The last day if the Festival

Yes, I made it to the last day. Tomorrow, normal Blip service will be resumed!

Here is the bronze sculpture of Michael Williams and Judi Dench, by Meryll Evans, sculptor. They were joint patrons of the Theatre by the Lake and opened it in 1999.

First up was Mike Berners-Lee on his ground breaking book, The Climate of Truth. It seems that a few people thought he would be talking about the World Wide Web not climate change, but that would have been his brother!

Then a journalist and author I had not heard of: Anne Sebba. In researching her father’s military history in WWII she found out about the women’s orchestra in Auschwitz. It was a moving story.

Both Mike and Anne were allowed to speak rather than be interviewed. Both were excellent.

After lunch it was Diarmaid MacCulloch, eminent historian on “Making sense of Christianity and Sex”. The programme had been changed and he was given only 10 minutes to speak - brilliant - followed by a panel discussion with Richard Coles and Marie-Elsa Bragg (daughter of Melvyn and an Anglican priest in her own right).

The discussion was fine, but I would have much rather heard Diarmaid. I will post a link to an interesting review shortly.

Here it is: https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/sep/08/i-thought-of-the-church-as-a-friend-and-it-slapped-me-in-the-face-historian-diarmaid-macculloch-on-the-church-of-englands-hypocrisy?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Finally, the festival finale was Richard Coles. He is always genial and entertaining, at time sad and thoughtful, at time anarchic and mischievous. I will try one of his books and hope that his writing style suits me better than LJ Ross from yesterday!

It has been a good few days and helped me through a difficult anniversary.

I’ve met some lovely people and I’m keeping in tough with one couple who are going to come to the Hexham Book Festival in May.

Thank goodness for books and the ability to read and write.