Hazel McHaffie

Edinburgh International Book Festival

Rogue Lawyer

When the Edinburgh International Book Festival is in full swing in my home city, days are pretty fragmented, so reading is spasmodic. What to choose for the in-between times?

Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham (2015) exactly fitted the bill. The eponymous hero is Sebastian Rudd, an unconventional criminal defence lawyer, and a one off.

My name is Sebastian Rudd, and though I am a well-known street lawyer, you will not see my name on billboards, on bus benches, or screaming at you from the yellow pages. I don’t pay to be seen on television, though I am often there. My name is not listed in any phone book. I do not maintain a traditional office. I carry a gun, legally, because my name and face tend to attract attention from the type of people who also carry guns and don’t mind using them. I live alone, usually sleep alone, and do not possess the patience and understanding necessary to maintain friendships. The law is my life, always consuming and occasionally fulfilling. I wouldn’t call it a “jealous mistress” as some forgotten person once famously did. It’s more like an overbearing wife who controls the checkbook.

He has an acrimonious divorce behind him; a son of 7 whom he rarely gets to spend time with. His apartment, his office, his car, his associates, are all of dubious worth and credibility, and his methods are irregular to say the least. He has a dismally low opinion of the whole law enforcement establishment, but he is passionate about his clients. Whether they are totally innocent or totally guilty he will serve them to the best of his ability, fighting with every ounce of skill and energy and wile against a corrupt and self-serving system and any shade of injustice. As he says: every defendant, regardless of how despicable the person or his crime, is entitled to a lawyer.

The book is divided into parts, each one initially dealing with a different case, later picking up all the outstanding threads, the discreet entities making it perfect for my purposes. Clever, detailed, mesmerising, fast-paced stories that leave the reader awed by Rudd’s devilish tactics and rogue methods. He takes on unscrupulous judges, corrupt policemen, criminals on death row, and his aggressive ex. He reaches out a helping hand to juvenile wrong doers, underprivileged families, wronged members of the public. He surrounds himself with people from all shades of the underworld whose loyalty he trusts completely.

He is indeed a rogue lawyer. And Grisham manages to pack the tales with so much American lawyerly wisdom that I was caught up in wondering what I would have done in the circumstances of each dilemma – within and outside the law – and being profoundly grateful for British justice.

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Caring in a time of Covid

Yes, I know, I know … I went to sessions on this topic at the Hay Festival, and here I am again, attending more of the same at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Sad soul. But for me it was well worth the element of repetition to hear the important messages spelled out so clearly by those who really know. We do have to learn from the horrors, and now is the time to do so. Just this week our First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has announced concrete plans to begin a judge-led inquiry into how things were managed in Scotland, by the end of this year. Sometimes, though, in the face of relentless coverage of the statistics and long term consequences, it can be hard to see beyond the negativity.

The line up of panellists included Dr Rachel Clarke (palliative care specialist and ex-journalist) and Kate Mosse (novelist and unofficial carer of three elderly relatives) again, but joining them was Dr Gavin Francis (Scottish surgeon and GP). The two doctors have both been working actively on the frontline throughout the last eighteen months, and deserved the spontaneous applause from the live audience. But they were quick to identify the reality: caring is a privilege.

Nevertheless, the deficiencies in the response to the impending crisis, and the slowness of the powers-that-be to mobilise appropriate measures to deal with it, did stir their anger. Indeed it was this pent up frustration that led to the books they wrote.

Much of what they said was known to me, but still shocked. And I was horrified to learn that, not only has the number of unpaid carers escalated colossally during the pandemic, largely because almost all official care stopped, but that they were left largely unsupported. As were young people with special needs, and those with dementia. What kind of a price have vulnerable people paid for this failure? The toll on mental health especially has been devastating, as we know.The full consequences will only emerge gradually.

On the other hand, it was heart-warming to hear that frontline workers had themselves been buoyed up by witnessing the best of human nature too. And as Kate Mosse said, it’s what we all want: a society that looks after each other, that cares, that pulls together. Dare we hope lessons will have been learned for next time? Those who work in the medical world seem sure of one fact: there will be a next time. Sobering thought, huh?

