The Mannington Book Bash
Much like the Book Hive that curates the festival, the weekend offered an eclectic line up that offered a smorgasbord of literary talent.
Ian Bunker
Towards the end of the Noughties, I remember walking along London Street and being taken aback by a newly opened bookshop, at a time when so many were closing in the face of competition from major retailers and online sales.
"I can't see that lasting," I said sagely to my companion. "Who on earth would open a new bookshop now?"
Seventeen years later, it's not only thriving, but is recognised as one of the best independent bookshops in the country. And not content with selling books, the illiberal bigots (Michael Gove's words, not mine, and proudly quoted on their website) host what they describe as author signings, launches and other book-related goings-on. Most impressively, they run the Mannington Book Bash. Held over three days in a marquee in the grounds of Mannington Hall, it deliberately avoids a specific agenda, instead offering a smorgasbord of literary talent. What sets it apart is the eclectic line-up, much like the shop itself.
The first speaker on Friday was Jackie Morris, who spoke with Patrick Barkham about her astonishing illustrated books. She discussed cuckoos, puffins and curlews with eloquence, but also with a winning self-deprecation. When Barkham suggested she and Robert Macfarlane were the Lennon and McCartney of illustrated nature books, she countered with French and Saunders. She explained how in Lost Words she attempted to resuscitate words such as bluebell, conker and dandelion, an endeavour that nearly got her sued by the children's dictionary she was having a gentle pop at. We then moved on to The Book of Birds, created in partnership with Macfarlane, a knowingly definitive title for a sadly non-definitive list, with so many birds now an endangered species. She read briefly from the book, but it was her stunning illustrations projected on the big screens that stay in the mind. She has a soft spot for dragons too, but that's a whole other story.
Sathnam Sanghera has a soft spot for 80s pop, something he's only recently come out of the closet about. The author best known for growing up with a top knot and the controversy surrounding his best-selling Empireland had long kept secret his love of George Michael's music, the musician whose songwriting talent has only recently received the recognition it deserves. A hugely entertaining speaker, Sathnam Sanghera shared the anecdote of Michael's futile quest for a saxophone player, only achieving the sound he wanted by slowing down the tape, making it then near impossible to play live. The larger part of the session, however, was brilliantly handled by Nick Acheson and devoted to Michael's struggle with the homophobia of the 80s, and his extraordinary generosity towards worthy causes. Without fuss, and certainly without a media circus, he donated huge sums of money to charities and worthy causes and was unafraid to speak out on injustice as he perceived it. All of which made his death all the more tragic.
As the sun set on what had been a gloriously sunny day, Greg Doran concluded Friday's offering with a deep dive into the surviving copies of Shakespeare's First Folios. I never quite got his passion for a quest that took him all over the world, looking at substantially the same book, notwithstanding a torn corner here, a faded portrait there. Perhaps it's intrinsic to quests that they seem puzzling to others. It did afford him the opportunity to accumulate some chucklesome anecdotes, though, be that the Pope assuming he had been given a First Folio, the mysterious bullet hole that proved Titus Andronicus really is an impenetrable play, or being offered a signed copy of Mein Kampf. Far more affecting was his exploration of grief. Walking Shadow: Love, Loss and Shakespeare includes diary entries of his late partner, Anthony Sher. Doran described him as a ghostwriter. Having unwittingly opened the book on the page at the point of cancer diagnosis, I can assure you they are both fearless and heartbreaking.
The opening session on Saturday was announced by Henry Layte, founder of the Book Hive, tooting his various horns and bellowing through a speaking trumpet. This was typical of the whimsical, laid-back atmosphere of a festival that would later see Sharon Brooke crowned the Monarch of Mannington and rewarded with prizes that included a cardboard crown, a stiff drink carried aloft on a cushion by assistant Joe, and a packet of bacon.
First up was Nicholas Crane, who tried to cover the 12,000 years since the ice melted in Britain, helped a little by the fact that for the first 6,000 years we were hunter-gatherers, but who nonetheless had to rattle through a huge amount of information. Crane’s whole emphasis was to leave towns and cities to archaeologists and focus on the neglected routes between them. We learned of footprints in the mud, small boats, horses, the Romans coming then going, the Black Death, bridges, toll houses, pavements, canals, cars, and planes. It seemed to me there was a lot of supposition in The Path More Travelled but he was such an engaging speaker, though, that the inclination to ask – how can you know that? – was quickly swept away by the next fascinating fact.
Norman Lamb was sensitively interviewed by Patrick Barkham, and together they explored the worrying fact that while one in four of us will suffer mental health issues, the problem receives only 10% of Health service funding. Blair's waiting time edict, while useful in other areas, left mental health out, while the causes – largely poverty – were not addressed either. Regional inequality, voluntary admissions, staff training, racial prejudice are all part of the problem. Despite all this, Barkham insisted that Be More Human was a positive book, advocating holistic solutions to counter a system that, impressively, manages to be both expensive and stupid.
