A night in a bed, if not a cure to stem the swells of insomnia, helped. Tuesday had been sapping and the idea of escaping the site, shade at a premium under the midsummer sun, attractive when a schoolmate invited me to stay in the neighbouring village.
My father and his friend were arriving and we girded ourselves with coffee before heading in to Jonathan Fennell’s Collapse: A Global History of the Second World War, 1931-41. This was the perfect exemplification of what Chalke is all about. A provocative rallying call to observe the conflict as not a sequence of solitary events from a regional standpoint but an interconnected surge of instability and insecurity through the 30s. The Professor of the History of War and Society at KCL is due to write a contribution for our August issue, and, if the revelations and analysis demonstrated by his wide-ranging examination of correspondence and censorship reports are anything to go by, readers will be in for a proper treat.
A break followed as the flocks of hardy punters sought cover and cool, there being a constant need to be aware as the sun crept round the eaves and angles of the marquee and to reorient chairs accordingly over a proper picnic of sausage and sandwiches, egg and salmon. Jason Burke was up next, discussing his book The Revolutionists that explores the network of radical extremists whose operations throughout the 1970s saw them perpetrate acts of violence and terrorism across the world. Slightly fragmented in the telling, it was already hard-going under canvas at the Forum, not a lick of breeze to liven a hapless punter.
Cold lager and seeing my predecessor-in-post, Ollie Webb-Carter (fresh from interviewing a panel of cricketers) would do the trick. We headed to Tom Holland’s session in conversation with TMS’ Vic Marks and Simon ‘The Analyst’ Hughes, dissecting the role of England’s cricket captain, a role that has attracted as much attention as any sporting story, World Cup included, in the last fortnight. The potentially irrecoverable damage caused by Ben Stokes’ Chelsea nightclub antics was linked to the inevitability of Keir Starmer’s decision to step down on Monday, though I’m not entirely sure the two would have much in common. One forgets how many skippers England have had since 1979. I was a little surprised when Holland Snr. failed to compare 1988 – ‘The Year of Four Captains’ – to AD 69’s ‘Year of Four Emperors, until he called Kevin Pietersen ‘smart’… perhaps the hottest of takes on the hottest day.
More beer, more fun as respite began. Antonia Senior and Roger Moorhouse joined the party, shades of last year’s weekend, the former’s talk a triumph as ever. Having listened to both podcasts recorded with her under the Aspects aegis, it is testimony to how much she has unearthed in Stalin’s Apostles that her discussion never feels repetitive, how much she has lived in the heads of the Cambridge Five, brimming with anecdotes as she held the audience to wrapt attention. We wish her luck with the Orwell Prize ceremony, to be held tonight.
Sweaty, drowsy, grateful for the evening cool, we hobnob on in Wiltshire.
Zeb Baker-Smith is a Classics teacher based in Malawi, a freelance journalist and Editor at Aspects of History.
