LEDBURY Poetry Festival may be a national event but a strong local identity survives as it continues to grow.

The festival will be officially launched under the Market House at 6.30pm on Friday, July 1, with almost 70 events packed into ten days.

Among the literary highlights will be appearances by Tom Paulin, Timothy West, Alan Brownjohn, Simon Armitage and Penelope Shuttle.

The festival also acts as a showcase for local artists.

The opening day offers a cartoon history of poetry and Ledbury, courtesy of Ian McMillan and Tony Husband at the Community Hall. Very visible will be a band of strolling players, capturing history through poetry, prose and music on Saturday, July 2. The Ledbury Cavalcade is being staged by Herefordshire Archeology.

Also on the Saturday, is a tribute to the nautical works of Ledbury-born John Masefield, at the Burgage Hall. His Salt Water Ballads, published in 1902, reflect a life at sea which was very much part of his own experience.

John Masefield Society chairman Peter Carter will lead a walk called The Ghost Heath Run on Sunday, July 3, in the paw-prints of Masefield's great work, Reynard the Fox.

Former Ledbury Amateur Dramatic Society member Lucy Chalkley, now an established professional actress, teams up with Sean Street, professor of radio at the University of Bournemouth, on the Sunday. She will help to perform some of Street's poems, inspired by everything from the Shipping Forecast to Test Match Special.

Pupils at John Masefield High School will be visited by 'Fire Poet' Philip Wells on Monday, July 4, while the Ledbury Scribes will hold an open mike event at Black Pepper Carvery later that evening. Also that evening, Paddy Shave, of Bishop Frome's Hop Pocket Wine Company, leads a poetry and wine tasting event at the Burgage Hall. On Wednesday, July 6, the Ledbury Lyricists combine folk music and poetry at the Prince of Wales.

On Thursday, July 7, Alan Brownjohn will help launch a new anthology in aid of the Stroke Association, edited by the Ledbury Reporter's Gary Bills. The launch is part of the Hearing and Healing event at the Market Theatre.

Dymock Poets Edward Thomas and Wilfred Gibson, together with Gloucestershire's Ivor Gurney, feature in Four Poets of the Great War at the Burgage Hall on Friday, July 8.

For programme details or tickets, ring 0845 458 1743 or visit www.poetry-festival.com.