Travels With(out) My Bongos : The Hay Festival
I was the only who took a photo of my own name.
Many of you will know the start of this story by now. I had an invite to attend the award of the New Welsh Review’s awards for new Welsh writing at the Hay Festival. What you may not have known is that when I submitted my photograph for their website so they could publicise the longlist, I had an e-mail reply asking me where I bought my hoodie - Dewi Heald : Author and Fashion icon.
However, not only was it too hot for a hoodie for Hay, I was working in the morning, meaning that I had to go to work and then drive to Hay-on-Wye in my work clothes. Only when I had found the Park n Ride car park could I get into the back of the car and change. As I have noted before, i only got into writing so I could take my clothes off in a better class of car park.
Having managed to change and emerge butterfly-like from the back of my car, I walked over to where the shuttle bus was waiting to take me to the festival. The bus driver was leaning against the front door eating her lunch and I did offer to let her finish it, but she was dedicated to her job of driving people to the festival so I got in the bus. I sat just behind her and to her left and since I was the only one on the bus, I asked her if she minded me referring to this as being chauffeur-driven to the festival. She did not object and I was glad not to have had to ask ‘don’t you know who I am?’ She asked me which events I was going to, which was a pretty clear signal that she had no idea who I was. I did not ask her to confirm this, but we had a chat about the venues and the events. She was a Hay resident who had never been to the festival, which raises the interesting question of how much connection the festival has with its surroundings.
The first thing I saw when I entered the festival was hundreds and hundreds of schoolchildren. This was a Friday in 2019, why were they not on climate strike like normal schoolchildren? No, for some reason they had decided to do the school trip to the literary festival. Children today! I fought my way through the crowds of them and took some time to soak up the atmosphere. I have only been to the festival once before and that was as a volunteer at the Quaker stand there in 2017.
I found the Summerhouse where the NWR event was going to take place. I walked past it a few times until I was sure that it was the place to be and I waited until ten to three to walk in. There was an obvious problem. How would they know who I was? Was I just a lone punter wandering in because the queue for the book signing in the next tent was too long? I walked in and was immediately greeted with ‘Hello Dewi’. I was very pleasantly surprised and asked how they recognised me – “We all know you from your hoodie!” was the answer. Honestly, if the writing does not work out, I may have a sideline in fashion modelling.
There was a banner stand at the front of the room and it had my name on it. I took a photo of it but noticed that I was the only one whose name was listed who did so. I did apologise to the organisers in case this looked tacky, but I knew why I was doing it and it was not just to share with Instagram. I talked to a few people but paused for a while to soak in the atmosphere. I dare say that I might have looked anti-social to some people but, as the summerhouse filled up and they had to open the doors to let some air in, I wanted to pause to feel what it was like to be at an awards ceremony, albeit one that you have not won but you were invited anyway.
There was free orange juice and crisps. There was also wine but, as you know, I had driven and so I did not want to leave my car overnight. After all, it had a change of clothes in it. There were speeches from the NWR, the award judges and Dafydd Elis-Thomas, Deputy Minister for Culture. I wondered if I should ask Dafydd Elis-Thomas if he ever intended to answer the e-mail I sent him three years ago about the plans to re-open the Bangor to Caernarfon railway line in his constituency? I decided probably not. Was this also the time to tell him that I once used a toilet on a train to Llandudno after he had done? I decided definitely not.
You will all know that I entered the award for a dystopian novella but there was another award being given out, one for ‘writing on a Welsh theme’. This was sponsored by Richard Powell, a man who told a wonderful tale of being a disgruntled subscriber about to cancel his subscription from the magazine when the editor persuaded him to sponsor an award instead. Those are very serious persuasion skills on display in that story! He reflected on Welsh culture from the perspective of having lived and worked in Finland. It is a comparison I have thought about myself – the small country (well, a small number of people in a bigger land area), dominated for centuries by its huge and powerful neighbour but retaining its own culture. He said that Finns worried about whether their culture was ‘Finnish enough’ and that certainly is a question you hear asked in Wales.