Jacqueline Springer and Gus Casely-Hayford were interviewed by Ben Street, whose enthusiasm for the first exhibition at the V&A tended to dominate the conversation. Springer spoke of Winifred Atwell’s piano, Joan Armatrading's guitar and Queen Victoria's wax cylinder, all bound together by music she described as her favourite thing about the exhibition. Casely-Hayford spoke with mellifluous articulateness of the 45,000 objects housed in the V&A East, of accessibility, of universalising, culture wars, and simply what these objects mean to us.
"Follow that," said Springer sardonically, revealing the warmth of their working relationship.
As a standalone discussion about the museum this was fine, but I would have liked Ben Street to explore the challenge of presenting on the page an exhibition so focused on sound. I got the sense Gus would have liked that too.
"When are we going to talk about my book?" he asked plaintively, with only minutes to go.
The day closed with Rory Clements, who ironically seemed disinclined to talk about his new novel, Invitation from a Dictator. Henry Sutton filled the void by talking about it rather too much, tiptoeing around potential spoilers. When asked about a TV adaptation of his fiction, Clements pithily replied:
“Well, I'd definitely watch it.”
In fairness, Clements was frequently taciturn to the point of silence, but it was a shame Sutton didn't move sooner onto the more fertile subject of research. We then got all sorts of interesting tidbits about the Munich police's uneasy relationship with the Gestapo. How, after all, does the former investigate a murder effectively when the latter murders on a daily basis?
Filling up awkward silences was not a problem Catherine Larner had to face in the first talk on Sunday. As soon as she asked her opening question, Louisa Young was off and running. This was the last date of her tour, and she described herself as demob happy.
Young explained she had been wrestling with a number of ideas for her next project, most of which her agent cast doubt on. Amongst them, however, was the thought that she might continue the Cazalet Chronicles, the series of novels written by her aunt, Elizabeth Jane Howard. After all, Young insisted, she need only open the doll's house and find out what the characters had been doing.
Thereafter, Larner deftly nudged Young along a fascinating discussion about Howard's novels. We learned how their dreadful covers had put so many off (me included, to be frank), how inexplicably popular they are in Italy, and how getting them around the dining table for Christmas dinner was the perfect way to introduce the characters to the uninitiated.
Having not read Howard's novels, I had been wary of sitting comfortably through this session, yet the combination of gentle prodding from Larner and the warm, expressive digressions of Young proved to be one of the highlights of the weekend. If you’ll excuse my digression, this was not only a testament to how carefully the weekend was curated, but a good example of how rewarding it can be to take a punt. In these straightened times it is perfectly understandable why attendees would cherry-pick the authors they wanted to see. But I'd strongly suggest experiencing everything on offer.
A case in point was Jo Baring’s lecture on sculpture, featuring the Lion Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel, carved by a hunter-gatherer from mammoth ivory and thought to be at least 35,000 years old. This presented an intriguing counter-argument to the ideas expressed in Nicholas Crane's talk, only apparent if you attended both. She then went on to discuss a Mexican Giant Head, an Indian dancing girl, the Angel of the North wearing Alan Shearer's Newcastle shirt, the Venus of Hohle Fels, the Riace Bronzes and Anthony Gormley's Another Place at Crosby Beach.
It was erudite but a little exhausting and I wonder if, in hindsight, she would have been better served by an interview, covering less ground but in more detail. I would have liked to see a greater focus, for example, on the West's continued dismissal of African art. It was only in the Q&A that she seemed to relax and her personality emerge. I think we primarily come to a literary event to find the author more than their work. Is this a person I want to spend time with, albeit on the page?
While sometimes less is more, sometimes it really is less, and I did feel short-changed by Piers Blofeld's brief account of Anthony Blunt's crimes. Blofeld was a personable and engaging speaker, so it was all the more unfortunate that he clocked in at around half an hour. His twin propositions were that Blunt was far worse than we imagine and that an embarrassed state covered this up. An awful lot of circumstantial evidence was piled up, but using his own measure of beyond reasonable doubt, I felt he failed to convince. Perhaps the book does better, and perhaps a balance of probabilities is the bar he should aim for. It was telling that this was the only session that ran out of questions before we ran out of time.
There was little chance of that happening for the last speaker of the weekend. Extra chairs were squeezed into the tent to accommodate the huge interest in Rose Tremain's discussion with Chris Bigsby. Having arrived a little late, I was surprised how limited the view from the back of the tent was – perhaps a slightly higher stage would be appreciated next time – but the quiet confidence with which Tremain spoke soon had me under her spell. She explained the curious beginnings of her new novel, The Housekeeper. The narrative had already appeared as a short story and was due to become a film. This led to a fascinating discussion on the variety of storytelling techniques different media offer. Her own writing methods were explored – essentially she makes it up as she goes along – and the importance of first doing research, then forgetting it. Unperturbed by writing explicitly about sex, and unafraid to take a swipe at Antonia Fraser and Susan Hill, this was a hugely entertaining conclusion to the festival. To borrow a quote about writing that she borrowed from Martin Amis, life would be thin without it
