I got back to Norwich on Sunday 13th October 2024 after four months in Durban. I had a great time there. It included a week’s side trip to Cape Town. Winter in Durban is the best time of year, a progression of sunny, warm days. It was perfect for walking. I completed my Waterford Challenge, and kept walking!

One reason for the timing of return was for planned theatre visits. The first was to the Norwich Playhouse to see South African comedian Pierre Novellie. He did close to two hours of very funny material, including reflecting on his recent diagnosis of autism. He said as a child he told his father he thought he was different. His father said this was because they had moved from Johannesburg to the Isle of Man. His subsequent diagnosis was, I think, he implied, overlooked in the disruptive move to a different culture. Douglas and Rowan had seen him on a previous visit to Norwich and noted that there was less South African material on this occasion.

The following evening, we went to see a musical at the Theatre Royal. Come from Away is set in the Newfoundland town of Gander in Canada. On September 11, 2001, following the terrorist attacks in the USA, North American airspace was closed, and all planes were ordered to land at the closest airports. Thirty-eight transatlantic flights, with close to 7,000 passengers and crew, ended up in Gander. This is the story of how the town and the passengers tried to cope. It was an excellent, moving production. The reason for the use of Gander was that it is a huge airport, once the largest in the world. It was built to allow transatlantic flights to refuel and was an important airbase during the Second World War.

The last weekend in October was really busy. It was the Norwich Book Festival. This four-day event began on Thursday and finished on Sunday evening. There was so much on it was hard to choose. The family attended numerous sessions, individually and together, and, of course, Rowan was key in the organisation of the event as she works in communications at the Forum.

The festival was a partnership between many local organisations. The main venue was the Forum, where the Norfolk and Norwich millennium library is located. It is a magnificent building, which opened in 2001. It is worth following the link to look at the building. Other major partners included the National Centre for Writing, the University of East Anglia and particularly the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing; and Norfolk County Council.

Norwich was the sixth city to be given the status of a UNESCO city of literature, and the first in England. As was pointed out before each event, it has a long history in promoting and creating literature. Rowan has an MA from UEA and has worked for a number of the organisations linked to writing, so is embedded in this.

Each of the events centred around a recently published book. I went to a total of eight. The first presented two books both set on the East Anglian coast. The generational fishing epic Silver Harvest, by Daryl Fraser from Lowestoft essentially traced the history of the town through 200 years of a fisherman’s family. The other was set in Orford Ness in the early 1960s, at a time of cold war tension. It was a good start!

Our Island Stories: Country Walks through Colonial Britain by Corinne Fowler sets out a number of walks, all of which connect to the empire and the impact it had on the countryside and nation. On a similar theme we listened to Paul Richardson on his book Myths of Geography: Eight Ways We Get the World Wrong.

Alan in St Mancroft Church, Norwich. Photo by Keiron Tovell.

One of the other venues was the magnificent parish church of St Peter Mancroft. Quite appropriately I went and listened to Dairmaid MacCulloch, the Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University, talking about Sex and Christianity. His book is called Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity. He was an excellent speaker and his ideas were interesting. Also at the church was Andrew Miller’s The Land in Winter set in 1962 England.

The talk I enjoyed the most was by Jenny Kleeman, a highly experienced journalist with global experience. Her book The Price of Life was full of interesting facts and figures as to how the price is set. She noted it costs between $2,000-$3,000 to save the life of an African child, $15,180 to hire a hitman and $368,901 to pay the average ransom demand. She tried to address the idea that life is ‘priceless’, pointing out that we routinely calculate it, it is not in fact priceless. This is the one book I bought, and I am enjoying it. The fact, as she said, and I often do, is that this information is important for the development of policy by governments, insurers and many others. There was not enough discussion of the economics for my taste.

On the Sunday morning there was a Crime Brunch at the Forum. Sadly, only one speaker made it: Nilesha Chauvet, a British Indian debut novelist. She talked about her debut novel, The Revenge of Rita Marsh. It was an interesting event. The book is about a woman who runs a care home, looking after the elderly and infirm (she inherited it from her parents). At night she is a vigilante, posing online as young girls to ensnare the men who prey on them. It sounded deeply fascinating but inevitably, authors were careful not to give too much away. This book is one I will certainly try to get.

The last talk we went to was at Waterstones’ bookshop. The book Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon is set in ancient Sicily, 400 years BCE, and tells of Athenian prisoners held in the quarries of Syracuse. This is something I had never heard of; indeed, the festival was generally a real eye opener about what has been written. The event included mediocre, but free, wine.

After the first session I made sure I had a pen and paper with me. There were some pearls of wisdom that I can use in the future. I think all the books were hard-covers and that makes them expensive. I will keep an eye open for the paperbacks or get them from the library.

I feel privileged to have been able to go to all these events. The prices were generally affordable and while there were things Douglas, Ailsa, and I all went to, we each had our own interests. There is more information at norwichbookfestival.co.uk/whats-on. This was the first festival, but everyone hopes and expects it to be held annually. It is worth remarking on the demographics of the audiences. Millennials dominated but the gender mix was skewed. In The Price of Life and Revenge of Rita Marsh there were only three or four men present. The others were more representative.

My walking continues and it is obvious that autumn is upon us with a vengeance. Paths and pavements are covered with fallen leaves, and the trees are delightful with the ‘fall colours’ as my friends in Canada and the USA would say. I mowed the lawn a week ago and, rather than raking up the leaves, I simply ran the mower over them to speed their decomposition. We are told that it will be good for both the lawn and wildlife. At least one hedgehog is scurrying around the garden in the early evening, and I try to remember to scatter some mealworms. At the moment the blackbirds appear to be taking a sabbatical from our neighbourhood, so the hedgehog is more than welcome to them.

Soon after this blog is posted the American election results will be out, although there will be litigation which may delay things. I really hope not, and pray Trump does not scrape in. It seems incomprehensible that apparently sensible and thoughtful people support him. This division may be amplified by the media coverage. It seems from this that the USA is a deeply divided and dysfunctional society, though this seems to be true across the world now.

Of course, we need to remind ourselves that even among those who have the right to vote some may choose not to exercise it. I am sure across the United States there will be families where people are no longer speaking to each other. Such is the strength of opinion on this critical election. This may even happen in the UK. There was a 90-minute programme on Trump and his campaign at the end of October. I really could not watch it; it is too worrying.

I have reflected on, and have written about, the recent elections in the UK and South Africa. In both cases the results were exactly what we needed. In the UK: a change to Labour rule; a spanking for the Tories; and a decent showing for the Greens and Liberal Democrats. In South Africa the ANC lost its majority which means the country and many provinces are now under the control of coalitions. This means there is accountability and, hopefully, better governance. Both SA and the UK should be stronger with policies that address the real problems.

Producing this monthly blog is a process. Having attended the Book Festival, I found the talks by the various authors of process to be exceptionally informative. Writing does not come easily, or maybe, and more accurately, good writing takes time and attention.

I generally jot down a few ideas, things that have interested me and that I want to share. I then set out to write about 1,200 words. Occasionally I add a photograph or two. The writing process normally takes eight hours, and there is a great deal of rewriting involved. Once it is complete it goes to Douglas for proofreading and a critique. I then send it to John for round two of the proofing. He posts it onto my website and sends me the final version back, along with a PDF.