We were in Hay last Thursday because Joe was appearing at the annual Hay Festival with Frank Cottrell Boyce, whose book, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again, Joe illustrated.
They gave a lovely talk about the delicate business of bringing Ian Fleming’s famous flying car back to life, and then Frank read whilst Joe drew Chitty. The session ended with some very sweet and occasionally hilarious questions from the audience.
Despite the dreadful weather the festival was packed with happy, if soggy, visitors, and we had a wonderful time. If you’ve never been, Hay is a fabulous, very family-friendly literary festival and really worth visiting. The atmosphere is incredibly relaxed and
there are lots of interesting things for all ages.
Next year, and I’ve been saying this every year, long before Joe started illustrating and writing children’s books, we’ll be really organised: we’ll book a cottage and plan our half term around the festival and all the events. Ha! As if – although clearly lots of people do.
Such a shame about the weather, I hope that you weren’t too wet. When the original film was being made, I shared digs with one of the set builders who built the car. that was a LOT of years ago!
That’s amazing. I’ll have to tell Joe. What I didn’t realise is that Chitty was a real car, and she was so noisy she was banned from Canterbury.
We were at the festival over the weekend before and saw Axel Schaeffler illustrate his new books in the same way your husband did. It was great to see an illustrator at work! I looked at the books Joe illustrated in the bookshop but didn’t even make the connection despite reading your blog for a while. I will next time make a purchase as they are lovely!
It was terribly wet at the festival while we were there too but loved all the activities for kids – I truely don’t think they noticed the rain. And the countryside surrounding is so lovely and I don’t think that well visited… except that is during the festival so well worth booking up a while in advance! Outside of festival time we stayed in a Landmark Trust property near Hereford, Shelwick Court, which I can heartily recommend, but requires a bit of a drive to the festival.