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.

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.

We must be getting old, or so it seems. A few years ago festival fatigue would have taken much longer to set in, but come Monday night we awaken from a long lie in, breakfast in the sunshine and solitude of our base in Craswall, and mosey on down into Hay for a lunchtime session of Tessa Dunlop for me and a bit of stewarding duty for Pete. Tessa doesn’t fail to impress, despite her intended companion Pamela Rose (a 93 year old Bletchley Park girl) having been hospitalised the day before (get well soon Pamela!), she brings the whole era to life, is animated and captivating as she recounts the stories of the fifteen ladies (or girls) she had spent a year interviewing and getting to know, before publishing her book, The Bletchley Park Girls. When asked how difficult it was to keep e secrets they had, one of the ‘girls’ simply replied ‘it wasn’t difficult, because no-one ever asked what women did for the war effort’.

My next session was equally educational, as Amitav Ghosh gave us a quick historical insight on how the opium trade formed the foundation of the capitalist economy in the nineteenth century. His new book Flood of Fire is a follow up to River of Smoke and Sea of Poppies and has taken him ten years to complete. Ghosh explored a plethora of little known words as he takes delight in exploring sound and language in his literature, (I now know the original meaning of ‘doolally’, hilarious!) I am adding the fascinating trilogy to my ever growing pile of ‘must reads’.

Fascinating session with Professor Andrew Cull, who has documented 2000 years of madness – a term which has been used on and off for centuries, and has now been reclaimed by some of those suffering from mental illness. He illustrated the talk with a series of slides taken from his book, often disturbing in nature as he guided us through the various manifestations of the illness and it’s cures. 

What was surprising was that in the past, medical meanings existed in parallel to the superstious explanations of madness. His book also explores how novelists illustrated the subject, from Ibsen to Zola, including of course Charlotte Bronte’s Bertha Mason, the infamous ‘madwoman in the attic’. What’s clear (and for me, disappointing) is that the history of madness is not a linear one, with theories and treatments lurching back and forth over the years.

Bob Stanley and Mark Ellen talk about…Pop Music.

You know you’re in for a treat when there’s a record deck on stage and vinyl propped up against the table.

Bob is a journalist and one third of Saint Etienne.  He has written an 800 page book Yeah Yeah Yeah:The Story of Modern Pop. Mark is a journalist and TV presenter (Live Aid, Old Grey Whistle Test) and was the bass player in Tony Blair’s first band. He’s just published a book Rock Stars Stole my Life! A Big Bad Love Affair with Music.

We were treated to I’m in Love by Fats Domino, which got two ladies in the front row bopping, Hey Bulldog by The Beatles, All Day and All of the Night by the Kinks, Amateur Hour by Sparks and a Captain Beefheart track which I didn’t catch. You can’t beat the sound of the needle hitting vinyl.

Some great stories were told about Lady Gaga (she definitely is a woman), Van Morrison (two types of people, those who like Van Morrison and those who have met him), Mick Jagger (has laughter lines, but nothing can be that funny) and Paul McCartney visiting a pub in Harrold.

Great entertainment, and a really upbeat way to end our Hay.

Badgerlands. The twilight world of Britain’s most enigmatic animal.

Patrick Barkham spoke eloquently and even-handedly about the Badger. His grandmother, Jane Ratcliffe, was obsessed with badgers. She was a fervent campaigner for protection and also ran a rescue centre.

Whilst fairgrounds displayed “a monster badger which terrorised the district with its destruction of sheep & cattle” and badger baiting was (and still is) around, it took a banker writing Wind in the Willows for attitudes to begin to change and for the Brock, a Middle English slang name for badger, to get a fairer press.

In the course of research for the book, Patrick ate badger. A road kill chef created a stir fry with hoisin sauce from Asda – “Dense, chewy and unpleasantly strong.”  It repeated on Patrick all the way home from Bournemouth.

The polarisation over the cull was an issue for the country and society. Whilst it’s clear that the costs to cull Badgers were far higher than vaccination, and the target to cull 70% of Badgers wasn’t met, there isn’t a simple answer. There is a vaccination for cattle, but it is only 60% effective and vaccinated cattle can’t be exported to the EU.

The last few days of the festival are always a little bit sad, with their ‘end of the party’ atmosphere. We’ve packed a fair bit in before we return to normality including three novelists who couldn’t be more different.  Ian McEwan,  returns to Hay to do his research with the audience, treating us to extracts from his new novel The Children Act, tackling the serious subjects of religion and family life.  Asked how much of him appears in his novels he replies ‘my fingerprints are all over all of my characters’.  The delightful Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talked about her new novel, Americana, which explores the sense of self, truth and identity of a Nigerian living in America. The interview was deliciously flirty one, Ted Hodkinson is obviously an avid fan.

Helen Fielding revealed quite a bit of the Bridget Jones within, dropping her microphone pack twice and admitting she got Ibsen and Chekov confused, much to her embarrassment.  Her new novel, Mad about the Boy (spoiler alert) has killed off the lovely Darcy and finds Bridget five years down the line trying to rebuild her life.  The same themes come up, as Fielding reminds us that our characters do not really change over the years, despite the fact we have new roles as wives, mothers and so on – our childish and playful natures never really leave us.

For me, it was a week enriched by tales from the two world wars, my favourite novelists and poets, the discovery of new authors, getting to love red mud, the art of dressing in layers and meeting lots of lovely people in the queues and at the events – 2015 has been booked!

Hay Literary Festival 2014

Osvaldo Ardiles was introduced as being famous not only for football, but for being in a chart topping record. “I’m not singing”, he responded.

Two women brought tickets for Cherie Booth’s talk on her mothers career, and asked a steward if they could sit in the front row. “Are you big fans?” “No, we are going to stand up and walk out in protest as soon as she starts her talk”. And they did. I’ll bet she lost sleep over that.

Parking in muddy fields has been a challenge. I inadvertently splashed a child with mud in the @carparkathay. His dad wasn’t happy with me.

Queues started for Benedict Cumberbatch three hours before the event start time.

Queues for Bear Grylls were so large, they had to be directed onto the muddy grass. You would expect that someone keen to see the great explorer would not get too upset about some mud on their shoes.

Patrick Barkham on Badgers: “it isn’t a black & white issue”

Highlights for me:
Tapas black rice at Ibérica;
Sunday lunch @ The Groucho Hay;
The Bulls Head;
Lava bread & cockles at The Swan;
Meeting up with old friends;
Talking to so many nice people.

What have I learnt:
Bubble bum gas. It’s what comes out when you are tickled;
Handed a microphone, it helps if you talk into it;
How Suggs got his name;
Pippa Middleton’s bum has a tweetbot;
Geoff Hurst was on £60 a week in 1966;
People don’t read the information they are sent with their tickets or in the programme.

See you all again on Friday 22 May 2015!