No more book festivals

Temperamentally I've never been one for festivals. Certainly not a music festival - I'd hate the crowds, and I'd hate the noise. I dislike joining any small group, even such things as a local group of photographers. So I'd absolutely recoil from being part of a huge gathering like the Glastonbury Festival. I do sort of see why such a thing might appeal to many people. Well, let them go and enjoy themselves; I don't in any way disapprove; I just want to keep out of it, and do my own thing.

One kind of festival has however had some appeal: book festivals. Specifically, the Appledore Book Festival in North Devon, which I still keep an eye on. I also keep up a connection with the Aldeburgh Book Festival in Suffolk. This isn't out of a sense of east-west balance - ying and yang, and all that. These are simply the two festivals that the gods decreed I should take notice of. 

I've never been able to go to any of the Suffolk events (they do literary things throughout the year, hosted by The Aldeburgh Bookshop) because the dates always clash with my outings elsewhere in the country. But I can, if I wish, attend the Appledore Book Festival in September. I've done it before. In fact I did it for several years running. 

It began in 2012, when Anne at Higher Darracott Farm (where I stay in North Devon) casually asked me if I was going to the Appledore Book Festival that year. I'd never heard of it, which wasn't surprising as back then it was still very much a local affair, though properly organised. Well, I got tickets for a couple of events, and was hooked. I loved the buzz. I loved mixing cheek-by-jowl with local people at local venues in Appledore itself (whatever hall, church, chapel or meeting room could be pressed into service). And there were other things going on, such as writing workshops, pub quizzes, history lectures and walks, and ghost walks at night. It was so nice to book a lot of events - they didn't cost much back then - and hurry from one to another, often encountering the same faces, and striking up friendships. There was a thrill too in seeing the authors close up, some of them well-known former politicians and persons of that calibre. Or big names in crime fiction. I have not forgotten sharing a table - and pictures - with Ian Rankin, the famous crime author, whose enthusiasm for the music of the late Jackie Leven (they had been friends), made Leven's music and lyrics (or is it poetry set to music?) an enduring favourite of mine. 

Appledore was (and remains) special in itself, an attractive small town with a quay, and sea and estuary views. It's worth going there just to stroll about and explore, perhaps stop for coffee and cake, or a light lunch, or fish and chips in the evening, although it's long been possible to dine in a sophisticated fashion. Appledore has its regattas and gig races, and used to be nationally known as a boatbuilding centre - naval vessels mainly. It's good for most moods. Certainly it's a relaxing place to breathe in the salty sea air, perhaps inspect the lifeboat, and generally wallow in things nautical. It doesn't have a yacht marina, but I think the town is better without one. Apart from the old boatyards, its waterfront remains almost entirely at the visitor's disposal. 

The Appledore Book Festival has grown up over the years, changing from a competently-run event in the hands of strictly local volunteers - all hand to the pumps - to something larger, slicker and distinctly more professional. Given that, it has gradually upped its game so that what you might call 'household-name authors' dominate the annual line-up. Their speaking-fees need to be paid, so event costs have increased, and it seems clear that proper advice has been taken as to how to market the Festival in the best way to increase revenue, and make the Festival ever more important. This endeavour has enhanced the Festival in some ways, but I think it has lost much of that informal small-town flavour.  

After dipping my toe into it in 2012, I made a point of attending the Festival every year until 2018, usually buying tickets for at least one or two events on most days. It wasn't too expensive, and I got a lot out of it socially. I went because I wanted to see the authors, or hear them discuss their books, and to take in the special Appledore atmosphere before, during and after those events. It was so nice to be recognised as a regular Festival-goer, and I made some good local friends. By early 2018 I was seriously considering moving home to North Devon. My Sussex friends dissuaded me, and I listened, but it was a near thing. I almost did it. 

Then I lost my enthusiasm. Suddenly I wanted to do something different. For instance, go to the annual Art Exhibition at Bideford. The Festival had changed. 2018 had been the first year in which an event was held not in a cramped hall somewhere in Appledore but in a proper college auditorium in Bideford. This was to accommodate the large packed audience. It was Jeremy Vine in conversation with Jeremy Paxman. I'd spoken briefly with Jeremy Vine (a Festival patron) at a 'Friends-only' evening party a couple of years before, and this time I conversed with Jeremy Paxman, and got him to pose with me, smiling, although for most of the evening he was in an odd mood, rather grumpy. Later on that evening, the other Jeremy had a distinctly hard time with him on stage, as he didn't want to say much about his book, nor his life. Perhaps it was then that I decided I was tired of celebrities and what they had to say. Why should I pay to hear them speak - or not speak? What did they really add to my own life? Why was I there at all?

Once you start to question the point of festival-going, it quickly loses its appeal. You take a fresh view on alternative things to do - more interesting things - and give those some time instead. I still bought tickets online for several Appledore Book Festival events in 2019, but actually went to no more than two of them. I just fancied doing something else, and wrote off the money wasted. 

Then Covid-19 struck. The 2020 Festival, a socially-distanced, outdoor affair in an Appledore field, was a triumph of technology. Attendees had to stay within a marked space, just big enough to contain a car and possibly a couple of folding chairs. Authors were interviewed, or made their pitch, under a canopy, and were videoed, so that they appeared on a monster-sized screen with properly synched sound. It worked really well. The cars were spaced so that no vehicle blocked the view of another. It was in fact more comfortable than normal! But very far from the original experience, sitting close to the author on a hard church pew perhaps, or in a library annexe. It was like a drive-in cinema, with the audience insulated from each other. It was like watching an extremely large TV screen from inside one's own glass box. It all felt rather impersonal. As tickets were sold by the car, it was expensive to be there if you were the only occupant, unable to shre the cost. I could afford to attend only two of these open-air events, as opposed to three or four times that number in former years.

I haven't been to the Appledore Book Festival since. My allegiance has switched instead to the Bideford Art Exhibition⁹. I might go back to the Book Festival at some point, but not this year. The organisers have, for months, been sending emails full of exciting announcements that so-and-so (a celebrity author) will be there. Mostly I've never heard of them. I'm not tempted in the slightest. 

If the Festival could be as it was in 2012, I'd give it a go. But it has probably gone too far down the road of author-chasing, and lost too much of that intimate local flavour I once so enjoyed.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that Appledore itself has moved on. There has been some new building - expensive apartments - in recent years. It's losing some of its old-time quaintness. If ever the old boatyards come up for redevelopment, a big 'holiday village' - with some kind of marina, of course - will be erected in no time. It will look smart, and be exclusive, but Appledore will be a different place.