He said that the ‘writing on a Welsh theme’ idea had bled over into the dystopian novella category. That was not the case with my entry, though I approve of the idea no end. The short story that “Me, I’m Like Legend, I Am” (MILIA as it is known for short) was based on was written in 2016 after I had watched the film ‘I Am Legend’ with my then girlfriend. I had enjoyed it, but I asked her why stories about the last survivor on earth had to be based in Los Angeles or New York and not the Vale of Glamorgan. She replied, “No-one would watch them if they weren’t”. The next morning I sat on the train to work and started to write a post-apocalyptic story about survivors in the Vale of Glamorgan. Eventually it would become the novella named on the New Welsh Review banner, but my belief that we should take stories and place them firmly in Wales goes back a long way. Anyway who has heard me play the world’s first (and likely to be the world's last) Welsh bossanova song will know my dedication to this.
Where I did really agree with the comments made by the speakers was about the minority status of ‘Anglophone Welsh writing’. When I was at university this was slightly dismissively called ‘Anglo-Welsh writing’ as if there was something not quite Welsh about it. Yet, writers in Wales who write in English do have a distinctive voice, just as the English spoken in Wales is distinct (and increasingly peppered with words from Welsh). Unfortunately, the publishing industry of ‘England and Wales’ is still very much about England and to this writer at least, English agents and publishers can seem reluctant to take on a story set in Wales or about Welsh people. This is why I think that the New Welsh Review and other magazines are important and yes reader, I took out a subscription. (https://www.newwelshreview.com/newsub.php)
The winners were announced and I applauded them and thought that I looked forward to reading what they had written. I enjoyed the speech given by the winner of the dystopian novella prize as she noted that when you tell people that you are writing about a dystopia, they ask if you are writing about how things are now. Yes, been there and had that reaction! The winners posed for their photos, toasts were made, hands were shaken and it was time for me to leave and merge back into the crowds at the festival and wonder if there was any way that I could justify spending £20 on a mug.
I stopped for a coffee and a caramel shortcake at the festival cafe before heading home. Sitting there it occurred to me that there was a short story to be written about conspiracy theories in which the ‘liberal elite’ were controlling the population through caramel shortcakes. This story could only be set at the Hay Festival. The caramel shortcakes were that good – you know that they are controlling you, but they taste so satisfying!
There would be no chauffeur-driven trip back to the park 'n' ride site and I went to stand to one side of the others waiting because a group of men had started to talk about politics rather loudly. From some of their comments, they might not have been aware that they were part of the liberal elite (or was that what they wanted me to think?). This had the unfortunate effect that when the shuttle bus did arrive, everyone else was on it and there were no seats left by the time that I was getting on, even though I was waiting there first.
The driver offered to let me sit on the floor at the front if I held on to the pole on the back of the door. There I was then sitting, looking back at a minibus full of passengers and out from ground level to the houses and the streets going by outside. The bus driver asked me what I had been to see at the festival and I decided not to ask him if he knew who I was (I do know the answer to that). He had been driving school buses for most of the day but they had called him in as an extra driver around four o’clock. He lived in Hay but he had never been to the festival.
The next day I phoned my mother and told her the story. She knew exactly why I had taken a photo of my name on the banner stand and none of the other competitors had done. Sitting there on the floor of a minibus rattling through the streets of Hay, I could have told you what I thought about it.
I think that they were thinking that this was just another wonderful day on their literary journey, I was the only one thinking that this could be the peak of my literary life. I hope not but, if I am never invited to an event at Hay again, I would like to tell the story of that day that I was invited and I saw my name and drank orange juice and had a chauffeur driven ride to the festival entrance.
I probably will not mention taking my clothes off in a park 'n' ride car park. That could cause some misunderstanding and probably a ban from travelling on shuttle buses ...