I’m lucky enough to live close to Hay on Wye, it’s my destination of choice on a wet Sunday afternoon. The bookshops go on forever, and there are one or two decent places to eat, not something that can be said of many small Welsh towns. I’m a food snob, and a book snob, and a snob in general, so when the festival comes around, I like to make sure everyone I know who tells me they intend to go that I prefer Hay when it’s quieter, when I have the place to myself.
After all, most people who attend the festival are not there because of a hunger for all things literary. What they want more than anything else is to see, and if possible talk to, a celebrity. This doesn’t interest me at all. If I go, I'm there out of sheer intellectual curiosity.
Yesterday, however, after tramping through heavy rain from the car park in town to the main festival site, one end of Hay to the other, and thankfully having seen not one celebrity, I found a quiet bar, bought a hideously expensive pint and slumped myself in a sofa. I’d arranged to meet friends there, but they were scattered about the site, and none of them genuinely interested in books (unless you include ones by Alan Titchmarsh) so I had a few minutes to plan my intellectual journey for the day. I don’t know about you, but when I attend things like this I always have to have a focus – whether it’s poetry, or fiction, or history, I have to prepare myself, consider in advance what perspective I intend to take in order that I’m not thrown in any direction, and end up completely adrift on a brown sea of aimless hogwash. (Hay is muddy, remember).
And then Adrian Edmondson walked into the bar, in wellies, and he stood right next to me and I could actually hear him talking.
Those few minutes were very difficult for me, you understand. I was suddenly sucked under by just the sort of empty headed nonsense I had hoped to avoid. I remember, ten years ago, having a pee next to Adrian Edmondson in the toilets at Leigh Delamare services. He was more famous then. I didn’t speak to him on that particular occasion, of course. It would have been very inappropriate, but here, in a bar, well, this was a different matter.
I found I couldn't help myself from continually glancing up at him. Not because I am in awe of him in any way, but more likely because I was considering how his comedy is in an intellectual tradition that follows Beckett and Pinter, and I was thinking I could go up and ask him something along these lines but decided against it because he might think I was a tosser.
After Edmondson left the bar (he drank two pints when I had managed just one) I decided I would go and look for my friends so I could just mention, in passing, that I had just seen a very famous comedian, and making sure I shoehorned Beckett and Pinter into the same garbled sentence so I could impress upon them that I was interested in Edmondson from a cultural standpoint and really his fame was of no interest to me. He’s just a bloke like other blokes, he drinks beer and uses the urinal (I have witnessed both, remember).
So I hurried out of the bar, fighting against a tide of bodies making their way to some ‘talk’ or other. I pushed through the middle class masses wondering why it is that they feel this need to see someone talk. It’s as ridiculous as listening to someone paint. Why go all the way to Hay to see people talk? Similar talks are all over the internet. If you are truly interested in what these people have to say, then just stay at home and watch the videos on youtube. Or better still, read their books. It’s all very hollow, isn’t it?
And then I saw the great Australian novelist Tim Winton, and wasn’t that Martha Kearney just behind him? And what the hell is John Bercow doing here and, suddenly, looming out of the light like a great galleon emerging from fog, there is Stephen Fry, right there, in front of me, smiling, avuncular, our national treasure. He was being ushered towards the new signing area next to the bookshop, nodding, his massive brain working away.
Lower status celebs (like Bercow) sign books in the main shop, but those of bigger stature, like Fry, sit in a sort of corridor next to the shop, so fawning admirers can line up and wait their turn for a few seconds of unselfconscious, fully paid, staring.
I am above all this, of course, and when I eventually meet my friends, I quickly steer the conversation to the Theatre of the Absurd and just drop in the fact I had been in a bar with Adrian Edmondson, and wasn’t it pathetic that grown men and women stare and whisper, and that I’d also seen Stephen Fry.
One of my friends, Gary, then mentioned that he had a ticket to see Fry talking about Shakespeare. Gary has never seen a Shakespeare play in his life. So why, I wondered, was he so keen to hear what Fry had to say about the bard? I have all the BBC Shakespeare on DVD, as well as one or two of the Branaghs. I'm serious about my Shakespeare, not like Gary, who's just a dilettante. But off he went, ticket clasped in his hand, his eyes glazed over in expectation. Fool.
Later that day I made my way back to the car park in the town, still curious as to true nature of the festival. What is this desire human beings have to be close to famous people, who, just because they choose to write, or perform, are given inordinate status? I was thinking this, and as I entered the car park, much emptier than it was earlier on, there walking towards me was Blackadder himself, Rowan Atkinson.
I tried not to stare, but there was nobody about, no one could see me, so it didn’t matter, and Atkinson had his eyes on the tarmac, obviously keen not to meet my gaze, so I had a big long look. He isn’t as tall as I expected. Not much between him and Bercow.
Anyway, I got into my car, and starting the engine felt a trifle disappointed that there was no one I could tell about my encounter with a superstar. I’m above all that anyway, so decided to keep it to myself.
