Swindon by the book (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Swindon by the book

Now in its 11th year, the Swindon Festival of Literature is an established part of our cultural landscape. BARRIE HUDSON takes a closer look at the literary heritage of a town the critics love to sneer at.

PUT the words "Swindon" and "literature" in the same sentence and lazy critics of the town will sneer just as surely as Pavlov's dogs salivated when their master rang the dinner bell.

But Swindon is well and truly on the literary map and has been for well over a century.

That presence ranges from the exquisite Victorian nature writing of Richard Jefferies to the setting by modern novelists Jasper Fforde and Whitbread Prize-winner Mark Haddon of major works in the Swindon area.

If the flame of literature burns strongly in Swindon, though, one man is perhaps responsible for keeping it healthily fanned.

Matt Holland has been the director of the Swindon Festival of Literature that is now in its 11th year.

The literary stars to appear have ranged from Poet Laureate Andrew Motion to veteran journalist Kate Adie.

Such is Mr Holland's expertise that he was recently invited to contribute a chapter to a book called Hooked Engaging People in Literature, which was published to coincide with a national literature conference in Yorkshire.

In reference to Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, he called his chapter The Curious Incident of a Literature Festival in Swindon.

He would like to see Swindon have its own literary trail, perhaps detailed in a leaflet and with plaques marking sites where authors lived or set their books.

The idea won the approval in principle of Swindon libraries heritage manager David Allen, who said: "The literary connections go back some time, and the recent resurgence is important, so a trail would be a good idea."

Mr Holland, who also runs the Lower Shaw Farm Lifelong Learning Centre, said: "Wherever there are people living, loving, working and using language, literature happens.

"Swindon is such a place, and that is why literature happens here."

This year's festival will run for the first two weeks of May, with the programme being officially launched on March 18 at Waterstone's bookshop in the Brunel Centre. It will include appearances by Mark Haddon, Tony Benn, Clive James, gardening pundit Bob Flowerdew and legal expert Helena Kennedy QC.

In his chapter in Hooked, Mr Holland readily acknowledges that Swindon is sneered at by those who imagine it has no culture.

But he adds: "If a place does not offer a constant stream of activities that quicken the pulse, top up adrenaline levels, or stimulate happy endorphins, people tire of it and move on.

"They remain blissfully unaware of one poet's wise words: 'If a place bores you, don't blame the place, blame yourself!'"

bhudson@newswilts.co.uk