I’m a local boy. Brought up in North Herefordshire and my great grandmother ran the Nelson Pub in Hay after the war. All my mum’s family are buried up the hill in Cusop Church. It was always sleepy Hay in the lea of the Black Hills – until the Festival came along. The buzz! In the Green Room today I saw Richard Dawkins and Tony Robinson within seconds of each other. I love that collision. Where else does it happen? A Royal Garden Party, maybe? But Hay is something else. The epicentre.
I’m a writer. I was here to talk about our BBC Wales/S4C show Keeping Faith with our lead actress Eve Myles. We thought maybe a couple of hundred would show up but got 900. My heart was thumping like a jackhammer looking out at those faces… in Hay on Wye, for goodness sake! Some magical happens here. The verdant, timeless beauty helps; it’s something like a religious experience. I’ve come away having met members of our TV and Hay audience who came up to me with stories that moved me to tears: the woman who went missing and eventually returned home and who saw a reflection of her experience in our show, and the mother who lost a five year old child several years ago and had not managed to watch any drama until Keeping Faith, which tells the story of a mother’s love. Then I met cancer survivors (my wife is having chemo at the moment) who told me things that gave me new insights and hope.
That human contact is priceless. Thanks Hay Festival for bringing us all together in somewhere so beautiful. It’s unique.