On the final day of the 2015 Hay Festival, Alex Salmond the former leader of the SNP and newly elected Westminster MP talks to Helena Kennedy QC the barrister, broadcaster, and Labour member of the House of Lords. Salmond is here to discuss the inside story of the campaign for Scottish independence, in his diary, ‘The Dream Shall Never Die: 100 Days That Changed Scotland Forever’.

Kennedy asks how he became a campaigning Scottish Nationalist. At St Andrews university he had girlfriend who was secretary of the Labour Club and they used to fight about politics. One day she said; “if you feel like that go and join the bloody SNP” and he did the very next day. In those days you couldn’t join on a website. Salmond hitchhiked to Dundee to join the party, only to be given an address in St Andrews where he had just come from.

Salmond managed to get the referendum phrased with ‘Yes’ for leaving the UK and he acknowledges that this was in his favour. He also managed to get Cameron to agree to his agenda on the timing.  How did he persuade Cameron asks Kennedy. “Well, he’s not very bright, you see.”

In the Scottish referendum people got drawn into the political process and it made them better people says Salmond, 98% of the population registered to vote.  He tells a story of people registering to vote for the first time since they opposed the poll tax.  “Hundreds of thousands of people who had never given a stuff about politics or politicians were determined to exercise their democratic franchise.  That’s what happened to lots of people in the referendum campaign and that’s what dictated the result of the general election campaign in Scotland.

Meera Syal is in Hay to talk about her third novel and her first book in 16 years, ‘The House of Hidden Mothers’.  She just didn’t have a book that she wanted to write during that time and until she was watching a  documentary about surrogacy in India. It was as if one of her favourite books, Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ had crossed the line from fiction into fact.

The surrogacy industry in India is now worth $4.5 billion a year, and often poor girls from rural areas carry babies for wealthy foreign couples.

In Meera’s new novel, Shyama, at 48 (in the first draft she was 44) has fallen for a younger man, Toby, and they want a child. She already has a 19 year-old daughter and has been told that she can’t have another child. Her friend Priya tells her about ART – Assisted Reproductive Technology. At the same time in a rural village in India, young Mala is trapped in an oppressive marriage and needs money to escape from her situation..

Manzoor says asks whether the novel about a relationship between two people is also about the relationship between England and India and Syal agrees. This isn’t too far from call centres,”effectively we’ve outsourced fertility”.  The West has rich infertile women and the East has poor fertile women and trade has stepped in.

The discussion covered issues of culture and diversity and how Meera had played with these issues in a mischievous and irreverent way in her work. “There’s a  difference between Bernard Manning telling a Jewish joke and Woody Allen telling a Jewish joke.”  The subject of age is also at the fore in this discussion and particularly in the impact it has on women. “However much botox you have your ovaries are still the age your ovaries are.”

After seven wonderful days and nights in Hay, we have returned to our Kentish seaside abode, awash with good food and drink and many inspiring memories. There really cannot be any literary festival anywhere in the world that can hold a candle to the joy that is Hay. Personal highlight of the week was the evening with Alan Bennett and Nicholas Hytner, as they discussed “The Lady in the Van”, and at the end of which the former was presented with the Hay Medal for Drama. It was a very moving moment and an absolute privilege to be witness to. The hills and vales of Wales are now far behind us. The process of longing for Hay 2016 has begun.

The last full day at the festival with friends is always tinged with a little sadness and some degree of exhaustion. Early mornings, late nights, overloading on fizzy, ice creams and irregular sleeping patterns fail to spoil our enjoyment however. Listening to Marcus Brigstocke talk to Steve Punt (a.k.a Eric Idle) and Will Smith (Veep and The Thick of It) about their comedy inspirations and early career was both funny and inspiring. The session reminds of how much brilliant comedy our wonderful nation has produced, long may it continue, although the medium of delivery for new comics may be changing (i.e. YouTube)

The sun is shining again and I’ve got far too many layers on today to be comfortable, so it’s refreshing to be in the cooler Telegraph stage for the delightful Vikram Seth, in what seemed to be a vehemently ‘Guardian’ audience. Much to our delight one audience member confessed that she asked for a copy of the Guardian at the Telegraph stand…

So I’m off to buy a copy of Vikram’s new volume of poetry, A Summer Requiem, after admittedly struggling with A Suitable Boy (must get round to it soon) after listening to him talk about his life, his writing, his love of the ‘red stuff’ (like myself, he finds it aids working…) and music.

If you’ve been following the Hay Festival on social media but can’t get there, you van still enjoy the experience live on the BBC iPlayer.  BBC Arts Online has been broadcasting selected live streams of some of the events at this year’s festival as they did for the first time last year. The on-line broadcasts can be watched on the BBC Arts site where they’ll remain for 30 days.  Here’s tonight’s schedule:

At 7pm this evening Dan & Peter Snow discuss the Battle of Waterloo and tell the story of Napoleon’s 100 Days Campaign, from his Elba escape to his Waterloo defeat.  Then at 8.30pm Neil Gaiman talks to Claire Armitstead.  The prolific creator of books, comics, films and songs talks about his work and pays tribute to his friend Terry Pratchett, who died in March.

1.  LIVE 19:00: Dan & Peter Snow
2. LIVE 20:30: Neil Gaiman talks to Claire Armitstead

Normal Hay service was resumed this morning, as the heavens opened and a cold northerly wind blew us down the hill from our base in Craswall. Our morning brightened as we attended ‘The Two Johnnies do Emma’, a.k.a John Crace of The Guardian’s Digested Read (& latterly their parliamentary sketch writer) and ‘Superprof’ John Sutherland, master of the classics.

Despite not having read Emma until a week or so ago, Crace skilfully applied his ‘digested’ approach to the novel, to the obvious delight of most of the audience (more of that later), while Sutherland pondered the obtuse such as ‘what were the toilet arrangements in Emma’; ‘why doesn’t Emma want to be married’ and ‘was Mr Knightley a Paedophile?’ He later concludes that there are several hints in the novel regarding toilet arrangements, Emma has witnessed her older sister bearing 5 children in 6 years and dreads the same fate for herself – and, thankfully, Mr Knightley only has honourable intentions, phew!

John Crace then ventured into the afterlife of the classics, digesting Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D James, cleverly weaving in the titles of Austen’s other novels before concluding that often, ‘a classic novel is not in want of a sequel’ – he was then reprimanded by an audience member for ‘ruining Emma’ for her – but then, we are all entitled to our opinion, it’s just made me want to read Emma again, after an absence of some 25 years.

I’m comforted by the good Doctor shaking my hand on the way into Llwyfan Cymru, saying “You look well”. The night before, I was reminded of my upcoming 60th birthday when a question was asked of Jack Dee’s Help Desk about how (or more correctly who) to harvest a stool sample, as the NHS write to all of us approaching the big birthday, screening for bowel cancer.

The entertaining and informative session focussed on how we can fix the NHS. By taking responsibility for our own well-being, Dr Phil reckoned that over 70% of visits to the GP can be avoided.

I’m a T2 diabetic, and have successfully managed my condition by diet and exercise. Dr Phil illustrated his point by using CLANGERS as an acronym to assist people in living a healthy way:

C to Connect with people and don’t live in isolation to others;

L to Learn new things and continually challenge yourself;

A to be Active;

N to Notice the world around you and savour the moment;

G to Give Back, do something nice for someone, smile, volunteer;

E to Eat well;

R to Relax, take time out to chill; and

S to Sleep, getting 6-8 hours of good quality sleep is fundamental.

“Every day you don’t need to use the NHS, someone else benefits”.