Hay

It is always a huge privelege to be invited to speak at the Hay Festival of Literature, one which has been long denied me. This is an woeful oversight which I have taken somewhat to heart, since I now live close to the town, and am nothing if not the Laureate Concrete of The Marches.
Imagine my suprise and delight, then, if you will, when my old sparring partner Stephen Spender asked me to share the platform at this years festival, subject; 'Whither Socialist poetry?'
I agreed at once, as this is a subject to which I have given a great deal of thought. On the morning of the event, a car driven by an ex-ostrich farmer from South Africa came out to the house to pick me up, and I was whisked into the saloon bar of The Blue Boar, where I spent a most pleasant late morning, afternoon and evening in the company of some roofers from Chepstow, who had just been paid on completion of a job of work, and whose free- spending habits reconfirmed my commitment to the working class.
Unfortunately, a pork pie I took for my lunch must have disagreed with me, because by the time of the talk, at 8 'o' clock, I was most unwell. I was sick over Spender's brogues, and had to be helped from the Festival site.
Now Stephen isn't talking to me. I'm told that my chance of being asked back have lessened somewhat, to put it mildly. Moral; in future, (and both Ledbury and Cheltenham have put out feelers for next year), I shall avoid solids before my talk.