Paris about the rights of queer people.

Dr Hallet’s lecture inspired discussion about Charleston and the London of the 1920s and 30s, the challenges that queer people faced with the impending second world war and the trials of living secret lives. All of which provided an excellent grounding for the year 12’s study of the fiction and non-fiction writings of the Bloomsbury group.

Halimah said the museum “radiated tranquillity”!