Reinforcements arrive at the Chalke Hist Fest 5 – Friday
It had been a relatively late one as the campsite dragged itself up and back to it. The antics seemed to be crescendoing into the weekend. Having spent a pleasant evening in the company of Aspects of History’s Editor-at-large Justin Doherty and his pals the night before, including his Sandhurst mucker and Defence Editor of the Telegraph, Dom Nicholls who wad presenting a live edition of his Ukraine: The Latest podcast the next morning. Impressively, there was no cushty hotel for the speaker, just camping in a slightly mouldy bell tent, discussing geopolitics with a bottle of white until the wee hours… a worthy preview of what was to come!
Like many, my own focus and consumption of what is going on in Eastern Europe has dwindled in recent months, as stalemate remains the state of play. Nicholls and Francis Dearnley spoke with assurance to moderator Adélie Pojzman-Pontay on the possibilites, political and military, faced by both sides. But, via a link from Kyiv, Oleksandra Matviichuk stole the show, her impassioned testimony on issues such as the stolen Ukrainian children, the need to prosecute the war crimes that have been committed and what the future holds. Choked up by her parting message and emerging from the tent, the episode was a sobering reminder that any impact of Ukraine has been blunted in the minds of the general public, this fatigue caused by the international affairs’ rollercoaster of the last couple of years.
Guy Shrubsole and Matthew Kelly discussed post-war development of the nature state under Attlee’s Labour and how that government’s steps went hand-in-hand with establishment of the healthcare system and the welfare state. Discussing The Lie of the Land, Shrubsole grounded the origins of the clash between landowners and conservationists and the ‘crisis’ that we see in the Dartmoor legal battles of recent years. He surveyed the tradition of radical writings about responsibility for the countryside in the 1970s until the Thatcher government relinquished the idea of protecting land and handed over their mandate to ‘the markets’.
Given the clientele, this was all a bit ‘Marxist’ for the salmon-hued trouser brigade… In a cringingly perverse way, I am beginning to enjoy how squeamish people get when an audience member’s ‘question’ becomes a dirge-like display of ‘knowledge’ as well as the speaker’s perceived errors and misunderstandings. The unfounded verbal diarrhoea with a dash of arrogance gets the eyes of everyone else rolling and there’s always a bit of cattiness from the speaker after being lectured on their area of expertise.
That started a rural-themed afternoon for this city exile – Paul Lamb’s Of Thorn & Briar: A Year with the West Country Hedgelayer has been hailed in West Country literary circles and his chat was vital and relaxing as the sun blazed overhead. James Rebanks’ dulcet Cumbrian tones sent me to sleep – not because what he was saying was uninteresting, far from it, but more the inevitable result of a pint of Butcombe and marquee heat…
More familiar faces as the numbers on site soared, Antonia Senior and Roger Moorhouse arriving in the afternoon on podcast duty, but I was disappointed that Ollie Webb-Carter, Aspects of History Editor, failed to arrive in Wiltshire via helicopter. It would have been a statement for the publication, and should be considered next year… Good to see him though! Under the Aspects aegis, Ollie introduced Gordon Corera and Charles Cumming to a packed Forum ahead of a discussion on the former’s The Spy in the Archive, a tale about KGB secret files being surreptitiously and painstakingly copied by Vasili Mitrokhin before being handed over to MI6 in the 90s. Without being a particularly dynamic story, the former BBC Security Correspondent captivated with his easy-going and persuasive retelling of events.
The evening tailed off into the usual bacchanalia by the Chalke Valley Tap, the spirited efforts of a Queen tribute band an enjoyable distraction. Think the Hollands have missed a trick by not inviting Kneecap to warm up ahead of their Glastonbury set.
Zebedee Baker-Smith is Books Editor at Aspects of History. Head to the CHF site here.
