Ways With Words

Reading in the Morning

When A.C. Grayling came to Ways With Words in July he asked members of the audience whether they felt guilty reading in the morning. The communal laugh made it clear it was a rhetorical question. Everyone did. And this was a literary audience. Oh we shouldn’t, he insisted. What could be more valuable than developing our ideas through reading? Of course, being a literary audience, we all agreed.

So, with A.C. Grayling’s permission, we are spending our days reading. Each morning, here in the Dordogne, after the croissants, the deckchairs are put under the walnut trees and we read. We don’t feel guilty at all. Partly because it is our holiday and you are allowed to read in the morning on holiday. It is also hot and sunny so we can’t be expected to be more active. And also this could be considered work. We are reading memoirs because in 10 days time our Memoir Course starts here. Penelope Lively and Julia Blackburn are the tutors and each has produced a reading list for the group so we have lots of guidance. We are also re-reading their memoirs. It is a privilege to share these lives. Our holiday is an unadventurous stay in S.W. France but from my deckchair I have been in pre-revolution Russia with Nabakov, to Egypt with Penelope, Cheshire with Hilary Mantel [not quite the same].The emotional journeying has been even more extensive. Is it work or holiday? It doesn’t matter; they frequently merge for us.

Driving down to the Dordogne we listened to A.C. Grayling on Desert Island Discs. Everything he says about living a good life shakes up your thinking. I was struck by his comment that he found it invigorating to have a limited life span. It made him active and productive. So besides reading in the morning I am spending my time here making jam and lavender bags, listening to tapes to improve my French [he has something to say about this too], discovering Romanesque churches and enjoying French food and wine. It’s not productive, A.C. Grayling style. I can’t imagine Anthony sewing lavender bags, but for me this is a productive holiday, a good life. I am defying death with my blackberry jelly.

When our Memoir tutors and the course members arrive here there will be more creativity: people will write their own memories, discuss the books they’ve read, eat and talk together. I think Anthony Grayling should be coming to write his autobiography. His life story is dramatic and moving and explains partly why he is such a great philosopher but knowing the number of books he writes it may be ready for the printers already.

For those who want to chase their own immortality the Memoir Writing Course runs from September 8 – 12 in Leygonie, near Riberac.

Another Flush of the Lavatory : Another Ways With Words Discussion

I watched the first television programme in the new Andrew Marr series which shows Britain from the air. I found it terrifying: so many people, cars, houses, so much stuff in so little space. Everything was alarming. The huge computerised warehouses full of food rely on thousands of lorries arriving on time to make their collections otherwise the system collapses and the shelves in supermarkets will be empty. Considering the overcrowding on the motorways the chances of them sticking to schedules seems very unlikely. I’m surprised I can ever get my packets of muesli when I want them.

Where are the lakes of sewage that cover acres of our land? We need to know so we can keep well away. We all make jokey comments about the fact that our water has been drunk several times but here was the reality and it wasn’t pleasant. I felt guilty flushing the toilet after watching the amount of waste we create. For some time now I have felt that we all consume far too much and the planet can’t cope so I have restricted my personal consumption and given recycled presents, not indulged in new clothes, shoes [particularly difficult for me], furniture and other durable [supposedly] goods but reducing the amount I buy is one thing, cutting the number of showers I take and how often I use the lavatory is another. 

The positive side of this disturbing programme is how clever we are to keep things working as well as we do in this over crowded country. I’m amazed that when I flick a switch the light comes on, that my rubbish is collected and I never see it again, that lettuces are grown, houses built, letters delivered. Can it last?

Andrew Marr seemed full of excitement and awe at what he saw. Hopefully he’ll come to Ways With Words and tell us whether he was secretly terrified too. We’ll get Rob Hopkins of Transition Town Totnes, an expert on peak oil, to give his predictions too. Bad as I felt after watching Britain From The Air it’s all good material for a future Ways With Words event. I realised how ignorant I [and probably many others] are about how the country operates. Hopefully we can offer enlightenment and education at a Ways With Words event on the topic. It’s what the festivals are for.

Ways With Words’ next festival is in Southwold, Suffolk (6 – 10 November).
To see the full programme click here.

 

Normal Life Has Been Resumed After Ways With Words

Our farmhouse is only about a mile away from Dartington Hall so we live at home during the festival but it isn’t home life as we know it. It’s hardly home life at all; we spend about 16 hours each day on-site at Dartington flitting from event to event, checking writers have arrived, meeting, greeting and eating with the speakers. When we are here we find the house is full of family and friends who are helping at the festival so each morning starts with about 10 people round the breakfast table and ends with a glass of whisky as everyone reports back on their experiences and observations from the day. Ten days feels like six months but then it is all over for another year. The banners come down, Waterstones packs the leftover books, Van Rouge drives their Parisian fire engines away and we move our office back to Droridge Farm. When I went camping as a girl guide we were told that when we left no-one should know that a girl guide had passed that way. I feel the same about Dartington Hall. Thousands of people have tramped over the medieval stones at Dartington Hall, sat on the window sills of the Great Hall, walked by the herbaceous borders, but we try to be good tenants so that when we leave it is as if Ways With Words hadn’t happened. We remove all traces of our presence, then drive away to the seaside to have a last meal with our house guests before they leave.

“Do we feel flat when the festival finishes?” people often ask. “Do you collapse with exhaustion?” “Are you relieved it’s over?” No, no, no. Festivals can only exist for short, sharp bursts. They are wonderful when they are happening but I expect Michael Eavis is glad to return to milking his cows after Glastonbury. Droridge Farm isn’t a working farm so I can’t claim to be returning to my dairy herd but we are back in our barn; it is filled with Apple Macs rather than apples. Like Seamus Heaney we dig with our pens not with spades but there is a lot of spade work to be done before Ways With Words is buried for this year.

Eventually we start to think about forthcoming events. Ways With Words Southwold programmes have arrived on people’s mats, so in November we shall be moving East. But now we are packing to go to France to prepare for our Memoir Writing Course with Penelope Lively and Julia Blackburn. From there we shall move to Italy for our Holiday Courses in art, writing, book groups, philosophy. Mary Knott, Blake Morrison, James Long, Kate Adie and Michael Buerk will join us to run the courses in Italy.

Life can’t be all festivals but I do want a generous sprinkling of them throughout the year.

If festive living suits you check our forthcoming events on the website:
The Art of Memoir in France: 8-12 September
Holiday Courses in Italy: 27 Sept. – 4 October, 4 October – 11 October
Ways With Words Southwold Festival: 6-10 November