Without my dogs Megan Rix wouldn't exist. Rix is a family name of my husband's and Megan, or Meg, sounded to me like the name of someone who liked dogs. So I invented her as a pseudonym for my memoir 'The puppy that came for Christmas'. The book went on to become a Sunday Times Bestseller and told of our experiences of being assistance dog puppy raisers before we got a puppy of our own: 'Traffy.’
Prior to becoming Megan Rix I already had an established career as a writer of children’s books and TV shows under the name of Ruth Symes but once Traffy, and then Bella, came along my daily word tally quadrupled. I now have 4 multi-award winning children’s books about dogs in World Wars 1 and 2 with Puffin and more on the way.
My dogs are in all of my books and not just in the acknowledgements. Bella loved my husband’s socks and only his socks when she was a pup (how did she know they were his?!) and Buster in ‘The Great Escape' has a nose for identifying various members of his family's slippers. Both Traffy and Bella howled as pups like Howl does in ‘The Victory Dogs’ and Bella's love of ball-play is shared by Grey in ‘The Bomber Dog’. Not forgetting the football playing dog at the Christmas Truce of 1914 in ‘A Soldier's Friend’ inspired by a partially deflated football that was given to us down at the river and played with by an excited pack of dogs from tiny terriers to large Labs.
My days usually start with a long dog walk by the river (with Traffy and Bella often in the river). Sometimes I write in my spare-bedroom office but only one dog can comfortably squeeze in there.They prefer it when I use the conservatory to write in but they like the door open and it can get a bit cold in the winter!The best place to write is on the bed – fortunately I love writing first drafts by hand. Judging by how Traffy and Bella always clamber on and within a few minutes are fast asleep and often snoring they like this writing spot best too.
A couple of hours later Bella's ready for a break and will remind me by dropping a ball on my lap if I'm working in the office. If I push the ball away she'll pick it up off the floor and drop it on my lap again and again. She’s one persistent puppy. Taffy will also pick up a toy (an orang-utang is her favourite at the moment) and shake it and push it into my hands. I’m never able to resist them for long.
Bella taught me about ‘show not tell’ the other day. I'd taken the dogs for a walk by the river and still had Bella's ball in my coat. My husband noticed her biting at my coat pocket (the coat was hanging up) and asked her what she wanted. Bella went and found a ball and put it next to my coat where the ball she wanted was. I’ve also had dogs bringing me my wellingtons when I’m late taking them for a walk. Dogs love sign language. It’s so much clearer for them than the burble of words. Often in obedience exams sign language isn't allowed but I'm sure if the roles were reversed and we had to guess what a dog was saying from his barks we'd appreciate a handy hint or two.
Being home along is never lonely when you have two dog shadows wherever you go. Even when I get up at three in the morning to do some work and creep out of the bedroom so I don’t disturb my sleeping husband Traffy and then Bella will pad down the stairs after me and curl up next to me on the sofa-bed in the conservatory.
They always know when I'm going out for the day because I'm putting on make-up and not wellingtons and they don’t like it. But coming home to be greeted by two exhuberant dogs is just the best thing ever. Bella races to grab a toy to give me and Traffy picks up a chew so she can ‘talk' and my normal dog walking, ball throwing, toy playing, writing routine resumes.
Megan Rix will be talking about her books and Animals in War with Damian Kelleher at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival on the 27th May. Her dog Traffy may also put in an appearance.
Her book 'The Victory Dogs' (set during the Blitz) is Stockton-on-Tees children's book of the year 2014. 'The Bomber Dog' (about a parachute dog) is this year's Shrewsbury's Bookfest award winner.
Her website is www.meganrix.com
There’s been much talk about e-books lately. Wherever you look, authors are publishing their out-of-print backlists and unplaced books on Kindle and other platforms. Agents and publishers, rowsed from their e-slumber, are trying to catch up, wondering what is a fair percentage for e-book rights - or what they can get away with (which is the same thing, so my free-market friends tell me). According to a powerful post written last month by Kristin Kathryn Rusch, we are witnessing a paradigmatic shift in the way that people think about publishing, and about books themselves. Who needs publishers when the internet lies trembling at our fingertips? In the age of the DIY download, need books ever go out of print again? On the other hand, with no quality control mechanism, some fear that e-literature is destined to be no more than a new recipe for spam.
These aren’t questions I feel qualified to answer, but they were in my mind when I visited Hay-on-Wye with my son the other day. As most UK readers of this blog will know, Hay is a small town on the border of Wales and England, just at the northern tip of the Black Mountains. It is also the home of more than twenty second-hand bookshops, the largest concentration in the UK by far. We were only making a day trip, nothing like long enough to plumb its treasures, but we still made some great discoveries, and it would be a poor soul who could visit Hay without doing so. To be tired of Hay is to be tired of life – or at least of reading.
All the same, when I find a wonderful book that’s been forgotten by all but the cognoscenti (who hug their enthusiasms to their chests like so many racing tips), and especially if that book is going cheap, I feel melancholy as well as triumphant. For Hay is, as well as a great shopping experience, a vast Necropolis. It is a graveyard of out-of-print books – and those of us who stalk its chambers, ripping the jewels from bony necks and fingers, cannot help but feel like tomb raiders – and not in a sexy, Lara Croft kind of way. If we are writers, a trip to Hay is also a plangent reminder of our own mortality, and – perhaps worse! – that of our books. Occasionally I meet one of my own offspring, staring back at me from the dusty shelves like a memento mori. “Buy me!” it seems to beg, in mute appeal. I generally oblige.