It’s been great to be part of this iconic Festival once again, albeit in a hybrid form this year. A big step up from the cancellation in 2020. And I personally salute all the teams working behind the scenes to make it work – almost without a hiccup this time for me! I guess the person who inadvertently broke a connection will be hiding their mortification in a dark corner somewhere. Come out, come out, whoever you are; all is forgiven.

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Edinburgh International Book Festival 2021

Well, who’d have thought it?… the Edinburgh International Book Festival is being transmitted in a hybrid form – virtual alongside real appearances – because of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and its attendant restrictions, yet again this year.

This time for the first time it’s based in the Edinburgh College of Art as part of a liaison with the University of Edinburgh. So odd to hear the familiar sounds from a solid building instead of under canvas! But I welcomed the chance to watch it live from the comfort and safety of my own study.

My first session was on Day 1, and so so different from anything I’ve attended before. The speaker was Hoda Barakat, a Lebanese author, speaking from Paris where she now lives. Both she and the chair, David Codling, British Council Co-Director Literature communicated in Arabic, French and English! Leaves one feeling wholly inadequate, doesn’t it? But happily for us lesser mortals, a young Irish translator rendered Barakat’s answers in English too. It made for a cumbersome hour but some salutary messages emerged.

The book under review was Voices of the Lost, a novel which tells the hidden story of immigration and the Arab Spring. Barakat herself feels despairing about her country and feels it must die before new life can emerge. Millions of people have been, and still are, on the move, going to extraordinary lengths to escape from the country they love, and the book explores the complexity of human nature, and the mechanism of violence. She tries to zoom in on the violence and ask: Where does it come from?  Even the most monstrous of characters, the torturers and murderers, have their soft spots, she says.

Surely a most timely book in a week that has seen the Taliban take over control of Afghanistan and yet another wave of desperate people seek to flee from their homeland. Who can fail to be moved by the horror faced by those living under brutal regimes, and the perils they face attempting to find asylum in foreign lands?

Another challenging session on a similar theme had three writers – Leah Cowan, Julian Fuks and Abbas Nazari – talking about hostile environments and refugees and exile and immigration, exploring the themes of inter-connectednes and the senselessness of borders. Nazari was a 7 year old Afghan refugee twenty years ago, who has made a name and life for himself in New Zealand, and he too very much brought alive the impact of what’s happening in his country today.

Heart-wrenching topics explored through writers who are prepared to dig deep into trauma and tragedy.

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Virtual bonanzas and bonuses

Wow! What a treat for these strange restricted times. The Edinburgh International Book Festival 2020 in virtual form. No queuing in the squelching mud and drizzle around Charlotte Square, no impatient hanging about between events, no debating the wisdom of a working day taken up travelling to attend a disappointing session. The rain is certainly hammering down as I write, but I’m snug and dry in my study, watching interviews with the great and the good, sipping excellent coffee as I take notes.

And when I say ‘the great and the good’ that includes famous faces and distinguished wordsmiths who have generously entered into the spirit of this year’s answer to lockdown and given so much of their energy and expertise. I’ll just give you a flavour of the ones that appealed most to me.

A regular contributor to the EIBF is Val McDermid. This year she appeared with real-life partner, Jo Sharp, sharing excerpts from their edited book Imagine a Country: Ideas for a Better Future, in which a cohort of Scottish writers imagine what would/could improve our nation. And aren’t we all looking at our lives and our country this year, wondering whether we could bottle the valuable things that the pandemic is teaching us about what it truly valuable, and carry them forward beyond Covid?

A highlight of their session was playwright Jo Clifford giving a dramatic reading from her contribution about respect for everyone, regardless of their orientation or origin or differences – an extra powerful message coming from a trans-woman who has endured more than her fair share of disrespect.

I was hugely impressed too by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who believes all politicians should read fiction, and demonstrated her own love of reading by her well-informed and fluent hosting of an interview with the first black woman writer to win the Booker Prize: Berndardine Evaristo discussing her book: Girl, Woman, Other. A stimulating hour with both.

