Chalke Hist Fest 3 – Wednesday
I woke up to the sight of an earwig flaunting its acrobatic manoeuvres inside the seam of the canvas above. Not quite panic as I flicked it out the tent door, but it got me moving. An earlier start was necessary because this was the first day of festival proper. There was just enough time to write up my piece from the last day of school’s entry in the press tent – John Blashford-Snell and his travels from utmost east to utmost west had caught my eye. He did not disappoint with his chucklesome retelling of a trip from Lake Tana down the Blue Nile, a 1968 expedition ordained by the British Army and one Haile Selassie. There were copious Mars Bars and sardine tins to keep the hostile locals and crocodiles at bay alongside beautiful video footage of whitewater-rafting. The 88-year-old’s narrative and self-deprecating humour made for an exotic high-octane Dad’s Army – well worth a watch or a purchase!
Simon Mayall bit off a lot in his account of conflict between Islam and the West and most of could be chewed. Nearly 1500 years of complex history and geographic nuance, he traced the moving parts of the Middle East region. In particular, his Olympic rings analogy was an enticing takeaway, five spheres of influence centred on Turkey, Egypt, Arabia and Persia with the middle ring being the flare zone of the Levant, the territory subject to the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which we now see playing out in the relationships between Israel and their neighbours.
Simon Jenkins enthralled the audience with a whirlwind tour of the style behind British architecture, his approachability and structure parlance standing out as he examined the persistent clash between Classical and Gothic, before moving on to more modern points such Le Corbusier’s outraged views on terrace housing in London’s outer fringes.
Ehud Barak hedged his bets as well he might. Falling neither on the side of approval, nor outright condemnation, it felt like he sometimes took agency away from his forbear. Greg Mills in the chair next to him allowed the former Israeli PM to adopt a hands-off, yet often thoughtful, position to the issues at hand in their discussion. There were no real surprises on either Iran or Palestine and, as expected, he was not to be lured by niggling questions on Israel’s nuclear status.
There was a crackle in the air after supper as a glut of punters made their way to Anthony Scaramucci’s headliner. Ham up the Italian American mannerisms, slick back his hair and don a trendy be-trainered outfit, he s an erudite Joey Tribbiani, charming with all the best lines that will be repeated ad nauseam by those in attendance. The political stance he now takes is not an obvious one, though his hatred for ‘the orange maniac’ for whom he worked and his reverence for those names who went before him in and around the Oval Office was writ large. Host with the most and busiest man in this corner of the county, James Holland, was left as a bit-part player in this sitcom, doing his best to guide the wisecracking and anecdotes and eventual optimism that the supreme office will one day be great again. The audience was rapt, their willingness to question the short-lived director of White House Director of Communications prolonging the hour well past its scheduled endpoint, the buoyant mood continuing into the bar afterwards.
Zebedee Baker-Smith is Books Editor at Aspects of History. Head to the CHF site here.
