Winding Down at the Chalke Hist Fest – Saturday & Sunday
This was the day that sapped me, the closeness of the heat unendurable and getting oneself up for another talk tricky as the crowds swarmed to Broad Chalke in their droves. The cool mornings, however, have been productive, typing away in the press tent, tuning in and out of the festival media staff conversations, rubbing shoulders with some of the movers and shakers.
In the open-sided Forum tent, Alex Churchill began the talks by presenting Ring of Fire, a global look at the first few months of World War I, co-written with Nicolai Eberholst. Pinning her flag to the mast, she started by setting out their policy from the outset – to chronicle not just the initial engagements on the Western Front, a term which had not yet been popularised, and, instead, survey the conflict’s dawn across the world. Whether in the colonies of the Allied Powers, the neutral nations (a tag that was given short shrift), or the rocky economic troubles and trade impacts caused as far away as Argentina (where unemployment figures in the ports increased by elevenfold within a month), this was a reset of the narrative, one told not solely from Anglophone or Germanophone sources. Tales of Senegalese and Algerian troops making their way to Europe, the Anglo-Japanese siege on German-held Tsingtao and New Zealand Expeditionary Force’s bullet-less occupation of Samoa – these were all fascinating introductions as to why this was a global conflict in practice, not just in name, and the book is set to be featured and reviewed in our August edition of the magazine!
To be quite honest, I was flagging – akin to listening to so many podcasts, however brilliant and enlightening they might be, I had a growing sense of overkill. Ian Hislop’s talk, a history of jokes, went by in a blur, a spot in the grass outside the best seat I could find, straining to hear and follow the big screen. The rest of the afternoon was spent hobnobbing with erstwhile schoolmates and the Aspects of History gang as pasty faces swiftly became redder – whether by booze or solar exposure (or a combination!), history does not relate…
Sam Dalrymple’s talk on Shattered Lands, his recently-released tome on five partitions across the subcontinent, South-East Asia and Arabia, was a success, the presentation to a packed-out Henge tent persuasive as the evening heat waned. His delivery resembles his father’s to such an extent that, lying on the green bank beside the tent, you could have been forgiven for mistaking it for a live episode of Empire – except it was hard to miss the sight of his old man paying minimal attention and texting throughout…!
The merriment continued late into the evening – having been absent all week, the under-30s came out of the woodwork for a Chalke Introducing drinks party, though a change of venue meant I missed the chance to put what little networking skills I possess… Trudging up the hill to the campsite was as much to avoid the mosh pit that formed during the D-Day Darlings’ renditions of Land of Hope and Glory and We’ll Meet Again as it was to sleep – a quite bizarre spectacle!
Sunday was on the short side as I left the site early – just a few goodbyes and thank-yous to those who had made this such a memorable and exciting week. It was the summer holiday I needed – an escape from the occasionally tedious reality of the last few months in London. Without hamming up these clichéd takeaways in too Scaramuccian a way, there is something to be said about fraternising with so many people who have so much to share in terms of their knowledge and enthusiasm, whether meeting for the first time or getting to know them better. The seven days spent between two downs has been a boost, proof to myself that I can still put thoughts and feelings into words on a laptop despite recent jobhunt-induced lethargy. There is that nagging thought that if all these speakers can do it, superhuman in their delivery and insight as they sometimes are and appear, I might be able to do so too, and for that I am very grateful to have had the chance to attend…!
Zebedee Baker-Smith is Books Editor at Aspects of History. Head to the CHF site here.