And then there was veteran Festival speaker, Richard Holloway, formerly Anglican Bishop of Edinburgh, who has, through the years, shared his doubts and loss of faith with festival goers. This year he was talking about Stories We Tell Ourselves: Making Meaning in a Meaningless Universe. He has now returned to the church – without it he felt homeless – and is trying to live by the story that makes us disconcerted and uncomfortable and self-questioning, that in turn makes us seek to be kinder and forgiving and more compassionate in our lives. Well, that’s a laudable aim at least. But he laments the way some people take literally the great religious myths and stories that tell eternal truths: instead they should be read seriously and intelligently, and interpreted in their own context, so that they enrich and liberate the reader. Holloway is now 87, and journalist  Ruth Wishart – one of my favourite interviewers – couldn’t resist asking him if he believed in an afterlife. He promised to do his best to come back and tell her if such a thing existed. Please do, she countered, it’d be an ‘awfy good scoop!’

All three of these events offered much to ponder about the big questions in life, and the things that really matter, which is why they ticked my boxes.

Better still, in the midst of this feast of literary brilliance, I could whip up to Clackmannanshire on a lovely sunny day and savour the tranquillity of the fabulous Cowden Japanese Garden without missing out on the literary bonanza. What a bonus!

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Baroness Mary Warnock

It’s almost eleven years since I shared a platform with Baroness Mary Warnock, but I’ve never forgotten it. We’d both just published books about assisted dying: hers, An Easeful Death (with Dr Elisabeth MacDonald); mine, Right to Die, and we were appearing together at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

She was already very well known, an established and influential figure in the world of philosophy, and author of The Warnock Report on Human Fertility and Embryology, an outspoken and at times rather intimidating person, who had strong opinions of her own. I recall she wasn’t too impressed when I questioned her statement that assisted death was not killing, and dismissed my quibble out of hand. She was sitting in her philosopher’s ivory tower well away from human reality; I was speaking from the viewpoint of a clinician at the sharp end.

Though known for her sharp mind and fearless debating, in great demand for committee work, she was widely criticised for being an ‘instant expert’, for having no truck with those who held strong immovable moral principles, for voicing shockingly derogatory comments based on social class and personal prejudice. Her certainty that she was always right stemmed from her childhood and sense of personal superiority. ‘In my mother’s family,‘ she said, ‘we were brought up to believe we were the best; there was simply no doubt about it and that sort of conviction resists evidence.’ I confess I caved in more than once in the face of her dogmatic assertions, even though in my heart of hearts I disagreed strongly. Somehow her reputation and self-confidence left scant room for challenge, especially from people as far down the food-chain as me!

One of the most outrageous statements she made was, ‘If you’re demented, you’re wasting people’s lives – your family’s lives – and you’re wasting the resources of the National Health Service’. She advocated encouraging such people to end their own lives to avoid being ‘a burden‘. To my shame I never did summon the courage to take her to task on that, though I’ve spent years working alongside people with dementia and wholeheartedly supporting efforts to enrich rather than end their lives.

Having said all that, I was touched by her generosity in endorsing my own writing. Emboldened by our brief acquaintance and pleasant exchanges, I rather trepidatiously sent her the draft of my novel, Saving Sebastian, which overlapped with her interest in genetics and embryology, and she was kind enough to endorse it warmly:
‘Problems in medical ethics are not just for doctors but for everyone,’ she wrote. ‘Hazel McHaffie has found a way to bring them before a wide public. You are gripped from the very beginning. but as you turn the pages, you are compelled to think about the issues. It is an excellent formula.’
I forgave her much!

She was made a DBE in 1984, a life peer in 1985, a Companion of Honour in 2017. The last time I saw her in the flesh she was a much diminished figure, so hard of hearing she missed much of what was said, and at times her comments fell like stones into a pond; sad to witness. She died this week, on March 20, aged 94, after a fall, a richly decorated though hugely controversial figure. Perhaps, in the world of medical ethics at least, we need such characters to provoke discussion and sharpen our own opinions.

 

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Festival city

Wow! Once again, how fortunate am I?

I live just south of the city of Edinburgh, home to the biggest arts festival in the world and in history. For years I’ve been a keen supporter of the International Book Festival. My record of attendance to date is 23 events in 2008 in that famous tented village!

Fringe ticketsHowever, since my granddaughters have demonstrated a keen interest in the performance arts, I’ve divided my time between the EIBF and the Fringe, taking in lots of plays, shows and concerts with them. A real treat. So I have a fat wallet full of tickets ready for an exciting couple of weeks this month.

This year’s events began well for me with the Writers in the Fringe event in Blackwell’s Bookshop on the first Thursday in August. Five authors gave us a fifteen minute glimpse into their latest books; entertaining as well as informing. One even put on her own little side-show involving a suitcase and audience participation! Very clever. (Five different authors each Thursday in the month if you’re interested. Oh, and it’s free!)