We all have our unjustly-forgotten writers, and Hay is a good place to find them. Whatever happened to Nina Beachcroft, for example? Her first three books, Well Met by Witchlight (1972), Cold Christmas and Under the Enchanter (both 1974) are a wonderful debut set, showing mastery of a variety of fantasy genres, from comic supernatural
A couple of weeks ago I brought you a post on the Hay Festival by OUP UK’s Head of Publicity Kate Farquhar-Thomson. Today, for those of you who couldn’t make it to the Festival (like me), here are some of Kate’s photos from the few days she spent there.
The festival site from on high
Priya Gopal, author of The Indian English Novel, speaks to a festival-goer
Scientists Steve Jones and Jerry Coyne. Coyne’s book Why Evolution is True was published by OUP in the UK.
Festival-goers on site. Doesn’t it look glorious?
Simon Baron-Cohen, author of Autism and Asperger Syndrome: The Facts, signs books.
The Hay Festival of Arts and Literature is one of the highlights of the UK literary calendar. Every year it takes place in Hay on Wye, a small village on the English-Welsh border, famed for its numerous bookshops. This year sees events from lots of big names including AC Grayling, Niall Ferguson, Ian McEwan, and Karen Armstrong. Several OUP authors are also doing events during the festival, including Anthony Julius, Ian Glynn, Robin Hanbury-Tenison, and Jerry Coyne.
OUP UK’s Head of Publicity, Kate Farquhar-Thomson, is also there, and this week will be sending her dispatches from the festival front line. Today, though, she writes about the other side of Hay.
It would be easy to make a list of the stars that I have spotted here at the Hay Festival since I arrived, or indeed the past colleagues I have worked with, but actually what strikes me more, on this visit, is what is going on outside the boundaries of the festival.
The fact is that whilst tens of thousands of people descend on this small Welsh border town for a week (or so) to mingle with politicians, models (oh yes, Jerry Hall was here!), historians, novelists and more, life around the UK’s premier ‘Book Town’ still goes on. I see tractors going about their farm business, sheep lambing and hay being made. However it is not only hay that is being made in Hay by the indigenous population. There are numerous little stalls of bric-a-brac, tea shops, cake stalls and plant sellers that have sprung up in gardens, on pavements, under tents and in driveways. The whole town embraces the festival and is keen to capitalise on it! Good for them I say. It happens but once a year and it is truly special. It is like the circus is in town… all encompassing but transient.
Some of Hay on Wye’s native residents.
Talking of circuses there is actually one in town in the grounds of Hay Castle this year. Giffords Circus, normally to be found every other year in a field just over the Hay Bridge has bedded down in the town centre this year. Within the castle, which was built in 1200, is a flat owned by Richard Booth, the self-proclaimed “King of Hay” whose eponymous bookshop stands at the centre of Hay and was the first second-hand bookshop to open here well over 40 years ago. And for the first time since I have been coming to Hay I actually met the man himself last Saturday night!
.jpg?picon=1806)
But ebooks will never smell of book - that's one of the glories of Hay, those shops that smell of ancient paper. Nor will their pages rustle, in that surprised way that pages do when they are old. Bit like the rest of us, I suppose - smelly and rustley when we are old! (I'm nearly there so I'm allowed to way this.)
I think this is one of the great things about e-books: that we'll be able to read books like Nina Beachcroft's forever (because paper books do, unfortunately, rot away eventually, or fall to pieces after heavy reading).
Love your image of stalking through Hay, ripping the jewels from bony necks and fingers.
When is a book dead? It is perhaps only when no one in their right mind would want to read it, or because it expresses obnoxious views, or because it is badly written, or because it does not have the power to grip the imagination.
Or ... in my view ... it dies when it starts getting traded - in places like Hay - as a first edition, and its value lies in its price as an object and not in what is inside it. That's when it's a zombie - something that moves around, but has no soul.
Mmmm - and I own Nina Beachcroft's 'A Spell of Sleep': a wonderful book. I think we just have to admit no one can read everything. There'll be those of us who hunt down and read older, brilliant books, and those who don't - and I doubt if availablity as an ebook will make much difference: you still have to KNOW about them.
And - Michelle - too right! A book is not worth anything unless it is being opened and read.
Charlie, seeing your cover picture gave me a little shock! It's so familiar (and such a gorgeous cover). I met Nina Beachcroft when I was a newly published young writer in the 1970s and lived nearby. She was very kind and friendly to me and, like you, I loved her books, and have signed copies of several of them. Her writing was beautifully crafted, polished and easy to read, and she wrote some great stories. As well as those mentioned, Cold Christmas is a chilling ghost story - recommended!
Sorry, you DID mention Cold Christmas - well, no harm in mentioning it twice! (three times now...)
You can mention it as often as you wish, Ann! She deserves more mentions altogether.