Hay Festival 2010

This was quite an event. Anyone who has never been should go at least once in their life time. Even if for just one day. It is the absolute best place in the world for people who love books. There are books everywhere, an absolutely fabulous on-site bookshop and people sitting reading on the colourful deckchairs, the grass and in the bars and cafés. Then there’s the rest of the town – with its thirty-two bookshops, other cultural activities and a few nice clothes shops.      

The main sponsor is the Guardian. Most days this week they were giving away a cloth bag with the newspaper. Later in the week, as those ran out, they started giving out free plastic rain capes. It only rained on one day and on that day we were still with the cloth bags. Madness!

The main Hay festival has been going for over twenty years. Some town’s people complained because it dominated the town. So, a couple of fields just a few minutes walk outside the town were leased. Sponsors pay for marquees. Writers and publishers are invited. The bookshop sells the books of the authors represented and has an efficient way of organising a signing queue. The events are inexpensive and visitors can pick and choose. The food and drink outlets are busy but reasonably priced and much local produce is offered.  

The town’s people – perhaps those very ones who complained in the first place – seem to recognise an opportunity when they see one. Fringe events abound. Ordinary families set up tents on their lawns and provide cream teas or sell off produce and bric-a-brac from their front gardens. Houses for sale offer American-style open days during this time. The Castle positively buzzes with a craft and food and drink fair going on in its grounds.  

Of course, you don’t have to spend every moment of the ten days at the Hay main festival site. There’s plenty to do in the region. The Wye valley has a touch of both Englishness and Welshness. The landscape is a little gentler than that of either North or West Wales and a little lusher than that of South Wales. Very much borderland. I thoroughly enjoyed the journey there and back from Manchester. We found plenty of good eating places in Hay itself and near where we staying on a delightful farm just eleven miles away. The prices seemed very reasonable and not at all artificially inflated for the festival.   

I personally attended several events – many of them actually for children – Lauren St John, Nick Sharratt,  Jacqueline Wilson and the session about the Guardian Prize for Children’s Literature. I was tempted by several more but because my companion is not a children’s writer and because reasonable though the entrance fees are, costs can mount up, I exercised some restraint. I did also get to some grown-up events.

Not all events and side stalls are about literature. We also managed to find out more about rain forests, attend a Dragon’s Den –type session about some ecological ideas, find out about a new board-game to do with books and look at a wild-flower garden.

However, the highlight had to be the launch of Gentle Footprints at 5.30 on 4 June at the Barclays Wealth Pavilion. Virginia McKenna was there to talk about her work with Born Free and give our book a nudge out into the public domain. Bridge House staff spent most of the day with her. She is a really lovely person. She was so pleased to meet all of the authors. She did us proud both at the launch and in the Sky Arts Book Show, recorded that day and broadcast later that evening. Several times the book was described as extraordinary. It is indeed. I’m certainly proud to be a part of it and a part of the company that published it.