Food Festival teapotThe Foodie Festival in Inverleith Park was new to me but great fun, offering tastes and experiences well outside my usual comfort zone. Jam made with chocolate as well as fruit? Toffee vodka? Blue cheese oatcakes? Lemongrass chocolate? Marmite popcorn? Frozen passion fruit prosecco? All quite delicious. That was gloriously sunny Saturday – fortunately; the event was closed for its third and last day on Sunday because of the high winds!

Tomorrow evening, I’m off to a beautiful old church in Palmerston Place (creating a grand stage) to see a fab theatre company Saltmine for the third consecutive year. They’re a hugely talented young Christian group who convey powerful moral messages about society in their polished and very artistic performances. This one’s called The Soul in the Machine and tells the story of George Williams, Founder of the YMCA –

“We are more than bodies to be fed to a machine. We are made for more than work. We have souls, we have spirits and somewhere in this dead city there must be a place for those things.”

London, 1844 – Centre of Empire, crucible of the New Jerusalem. Her gutters run with effluent and blood and her skies are choked with the smoke of a hundred factories and foundries, but above the smoke, the stars still shine. George Williams is a country boy who comes to the city to find his place in the world and to make his mark. Appalled by the spirit-crushing rhythms of the Worker’s life he fights to spread the light of God, and create a place where the soul can be nurtured.

I have high hopes.

Next week we begin the serious daily show-hopping, but of course, the streets are also strewn with market stalls and performers strutting their stuff for the millions of tourists cluttering up the city, to the everlasting frustration of the natives who’re simply trying to get on with their ordinary everyday lives.

 

Pavement artistes

Street market

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LiliesBut living where I do, I have the luxury of escaping the mayhem and sitting in the garden enjoying the peace and fragrance all about me with only the boom of the Red Arrows and the muted-by-distance explosions of the Tattoo fireworks to remind me of the frenzy a few miles away.

As I say, extremely fortunate.

 

 

 

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Festival brilliance

Well, that’s the Festival over for another year. 50,000 Fringe events; 800 free events. 2.3 million tickets issued, bringing in £3.8 million. Huge and spectacular. But as the last explosion of fireworks lit up the night sky on Monday watched by 250,000 people, my own reflections were good. I’ve enjoyed more variety this year and seen parts of the city’s underbelly I haven’t explored before, as well as the old familiar haunts of the Book Festival and main Fringe venues. And I’ve marvelled at the amazing talent gathered here in one small city.

I’ve tried this month to capture a flavour of each week for you. So, in that spirit, I’ll give you a glimpse into two events this week that were especially commendable in my view.

Blackwells Bookshop EdinburghEvery Thursday evening in August, Blackwell’s Bookshop put on an event – Writers at the Fringe – with 4/5 writers introducing their work. Unfortunately I was only free for the last one, but what a feast it was. All five speakers were witty, entertaining and interesting; all stuck to their 15 minutes; all gave tempting tasters of their writing; all were friendly and available afterwards. We had the full gamut from two debut authors to a Booker nominee!  In order of appearance: Michael Cannon (reading a short story about being belted as a child), Malachy Tallack (introducing his travel book about places on the same latitude as the Shetland Islands), Carol Fox (reading from her Memoirs of a Feminist Mother – she’s a lawyer and deliberately single mother), John Mackay (talking about his writing as both journalist and novelist), Andrew O’Hagan (reading from his latest book about an elderly lady with dementia and secrets). Hats off to Blackwells for a great line-up.

Austentatious characters Then on Friday I went to a show called Austentatious where six young actors performed a Jane Austen-lookalike comedy billed as completely improvised. As we queued we were asked to write down a fictitious name for an Austen novel; then one was picked out of a top hat on stage. The cast were accomplished actors and so funny. I presume they cooked up a rough outine for a plot beforehand, but what skill and quick-wittedness to ad lib as they did. And it was obvious the actors themselves were hugely entertained by the play they were creating. Not surprisingly they were a sell-out.

So that’s it for another year. But how fortunate am I to live on the doorstep of this cultural Mecca. As they say in the world of entertainment: If you aren’t in Edinburgh in August you might as well be dead!

