My Visit to the First Whitby Lit Fest
The very first Whitby Literature Festival took place in early November - and I was there! When I think about it, I’m amazed that it took so long to get a lit fest going in the town, because if ever a place deserves one it’s Whitby.
What a fantastic festival!
So when I heard it was finally happening I was determined to go. Luckily, The Husband loves Whitby too, so we booked an apartment for the week, even though the festival itself only went on for four days. I’d chosen four events that I really wanted to attend, and I was going to be joined by my friend, Jessica Redland, for three of them. No, The Husband didn’t want to attend any events. He has little interest in books sadly - I know!
The day after we arrived in Whitby it was my first event. I met up with Jessica, who lives down the road in the Scarborough area, and we went for lunch at Wetherspoons. We’d been lucky to get tickets to see the Scream Queen herself, Yvette Fielding, who talked about her new book, The Vampire of Whitby, and regaled us with tales from behind the scenes at Most Haunted.
Yvette was very chatty and down-to-earth
The Vampire of Whitby. Ooh…
Another one for my signed books collection
The Venue was Eighteen 91, and I thought that would be a pub. It turned out that it had once been a church. It was set on a hill, and I almost missed it! Inside it’s quite beautiful, and does look very churchy. But there’s a bar, and it seemed odd to have a bar with stained glass windows behind it!
A bar with stained glass windows!
Yvette’s talk was really funny and entertaining. She was chatty and down-to-earth, and told us lots of stuff about what went on while they were filming Most Haunted. Her husband, Karl, was at the back of the room, and she kept calling out to him to confirm her stories and check dates and so forth. She was a lot of fun. Needless to say, I bought a copy of her book…
The next day I had two events to attend. The first one was just after lunchtime and I was back at Eighteen 91, this time to listen to a talk with Paul Magrs. Paul is a writer I’ve become aware of mostly through Doctor Who. He writes Doctor Who novels, which I think is amazing! Of course, he writes other books, too, and he gave us an entertaining chat about his writing life over the years, and his connection to and fondness for Whitby.
Paul Magrs on the right of the photo
Most of you will know that I’m a huge Doctor Who fan, and I also follow Paul on his YouTube channel, where he chats about the books he’s been reading and his thoughts on various things connected with writing, Doctor Who, and life in general. It’s a very laid-back and relaxing channel, so I was delighted to finally meet him in person.
I bought a copy of his latest book, which is set in Whitby and is called Dracula! I mean, how has this never happened before? I really think the producers of Doctor Who should give serious thought to making this happen. Or we need a Big Finish version (audio) at least. I also bought a copy of Never the Bride, the first of Paul’s Brenda and Effie series, and he signed them both for me.
I mean, Doctor Who AND Dracula!
I was supposed to meet up with Jessica that evening as we had tickets to see Lee Child in conversation with Robert Rinder at the Whitby Pavilion, but when I got there she’d arrived early and had already gone inside the building. There was a long queue outside, so I had no choice but to wait. Luckily, I bumped into my friend Jenni Fletcher, who was there with her husband and son.
Good job she was, because I had a right panic! My tickets were on my phone app, and there was no signal! If I couldn’t show the organisers the tickets I wouldn’t be getting in to see Lee Child. Jenni’s husband very kindly did something magical with our phones - something about tethering or hotspots (I can’t remember which) and managed to give me some of his internet (yes, I know that sounds wrong but I’m just not that technical) so that I could take a screenshot of my ticket. Success! I was admitted (after we’d queued for ages) and we went inside the theatre part of the building - the first time I’ve ever been in the Whitby Pavilion.
Jenni spotted Jessica, who had saved me a seat, so I said goodbye to the Fletcher family and went to sit with Jessica. I’ll be honest. I’ve never read a Lee Child book in my life. I’ve never watched the Jack Reacher series or films. I know nothing about Lee Child. But what I do know is that he’s had an incredible career, and how can you pass up the opportunity to see someone like him when you get it?
I couldn’t have taken a photo where they look less amusing - but they were, honestly!
As it turned out, he was extremely entertaining. Despite the impression you might get from the above photo, he was funny and interesting, with loads of fascinating anecdotes to tell us and advice to give us. Robert Rinder was also fun, so it was a double whammy for us!
The next morning was our last event. We were back to Eighteen 91 to see Robert Rinder (yes, again!) leading a conversation about the Mitford sisters. The event was called Outrageous, and that just about sums up the Mitfords really. Yes, they are fascinating, but most of them were pretty vile, too. And a bit bonkers, if you ask me. They really didn’t live in the real world.
They exchanged lots of letters over the years, and many of them were read out on stage, to much laughter and gasps of disbelief. They sounded like fictional characters. If PG Wodehouse had created the Mitfords it would have made sense, except that I doubt any of his characters would have had the sort of fascist beliefs that Unity and Diana Mitford expressed so fervently.
Jessica Mitford’s son was the special guest. He’s on the left of this photo.
Even allowing for their awfulness, they were undeniably fascinating!
The lady on the right read out the letters and did a fabulous posh accent!
Diana was famously married to Oswald Mosley. Unity was in love with Adolf Hitler and shot herself in the head the day Britain declared war on Germany. Brother Tom was also a fascist who, having refused to fight in Europe against Germany during the war, was instead sent to Burma (where he died in action). Jessica was a fervent communist who, along with her husband (nephew of Winston Churchill) took part in the Spanish Civil War. Nancy was the author of books including The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, and reportedly informed on Diana and Unity to the British government during the war. Deborah married the nephew of Harold Macmillan, eventually becoming Duchess of Devonshire and mistress of Chatsworth House, while Pamela, the rural loving lesser-known Mitford won the devotion of John Betjemen, who apparently proposed to her several times, married and divorced a millionaire, and lived for a time in a castle in Ireland. No one can say these siblings didn’t live amazing lives. But, crikey…
It was a brilliant talk, and it was great to see Jessica Mitford’s son on stage, as he shared his memories of his mother and various aunts. We even had Miriam Margolyes in the audience. She was sitting very close to us, but I didn’t take a photo as she was there in a private capacity and I didn’t think it right to intrude on that. She seemed to enjoy the talk as much as we did, though.
Eighteen 91
With that, our time at the Whitby Lit Fest was over. But I’ll be back! I’ve already booked the same apartment for next year’s festival, and I can’t wait to return. I do love Whitby, and it was great to spend a whole week there. I’ll tell you about that in my next blog post!
Have a great week,
