This year’s festival started in great form with a sell out event with Bonnie Garmus sharing compelling stories about her blockbuster book Lessons in Chemistry. And that was just the beginning. Our events took us from Ancient Greece and Rome with Elodie Harper and Jennifer Saint and the fascinating tale of an English Doctor at the Russian Court of Catherine the Great with Lucy Ward to Peter Bradley describing his family’s story of the holocaust. We had a lively evening with Alan Johnson talking about life in Parliament and his new murder mystery and musician. On our weekend we had two events – podcaster and cricket superman Felix White in one and fun event about making the most of midlife with Christie Watson, Marianne Jones and Kat Farmer. Our literary tea was accompanied by an interesting talk about Eliza Acton, the original and not celebrated enough chef and cookbook writer.
This year we were sponsored by Wildernesse House and held a fascinating event around the flowers we find domestically and in the wild in their stunning hall. And we rounded the festival off as it started with a fascinating woman, this time Susannah Constantine, talking about her must read biography.