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Festival time

Chair in Chatlotte SquareSo far we’ve had a humorous take on Shakespeare (a World War II version of the classic play, All’s Well that Ends Well); an intriguing and delightful performance around the Tudor queens (by an American troupe!); a clever skit where Sherlock Holmes and his associate Watson, vie with each other to solve a crime in which Holmes himself is the supposed killer; an exploration of the issues of entrapment and abuse through a dark re-imagining of the infamous Grimm’s fairytale Rapunzel. Our teenage granddaughters, with their own cascades of beautiful hair, proving themselves observant, insightful critics and excellent company. Still to come: a wartime tear-jerker, a drama (paying homage to CS Lewis) exploring life and death decisions, a contemporary musical storytelling about the life of John the apostle viewed from his prison, a costumed Austentatious, and an adaptation of Pilgrim’s Progress. Good times.

But for me personally the highlight of my week was a special session at the Book Festival under the banner: Staying Well,  which incidentally also explored the concept of entrapment. Male suicide has increased significantly over the last twenty years and statistics for self harm in the UK are the highest in Europe. My current novel revolves around mental health issues, so this one: Stepping Away from the Edge, was a definite must.

Two of the three speakers have themselves suffered from severe depression. Debi Gliori is a writer-illustrator of children’s books and she has created a wonderful collection of pictures which portray how she feels while depressed – feelings which can’t be captured in words, she says. Her talk was illustrated with these magical drawings. Author Matt Haig has captured the horrors of severe mental illness in words. His book, Reasons to Stay Alive, is receiving widespread acclaim. In the Garden Theatre Tent, he also relied on words and his own palpable emotion to speak about his suicidal experiences. The third speaker was psychologist Rory O’Connor who heads a team at Glasgow University specialising in suicide, and his talk gave the stark statistics and facts and latest thinking about both self harm and suicide.

It was fantastic to see the importance given to mental illness at this international book event – an excellent line-up of speakers from both sides of the couch; an extra long slot (90 minutes instead of the usual 60); a large audience listening sympathetically and contributing sensitively; a team of specialists available afterwards in the Imagination Lab for anyone with specific issues or questions (a steady stream of people headed in that direction in spite of the late hour).

Festival city at night

As I stood admiring the magnificence of Edinburgh at night I couldn’t help but be glad that it was this city that had been the setting for another step towards equality between physical and mental illness.

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Guest blog

I am currently travelling back from Switzerland, so decided it would be a good week for a guest blog. I’ve invited my son, Jonathan, who is himself an avid reader and critic of books, to talk to you this time. Over to him.

I have an amazing inability to remember some things because I refuse to write them down.  However, I do know that at some point in the last year or two, I was reading something in which the question of belief came up, and the answer given was “I believe in books”.  That part stuck in my head, even if the person saying it didn’t.  So what is it about books?  Let me go off on a tangent for a minute, I’ll get back to the question unless I forget that as well.

The imminent arrival of the Edinburgh Book Festival programme is an eagerly awaited day in our family.  We actually have the day marked on the calendar.  For some reason, I get two copies, which is entirely a good thing because there is now one copy for the adults to read and one for the two girls to take away and mark up.  Their approach is to highlight anything by an author they think they’ve heard of, a title that sounds fun or a picture that appeals to them.  We then sift out the events that are for 5 year olds, much older teens and those where they can’t actually remember why they were interested in the first place.  That tends to take care of ninety percent.  My approach to the programme has evolved over the years.  I now go through it very very slowly so I don’t miss anything.  And then do the same again, backwards, and find all the things I missed.  I then forget to book and in a blind panic try to find the programme some days after the booking opened and hope for the best.  Over the course of the next few weeks, I find other people at work asking me if I’m going to so-and-so because it’s something they know I’ll be interested in…and I discover I’ve missed that as well.  It really is pathetic.

One event particularly resonated with me this year (actually, it was three, one of which I didn’t even see until someone else checked that I was going…and I wasn’t… but I’ll stick with the one for now).  Michael Rosen, the only poet we all read together at home because we tend to end up crying with laughter after a few of his poems.  It turns out he also wrote Going on a Bear Hunt.  It also turns out I’m not very good at putting authors’ names with books as I didn’t know those two belonged together until the girls were, well let’s just say it was a good ten years after they had last read the book.  My summary of what I was expecting him to talk about is why books are the most important thing on the planet.  I might be exaggerating a little, and he was in fact somewhat more measured than that, but the power of books can be remarkable (this is me getting back to the question, by the way, I didn’t forget).  A lot of the books I read are just good stories, an insight into someone else’s life, mind or experiences.  Some of course are non-fiction.  And then there are the ones you can’t forget, the ones that help you to see something you knew was there but didn’t want to recognise or acknowledge.

