A frighteningly posh ginger ten -year old gave me perfect directions to the ProfWriting tent and then went about his business of advertising someone’s food stall with a cardboard sign. And what food! No hotdogs here, nope, it was all falafels, Jamaican goat curry and Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen. This was by far the poshest festival I’ve ever been to; I felt simultaneously over and underdressed. Wearing a pair of clean Vans seemed a little over the top when everyone else had wellies on, yet again a pair of jeans and a shirt were very drab when compared to the plethora of fairies and fashionistas swathed in tinfoil and warning tape.
According to the brochure this was the seventh Port Eliot Festival and that only 18 paying guests presented themselves at the first one. Festivals are big business in the British summer now and if I can use the misquote ‘if you build it, they will come’. And come they have. The parks and gardens of the Earl of St. German were positively humming with visitors on a muggy Saturday in July.
I had a few hours before I had to embarrass myself in front of people so I went to see who I could find. Sadly I had already missed the River Cottage people. Hugh Fearnnley-Whittingstall’s talk (on Friday) probably had a recipe for raw elk’s bladder on toast or maybe artichoke and afterbirth flan, that said it is all part of Hugh’s eccentric charm and the River Cottage BLTs were very highly praised by all who had the patience to queue.
Firstly I went to see the most splendid Diana Athill, OBE. The award winning novelist and memoirist has been the editor to a number of famous and respected authors. This lovely doyenne of publishing and editing was recently honoured with a BBC Imagine with Alan Yentob. She showed herself to be every bit as sharp, funny and eloquent in the tent as she had on TV, not bad for a ninety-year-old. The only downside to the event was that she and the interviewer (the editor Ian Jack) hadn’t been mic’d up properly and consequently you could only hear half of what was said. Sadly this meant that the fat female Aussie behind felt the need to bellow ‘Can you get her to speak into the F**king mic’; not the sort of thing you yell at ninety-two-year-olds, or anyone really. Ms Anthill talked of writing as a therapy as IPhones were held aloft to photograph and video her. She talked of her work with VS Naipaul and how his depressions was a ‘challenge’ and that editing often had more in common with nannying then anything else. There was the warm aroma of canvas and while she laughed about an over-eighties dating agency she had been invited to join some of the audience put down their BlackBerries long enough to do a little knitting.
Ian Jack & Diana Anthill, OBE
After a lunch of goat curry and rice and beans I sat beneath a beech tree in the Walled Garden and listened to Alexander Masters (author of the most splendid Stuart: a life backwards, go and read it.) and Sam Leith chat about the madness and magic of mathematicians. Alexander had chosen to add a little cabaret by dressing as a man-sized number seven. What I heard between two kids called Neco and Rupert being reprimanded was fascinating and funny and I look forward to reading their new books when they come out.
Sam Leith and Alexander Masters (Number Seven)
There was little else I could do after that but go and prepare for my session in the Profwriting tent. I stopped in to watch a little of Martin Parr’s talk about hoarding but my mind was elsewhere, so I went and sat on the hill over looking the secret Tamar estuary that Kate Rew’s Wild Swimmers would venture into after tea, and pulled out my notes …
Have a good week folks
Cheers Matt
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