BEARDING THE BARD

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30499, 22 July 1964, Page 17

BEARDING THE BARD

(Special Crspdt NZ P A.) LONDON, July 21 _ Two hundred and sixty-three Shakespeares, Shakespears and even Shakpears, aged from 85 years to eight months, and including a couple of New Zealanders and Australians, went to Strat-ford-on-Avon in answer to a public invitation to visit their ancestor's exhibition.

They all bore their birth certificates. “It was no doubt the greatest collection of Shakespeares in the world,” said the organiser of the gathering, Mr Jack Thurman. “We

got far more Shakespeares than we expected, and we just had no time to identify everybody and compare their family trees.” The oldest William Shakespeare was 66, and he came from Leeds. The oldest Shakespeare present was Mrs Clara Shakespeare, aged 85, of Reddich, Yorkshire. Mr Samuel Shakespeare, aged 83, of Stratford, believes Le may be descended from the poet’s young brother, Gilbert. All the Shakespeares were presented with identification discs and with the exception of Miss Julie Shakespeare who, at eight months, was not quite old enough to walk, were shown round the ex-

hibition to mark the four hundredth anniversary of the Bard’s birth.

They were given tea, a bottle of “Shakespeare ale,” and a photostat copy of the playwright's will.

Others there were a cafe proprietor Bill Shakespeare, from Frome, Somerset, who brought his wife and eight children: a foundry worker, Rupert Shakespeare, from Jamaica, and Omar Shakespeare Pound, an American who is the headmaster of a school in Morocco. His mother was a Shakespeare descended from the poet His father was Ezra Pound, th? well-known American poet.