The Lowdham Festival has welcomed me three times before but ahead of this year’s event I join my interviewer, John Holmes at BBC Radio Nottingham to be a guest on his regular Sunday morning show. It’s a combination of Stop the Week and Desert Island Discs with our amiable chatter interspersed with six pieces of music.
After the show finished at 12 noon John went home to change his shirt and get to Lowdham nine miles away by 13.45 when our event was due to commence. He made it with time to spare whereas we arrived at 13.47 convinced that we had half an hour before the show began. It was our mistake which could so easily have been a disaster as the audience sat in a packed (and hot) village hall awaiting our arrival. As it turned out, we managed to limit the delay to five minutes and thanks to the charm of Jane Streeter, the book seller/festival organiser and all round superstar of the book world and the understated skill of Mr Holmes as an interviewer, the afternoon was considered to be a roaring success.
