NEW works featuring the words of local writers have gone on display at the Dean Heritage Centre.

The temporary exhibition has been created by John Slater who has been artist in residence at the centre in Soudley since April.

The texts that have inspired the exhibition come from works in the Forest of Dean Writers’ Collection and stories contributed by the local community.

The latest installation ‘Forest’, uses texts by Winifred Foley, Leonard Clark, FW Harvey and Joyce Latham, suspending them from branches in front of paintings and drawings made by John, to draw visitors’ attention to the writers, and how they experi enced their environment.

There is also an audio recording of the writers reading from their own work, and includes Keith Morgan’s poem in Forest dialect, ‘Varest Ship’.

Also on display in gallery one is ‘The Grandfather Clock of Times Past, Present and Future’, commissioned by the Green Pledge Project.

This contains memories, stories, poems, photos and drawings by local people, as well as a digital photo display of views of the forest, including its towns and former industry, as it was and as it is now.

There is room in the clock for more memories, stories and hopes for the future, for anyone who would like to contribute this.

The outside of the clock is decorated with drawings from Findall Iron Mine chimney, now surrounded by the forest.

There is also richly decorated duck sporting lines from F W Harvey’s famous poem ‘Ducks’ while Elvers is also based on one of his poems. The poem is painted onto perspex that has been curved to represent elvers swimming, and attached to the fishing nets on display.

Outside is ‘The Charcoal Dragon’, inspired by Leonard Clarke’s ‘Charcoal Burners’, made from wood displayed in the charcoal cradle from Cannop Wood Distillery