About The voice of Mary Watts

Saturday 10 May 2025

3.30 - 4.15pm

As we celebrate the year of Mary Watts’ 175th birthday anniversary, we hold this special event inviting you to join us for a wonderfully entertaining afternoon of readings of Mary’s diary by celebrated actor Rowan Suart.

Mary Watts was a pioneering woman, artist and suffragist. Her diary of many volumes, affectionately known as ‘Fatima’ provides a window on to her world, including the life that George and Mary built together at their home Limnerslease. Rowan will bring to life excerpts from the diary, illuminating the thoughts and notes that Mary jotted down for over 17 years. Listen to Mary’s words and stories in the atmospheric setting of the house they built and lived in.

About Rowan

Rowan Suart is a professional actress and speaker with a long career in theatre, television and radio. She has played character roles onstage in theatres all over the country, on television in One Foot In The Grave, Nelson’s Column, Intimate Contact, The Goodies, Neighbours, and also in BBC Radio 4 classic serials. Recent stage roles include Carlotta Gray in Coward’s A Song At Twilight, Mrs Elton in Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea, and Mrs Malaprop in Sheridan’s The Rivals. She also writes, performs, and produces party plays for adults and children, and is a guest speaker for Hants/Surrey/Sussex social organisations with her various literary compilations, including Austen Sisters which has featured at arts festivals, museums, and literary societies in Bath, Winchester, Chawton, Alton, Farnham, Haslemere, Petersfield, Arundel and Chichester. Rowan is local to Bordon in north-east Hampshire.