Swindon in the Past Lane

Too young for Beatlemania and too old for Take That hysteria, I've never queued for hours for a pop concert or screamed, cried and fainted in the presence of my idol.  But during our third and final visit to the Cheltenham Literature Festival I very nearly did all of the above mentioned, and it all began in Swindon. Leah and I were sitting on the 9.54 train to Cheltenham eating our Danish pastry breakfast (we've got fed up with sausage baguette) when Lucy Worsley - yes the   Lucy Worsley joined us.  When I say 'joined us' she didn't bring her own Danish pastry and sit with us but she joined the train and was a mere four seats away. Lucy Worsley is Chief Curator at the Historic Royal Palaces, based at Hampton Court Palace.  Star of numerous TV programmes including If Walls Could Talk; Elegance and Decadence, The Age of Regency and most recently Harlots, Housewives and Heroines  Lucy was also on her way to the Cheltenham Literature Festival where sh...

Our fourth and final event of the day.  First the lights went out then Hilary Devey was thirty minutes late.  Was she worth the wait? Frankly, no.  Five minutes into the interview and I was hoping for another power cut. Inconsistencies and contradictions peppered her recollections in conversation with fawning award winning Times columnist Deborah Ross. I couldn't keep up with at which point her son went to the boarding school that introduced him to heroin or when she was wrapping him in tinfoil to keep him warm in the home she couldn't afford to heat yet where she employed a nanny. Much was made of the men in Hilary's life but when asked which lucky Dragon might take her fancy - Duncan, Peter or Theo, she failed to understand the question.  Deborah also struggled with names and faces and referred to 'little Ewan McGregor' who apparently now introduces Dragons' Den.  I'm assuming she meant economist and journalist Evan Davis and not the Scottish born H...

Swindon is most conveniently located for beautiful countryside, a whole host of heritage sites and some wonderful events, among them the Cheltenham Literature Festival. On this year's pilgrimage Leah and I listened to Clare Clark, Juliet Nicolson and Frances Osborne describe several Women of Substance, the subject of their latest novels.  Beautiful Lies by Clare Clark is the story of Maribel Campbell Lowe, wife of a Victorian radical MP, who is a lady with a past, but not necessarily the one she tells polite society.  Frances Osborne, author of The Bolter , talked about her latest book Park Lane , an upstairs, downstairs tale of the Votes for Women campaign and one that particularly appealed to me.  The third panelist was Juliet Nicolson talking about her book Abdication and the set that surrounded Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson.  Three more books to go on my wish list. In the Waterstones tent for the signing we rubbed shoulders, and I mean we rubbed shoulders, ...