Cheltenham Literature Festival.

Last weekend I had one of the best weekends of my life. My amazing Mum organised and paid for me to go to the Cheltenham Literature Festival, what I would call my Glastonbury. That should give you some idea of how excited I was. Huge and very public thanks to Mum for doing such a brilliant thing for me, and to my brother Matt and his girlfriend Claire for their wonderful hospitality for the weekend.

Saturday night involved attending a talk/interview given by JK Rowling, one of my literary heroes, on her new novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy.

I had a fantastic view as you can see by the second photo. I had a clear view of the chair on the right and that was the one she sat in. I thoroughly enjoyed the talk, it was really interesting to hear her talk about her writing process, her experiences and her choices and intentions involved with this book. Her answers were thoughtful, detailed and she is a very witty lady. At the end there was the opportunity to ask questions and I was incredibly lucky to get to ask my question. If you have read my blog before you'll know that I am an English teacher in a comprehensive secondary school and also an aspiring writer. You might not know that for a short period of time JK Rowling was a secondary school teacher. I was incredibly nervous to ask my question in front of 600 people and there was the further factor of having to use a handheld microphone and stand up so that she could see you. All her answers were considered and detailed and really showed that she genuinely cares about her fans. I asked her whether her experiences as a teacher were valuable in helping to shape her characters and told her that I wondered as I was a teacher too, and an aspiring writer. To sum up her answer she basically said that 99% of her creation of her teenage characters comes from her own experiences as a teen as she remembers that time of her life very vividly but that she understands that teenagers have changed since her time so the remaining 1% did come from teaching experience. She then asked me how long I'd been teaching so I told her 8-9 years, to which she responded that she had wholehearted admiration for me and the job I do. As you can imagine I was over the moon that I had talked to her and she had been so kind and complimentary. I was shaking and had such terrible butterflies. After the question and answer session we were then able to join a queue to have our copy of The Casual Vacancy signed. Due to the popularity of the event tickets were hard to come by and the three of us, Mum, Claire and I had ended up sitting separately. Fortunately for me; and perhaps unfortunately for Claire; as we left the auditorium our paths collided and we were able to join the long queue together. I have apologised to Claire for my behaviour as I was at best extremely hyperactive and at worst exactly like a giggly, giddy schoolgirl. As you can imagine, the queue took a long time as JK Rowling had promised to sign a book for everyone who wanted and with 600 people in the audience there was a huge number for her to get through. Mum had managed to get in the queue further up as she had been in the balcony seats and the signing was taking place in a first floor room, whereas Claire and I were in the stalls. Mum waited for us after she had got through the line and encouraged me to say something to JK Rowling. Rules were very strict regarding not asking for photos or dedications and only having one book signed but this was for the sake of speed and to allow JK Rowling to fulfil her promise to sign a book for everyone. I mustered the courage and thanked her for her admiration for teachers. As she had been signing my book she hadn't looked up until after I'd spoken but then she immediately recognised me as one of the people who had asked a question and exclaimed "Oh, teacher!" and smiling, reached out, grabbed my hand tightly, shook it and thanked me for my great question. Well, this sent me in to quite a spin again. I managed to say thank you, take my book and walk away with shaking legs and pounding heart. Poor Claire yet again had to put up with my giddy, overexcited and juvenile behaviour as I turned around to her and practically jumped up and down on the spot. Pretty much the same behaviour I had exhibited when I was visiting The Harry Potter Studio Tours and had been about to step in to THE Great Hall! (I was on a school trip at the time and one of the sixth form helpers and I were very over excited and were given very strange looks by the younger students and the deputy head who had accompanied us.) After this we met up with Matt and went out for dinner. I don't think I ever really calmed down all evening, even though I had the glass of wine with dinner that I'd told Claire I needed when we were queuing up for the book signing.

The lady herself.

The next day brought more excitement and more moments of awe and fantastic experiences. After a full English cooked by Matt and Claire, I did mention their wonderful hospitality before, Mum and I had tickets to watch Mariella's Book Show being filmed.

This programme is aired on Sky Arts One and the one we watched is due to be shown in November. The guests she had on this occasion were the very gentlemanly Roger Moore, talking about his book Bond On Bond, Jung Chang discussing her controversial novel Wild Swans and Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon introducing his new novel Telegraph Avenue. This was thoroughly entertaining, Mariella Frostrup was incredibly funny and all three guests were very interesting in what they had to say, and the show ran really smoothly as far as I could see. It was incredibly interesting to see a programme being filmed with all the people involved and all the equipment. Seeing the make up artists coming on set part way through filming with all their kit made me think of my sister-in-law, Lynda, who is a hair and make up artist and has worked on lots of tv programmes and films. I felt like I saw a tiny split second of what her job is like. Roger Moore was very frail but that didn't stop him from standing up like a true gentleman when Mariella Frostrup came on set.

As you can see from the photo below, we had amazing seats and had an incredible view. There was no assigned seating so we got in the queue early, although I'll again apologise to Mum for abandoning her to run in to the Waterstones Children's book tent and buying lots of books for my daughter. We were in the second row, right in the middle. There was no one sat in front of Mum as a couple of seats were assigned to camera crew, you can just see the camera in the bottom of the photo, but no one came and that particular camera was never used.


The gentleman himself stepping off the set:

After this we spent some time shopping, I even managed to bag a bargain dress in Coast for a couple of weddings and events we've got coming up, and a leisurely lunch. This was then followed by attending a talk on a recent programmed called Call The Midwife, based on the memoirs of a 1950s midwife in inner city London.

I have to admit I was not familiar with the book or the programme before coming to this event. I of course did the obligatory Google search beforehand. Even with this limited knowledge I again really enjoyed the talk. Kirsty Young was a great interviewer and I really enjoyed hearing from the writer who adapted the book for the small screen and Jenny Agutter was eloquent and articulate. I have even used one of the phrases I learnt from the writer, "sacred moment," whilst teaching my A Level class.

So ended a brilliant weekend. A weekend of many amazing experiences and one that I am going to remember and cherish for a very, very long time to come. I hope I have somehow managed to give you even a tiny sense of the whole fantastic experience and that you have enjoyed reading my account.

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