Chipping Campden Bulletin April 2021 Issue

CHIPPING CAMPDEN LITERATURE FESTIVAL
Monday 20th - Saturday 25th September 2021
A full programme of “live” events is underway for September. As soon as the programme is
complete it will be put on the website. To avoid ticket refunds in the event of cancellation due to
Covid, the soonest that online booking will begin is June.
Tuesday 21st Cotswold House Hotel Literary Lunch change of programme:
biographer Andrew Lownie has a new book out in the autumn The Traitor King. Thus it will be Lunch with The
Windsors. To book this event please call the hotel reservations 01386 840330 after 17th May, when – in keeping with
guidelines – the hotel is able to reopen.
In the March Bulletin we promoted The Court Barn Museum illustrated talk: John Holmes, Temple of Science describing
the Victorian masterpiece: the Oxford Museum of Natural History, a meeting place for the arts and sciences, for Ruskin
and Pre-Raphaelite principles and industrial modernity; Paula Byrne’s talk on her latest brilliant biography The Adventures
of Miss Barbara Pym; and Jonathan Bate’s biography Bright Star, Green Light: John Keats and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Wednesday 22nd 10am Naoko Abe presents her elegant life of Collingwood ‘Cherry’ Ingram, the Englishman who
saved Japanese blossoms (sakura) and whose legacy we enjoy every spring. Naoko’s account shows how the blossoms,
in all their beauty and multiplicity, were threatened by the rising tides of WWII. In describing the final hours of the
young Kamikaze pilots, Naoke reveals ‘the military regime... had used the cherry blossom as part of its perverted
ideology’. Her book also references local connections including Campden’s Ernest Wilson, Batsford Arboretum and
Hidcote Manor Garden.
11.30am Richard Fortey who spent his working life in Palaeontology at the Natural History Museum discusses his
inspiring memoir A Curious Boy with nature writer and commentator Peter Marren who is co-author of one of the best
nature books of 2020:
The Consolation of Nature: Spring in the Time of Coronavirus.
In the afternoon Helena Attlee author of the Sunday Times best seller The Land Where Lemons Grow has a new nonfiction
title Lev’s Violin and she and Caroline Montague whose fourth novel is Shadows Over The Spanish Sun discuss with
Caroline Sanderson – author and a non fiction editor of The Bookseller – how,
whether it is fact or fiction, it is impeccable research that makes for a good story.
7pm Max Hastings, best selling author of twenty-seven books, presents
Operation Pedestal his thrilling new account of a critical but little-known naval
battle – a crucial relief mission and one of the most vital operations of WWII.
In 1942, the Luftwaffe had a stranglehold on Malta. In the months of April
and May, they dropped more bombs on the island than on London in the entire
Blitz. British attempts to bring in supplies and reinforcements were failing with
heavy losses, and the people on Malta were closing in on starvation as the
Axis attempted to force their surrender. Operation Pedestal saw an armada
of fifty British ships, painstakingly loaded with food and medical supplies,
ammunition, and fuel, attempt to fight its way in convoy to the island. The
ensuing battle was brutal on both sides, Italian submarines and German planes
dealing serious damage alongside the naval skirmishing. Over the course of a
few fierce days, Britain scraped a victory and ensured Malta’s survival – though
at the loss of a horrifying number of ships and lives. It was an emblematic
moment when, in the cruel accountancy of war, the price was worth paying.
Friends - a big ‘thank you’ to those of you who have already made a donation
of £25 or more to become a ‘Friend’ of the 2021 Literature Festival. Many
events have more than one author, or an author plus interviewer, and technical
help and equipment has to be hired making the 2021 Festival expensive to
run. To be a ‘Friend’ please send donations to:
Vicky Bennett, Old Police Station, High Street GL55 6HB
cheques payable to CHIPPING CAMPDEN MUSIC FESTIVAL –LITERATURE A/C
If the Festival cannot run in September due to Covid all Friends’ 2021 donations will be returned.
Books Anthea and Aloÿse at Borzoi Bookshop continue to sell books during lockdown: order by phone 01451 830268
or online: www.borzoibookshop.co.uk
Permitted reopening of non-essential shops is scheduled for 12th April and Anthea and Aloÿse look forward to welcoming
you.
Stay safe, fingers crossed for September, and with best wishes.
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