Festival Chronicle

The Swindon Heritage Magazine Team and Matt Holland

Graham Carter makes me cry. Well, when I say makes me cry it’s really that he reminds me of a time when I cried. In 1986 to be exact. On 26th March 1986 I cried a lot, a lot of people in Swindon cried that day, it was the day the GWR Hooter sounded for the last time. If you don’t know what I’m on about you need Swindon Heritage, the magazine that Graham edits, if you do know what I’m on about you need Swindon Heritage, the magazine Graham edits. Graham is a Swindon man with an emotional attachment to the town, a connection he is determined to share by bringing Swindon’s rich heritage to life in the new magazine. Along with Frances Bevan and Mark Sutton, Graham has launched Swindon Heritage to encourage people to look at the town in a new light. The team started from scratch using their own money, plenty of ideas and boundless enthusiasm. Their perseverance and determination has seen them arrive at Issue Two having produced a critically acclaimed first issue and sparked interest across Swindon and beyond. With the luxury of the Swindon Archive to work from and over twenty local groups providing assistance and support the magazine promises to go from strength to strength. But the launch has not been with out its obstacles, ASDA, WH Smith’s and Tesco have all rejected the magazine and the local paper has chosen to see Swindon Heritage as competition. Graham made it clear that the magazine has big plans, to involve local youngsters, schools and to present heritage as what we do with history, to bring it into the present and highlight the fact that Swindon has produced the very best – Spitfires, Garrard record players, the GWR, Diana Dors and XTC. Swindon Heritage magazine can add itself to that list, it’s unique, nowhere else has produced a magazine about their town, and that makes me smile. Swindon – who’d have thought it eh?

Jimmy Pearson

Regular festival-goers are well aware that sometimes a less trumpeted event steals the show and such was the case with a fascinating hour spent in the company of author and illustrator Jimmy Pearson. Pearson thinks of comics as a medium of change and cites the recent ‘Anonymous’ actions in the Occupy movement as an example of comic book iconography being used in moments of big social change. The Guy Fawkes mask adopted by protesters was taken from the book ‘V for Vendetta’, emphasising Jimmy’s belief that comics go way beyond bubble gum entertainment and enter the territory of big ideas with pictures and words. Pearson ranged across many topics close to his heart, including his biggest influence, comedian Bill Hicks, corporate greed and the desire for women to ‘live long in comics’. It was Pearson’s idea to team women artists with male writers for the book Bayou Arcana, a beautifully illustrated saga based in the swamps of New Orleans. His next project is even more intriguing, with a vampire story against the backdrop of the Vietnam War exploring the recent financial crash. A relaxed, interested Pearson turned the tables on his audience, asking which were their favourite comics and what their views were on the power of the art form and this made for an even more intimate experience for those lucky enough to attend. ‘Comics’, says Jimmy ‘are an underused medium’, having seen the amazing work in Bayou Arcana and heard his richly drawn manifesto tonight, it’s hard to imagine their power being ignored for too much longer.

That Kate Humble and Springwatch, lovely and sweet, or maybe forthright and controversial as a full house tonight at the Swindon Arts Centre found out. Opinionated and funny from the moment she took to the stage, Humble engaged the audience with evidence based viewpoints and an insight into the steely sense of purpose that has seen her become such a respected and arresting performer. Her comfort with the unexpected was soon tested as some newly hatched ducks from Lower Shaw Farm briefly shared the stage with the BBC star. Typically there was nothing to faze Kate as she eagerly clutched one of the birds to her chest and commenced her interview with Matt Holland. A serious, considered speaker, Humble covered a range of topics from visiting apartheid blighted South Africa in the late 80’s to ‘see for herself’ to the scientific case against a badger cull. Even a saucy secret about the remarkable size of barnacle privates was shared with an audience eager to hear her nuggets of wisdom. Talking about her new book ‘Humble by Nature’, the conservationist presented a passionate case for the protection of the countryside by making every inch of it work. Humble argued that eco-systems now need to be managed because human beings have modified their environment so much. Honouring the literary aspect of the festival, Kate also reminisced about falling in love with the poetry of e e cummings at school only to be told by a teacher to stick to the study of George Crabbe, a far less attractive proposition in her opinion. With her hour on stage rushing by it was left for Humble to provide further surprises via Devizes and a naughty Limerick which made me regret that she had chosen not to settle in Wiltshire permanently, preferring Wye Valley sheep to Madonna’s country estate.

Jason Maverick, Swindon Festival of Literature 2013

The 20th Swindon Festival of Literature is underway and in spectacular style! A perfect morning at Lawn Woods saw Festival Director Matt Holland crack open a bottle of champagne to celebrate the beginning of the third decade of Swindon’s number one arts event. Recent years have brought as many shivers as smiles to the Dawn Chorus, but today early rising festival-goers were treated to blue skies, golden sun and a very early taste of what this years festival has to offer. Swindon Scratch Choir’ s Sun Arise Singers softly sang the sun up at 5.30am as Jake the Juggler and bagpipe man Danny serenaded the large crowd. Folically challenged poet Jason Maverick started proceedings proper with verse, mime, juggling, plenty of audience participation and a poem about turning into his Dad (but not his Mum).  Music Alive brought strings and haunting sounds to the woods and Storyteller Chris Park told a tale of thanks before human statue Andria Walton shared Shakespeare with us. Poetry annual Domestic Cherry 3 was also launched by its fragrant founder Mabel Watson.  A madcap finale saw Marky Jay build a two man human pyramid to juggle machetes from the top of, sadly for Marky one half of the pyramid was the notoriously unreliable Barry Dicks of the aforementioned Domestic Cherry, causing an event which had started so beautifully to end as an ugly heap in front of a glorious sunset over Swindon.