Jocelyn Bell Burnell in conversation

This week Quakers across Britain are heading for Hay Literary Festival. The impressive line-up of 600 speakers includes Quakers Jocelyn Bell Burnell and author Sally Nicholls.


Jocelyn Bell Burnell will be in conversation with journalist Rosie Boycott. Programme notes introduce a discussion “about how her Quaker faith has informed the life and work of one of the world's greatest scientists, celebrated for her discovery of pulsars when she was a postgraduate student in 1967, and now the Oxford Professor of Astrophysics."

Sally Nicholls is author of Ways to Live Forever, Season of Secrets, All Fall Down, Close Your Pretty Eyes, An Island of Our Own and Things a Bright Girl Can Do.

The festival aims to nurture the ability to imagine the world from someone else's point of view. It runs from 24 May to 3 June. A quarter of a million tickets have been sold.

Quakers have an exhibition stand near the food hall.Hundreds of visiting school children are being given information packs introducing them to Quakers.

More about Jocelyn Bell Burnell in conversation with Rosie Boycott.