I’ve had a book on my shelf for a good number of years now, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Cried by Paulo Coelho.  Now, to me he is definitely not the best writer in terms of style or even storytelling.  But sometimes he understands something and tells his stories in a way that can change lives.  The story in this particular book is nothing special really and you could argue that it meanders around sometimes later on.  It’s the story of a man and woman who knew each other when they were younger and then meet up again years later when they have both lived very different lives, even though they are still fairly young.  So far, so nothing special.  But the book – for me – is really all about not giving up on something which is in our hearts, not allowing ourselves to be so rational that we forget that we once had dreams and still do.  Because out there there are enough people telling us what’s sensible, what we should do.  This particular book was one that I knew I would come back to, but only when I was ready to make a change in my life.  I knew that re-reading this one book would be the trigger for making that change, and that there would be no going back.  As Coelho writes,

“You have to take risks, he said.  We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.”

And here’s the beauty of words, of stories, of books.  That sentence (and a lot of others in that book) really hit me.  Maybe nobody else will ever have even a similar feeling reading that, but in each book, we find something that we didn’t know or didn’t recognise before.  And the same is true of the person writing the story.  I’m experiencing that at the moment as I work on writing my first novel (let me tell you, it looks easier than it is!).  I find characters saying or doing something that surprises me.  It turns out you can’t control it any more than you can control a conversation with another person because you cannot know what they’re going to say and each word changes how the conversation will develop.

So although I knew that Michael Rosen would probably say nothing that I was expecting him to (despite the fact that I had already imagined the whole event in my imagination), I knew that something special would happen just because there was be a conversation between him and an audience and we were all changed by it.

So I believe in books too.

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Book Festival

Like Joan Bakewell I say with some amazement that ‘Edinburgh’s jamboree will have to fizz without me‘ this year. Yep, for the first time for donkey’s years I have no tickets for the International Book Festival. Nary a one.

Why? Well, various other responsibilities and commitments have swallowed up these two weeks and I simply can’t spread myself any more thinly. I am, of course, a tiny tad disappointed to be missing the excitement of the tented domes of Charlotte Square, and listening to fellow-authors telling of their inner lives and exploits. Oh yes, and those interesting conversations that crop up every year as we wait in queues or compare notes over a coffee. But I confess I’m also aware of a smidgeon of relief that I’m not up writing reviews at all hours for this or anyone else’s blog.

However, I have been festivalling. Yes sir! I’ve taken to the Festival Fringe – the unregulated unofficial part of the programme – big time, in the delightful company of my appreciative guests. For those of you who aren’t aficionados, the Fringe sells over 2 million tickets and attracts over 3000 acts and events; it’s been described as the world’s largest arts festival … and it’s on my doorstep!

On the way between shows, we’ve been taking leisurely strolls through the Old Town, and the craft stalls of the West End … Craft Fair

… pausing to enjoy the street theatre, (even in the teeth of hurricane Bertha one decidedly damp afternoon!).

Levitating alien

Headless man

And wow! were we lucky with our choice of events. Every single one we went to was well worth seeing (it’s a hit and miss experience normally). Particularly impressive were the Saltmine Company‘s production of John Newton – Amazing Grace (relating the story of the slave-trader cum hymn writer through music and drama); and a dramatic telling of Michael Morpurgo‘s 16 year old Private Peaceful looking back at his life on the night before his execution by firing squad. We were all spell-bound.

Both these events were well attended, but some of the others had tiny audiences and yet were excellent performances. Imagine baring your soul about a suicide or depression or loss or hopelessness to an audience of one for a whole hour! But they grit their teeth and do it. I wish them all huge success. After all, that lone listener might just be a top agent or critic. Many a famous name has been discovered in the Fringe.

NB. You may be reading about Edinburgh at Festival time, but I’m actually currently soaking up the incredibly beautiful scenery and pure air of Switzerland … of which more on my return.

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