Information Scotland

The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland

April 2005 Volume 3 (2)

Endpiece

Aye Write!

Brian Osborne reports that Glasgow’s first city-wide book festival was lively and well run.

I know that I mentioned Aye Write! the Glasgow Book Festival in my last column but I make no apology for returning to the subject again. I do so not only because of the significance of the Festival but because I had the pleasure of attending a number of the events and also performed twice - once doing a workshop on writing biography and once, with Ronnie Armstrong, in our two-man tribute to Neil Munro’s Para Handy.

Have I mentioned that this year is the Para Handy Centenary? No? A strange oversight! You had better gaze on the Centenary logo just to absorb the message.

It was a strange experience to be back in some of the normally unseen parts of the Mitchell Library - the last time I remember being in the Jeffrey Library was to sit Open University examinations back in...well... a very long time ago! And did I hear the spirits of a long line of City Librarians clanking their chains as they saw their former office converted into a Green Room for thirsty writers? And was that the ghost of my much younger self, just out of school, turning up at that self-same office to be interviewed for a job - and failing to get it because the then City Librarian was unsure that I would be able to reach the top shelves?

From the point of view of a participant and spectator I must say that it seemed a very well run and lively festival with a really good atmosphere. Glasgow pulled out all the stops, in the way that only Glasgow can, and from the number of sold out performances and the general buzz around the hallowed halls of the Mitchell the citizens of the “dear green place” would seem to have responded well to their first city-wide Book Festival.

The other half of our two-man tribute to Para Handy was deeply distressed when he realised that the organisers had programmed us to appear at the same time as Billy McNeill and Archie MacPherson (who I think have something to do with football.) I added to his woes by pointing out that we were also competing for the same time slot with no less a figure than Alan Taylor, Deputy Editor of the Sunday Herald and sometime editor of one of Information Scotland’s predecessors. I know Billy McNeill got a bigger audience than we did; I haven’t had the nerve to check up on Alan Taylor’s audience for his talk about wartime diaries - but we needed extra chairs brought in - so there!

More seriously; that type of programming, with something to suit all tastes and predominantly making use of local talent rather than jet-setting imported celebrities seems to have worked well and made Aye Write! a very particular and successful sort of festival. (I know Alan Taylor comes from as far away as Musselburgh but in this context he is neither imported nor a celebrity - he used to work for Edinburgh City Libraries for goodness sake!)

My personal highlight of the Festival was undoubtedly Christopher Rush’s deeply-moving, raw and honest account of the death of his wife and his subsequent decision to go travelling in the Cevennes with a donkey, in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson and Modestine. Rush’s book To Travel Hopefully: Journal of a Death not Foretold (Profile Books £15.99) is now top of my “must read” list - if I can find one of these public library things somewhere!

By the way, one of Glasgow’s excellent initiatives during Aye Write! was to have large quantities of lending stock available to be borrowed there and then as well as having Ottakar’s run a book stall - so there was really no excuse for me not to borrow or buy a copy.

Brian D Osborne
brian@bdosborne.fsnet.co.uk

Information Scotland Vol. 3 (2) April 2005

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Last updated: 11 May 2005