Authors attract visitors to Alderney

Monday 01 April 2019

With 11 authors talking about their work, Alderney's fifth Literary Festival was a sell out with visitors heading to the island over the weekend for the various events and one writer loved the island so much he wants to set a novel there.

With writers and readers mingling freely with the visitors and residents, people were sharing their passion for historical fact and fiction, among other topics.

The festival covered periods in history spanning Roman and Elizabethan times, the Spanish civil war, the Raj to World War 2 and the women who flew for Hitler.

Authors included Professor Kate Williams, a historian and TV presenter, Duncan Barrett, who penned Hitlers British Isles: The Real Story of the Occupied Channel Islands, and lecturer Francis Spufford, whose first novel, Golden Hill won the coveted Costa First Novel award.

Festival chairman Anthony Riches, writer of the Empire series of novels, set during Roman rule, said authors were now harassing him for an invitation to the festival. The challenge now, he said, was how to make it bigger.

"This festival is different to any other," he said. "There is a green room but nobody uses it. Usually at festivals you hide away from the public in the green room, have a drink or two, come out and do their turn and never really mingle with the public. Here you mingle with the public if you're around. The other thing that really grabs the authors that we bring in is the amount of history on this island that you can walk around in an hour. It's just amazing. I have never invited an author in who first of all hasn't been knocked over by the hospitality and secondly thought how fantastic the island is.

"I always get people harassing me to come back again. This is the festival that people think, when am I coming back here again. It's brilliant."

Pictured: Professor Kate Williams presenting a fringe talk in the library.

Professor Kate Williams brought her husband and daughter to the festival. She presented talks in Alderney Library and two at the Anne French Room. Prof. Williams examined letters and archives for her new book Deadly Queens, Blood and Scandal, creating an electrifying new perspective on Mary and Elizabeth and, ultimately, on the great sacrifices a woman must make to be a queen.

"My talks have been on Mary Queen of Scots - blood, betrayal, romance and history on film.

"It's been a big weekend for me. I'm here with my family, I'm going to the beach, I'm going to explore. So that makes it not just a festival but a big celebration."

Pictured: Tobin Collier, Anthony Horowitz, Ethan Gillingham.

Best selling author Anthony Horowitz revealed that Alderney's super close community had inspired a new murder mystery novel. Mr Horowitz, creator of the wildly popular young adult Alex Rider series of books and  TV series Foyles War, was visiting the Island as part of its fifth literary festival.

He was invited to St Anne's School after two pupils wrote to him, extolling the virtues of the Island.

In an hour long question and answer session that the whole school attended Mr Horowitz was quizzed on topics such as whether the Queen read his books, who his worst teacher was at school and whether he could live on Alderney.

He revealed that never having visited the Island was part of the reason he had accepted the invitation and that its distinctive features had already got his creative juices flowing. It would be the perfect setting, he said, for a new story in his new adult murder mystery series.

“This morning I was talking to the post office master and he said the crime rate on this island was pretty much zero. I thought that would make it a marvelous place to set a murder mystery on. I think I'll bring my detective Hawthorne here. I also noticed that from the moment I arrived on Alderney pretty much everything I've done has been seen by someone. Everyone knows where I've been and what I've been doing - and that for a crime story is very interesting and useful. It will maybe in four or five years until I write it, but I will rent a place for a couple of weeks or a month and try to get under the skin of the island a bit and try to set a murder mystery here.”

He told pupils that he had met the Queen several times but it was Prince Charles who gave him his OBE. “I know he likes Foyles War because that's what we always talk about when we meet. I don't know if the Queen has every read any of my books but  I asked the Duke of Edinburgh if he watched Foyles War and he said something I won't repeat. It was very rude!”

His worst teacher was his French teacher ('aren't they always the worst ones?) and to this day, he said, he couldn't walk through French windows or eat a French Fancy without trembling.

School visits for him were now a rarity because of how busy he was, but he had made an exception Island because he was so impressed with the letter he received from Alex Rider fans Tobin Collier and Ethan Gillingham, both 13. He said he hoped that during his hour long question and answer session, he had inspired children to read.

St Anne's Year 8 class wrote to 20 authors and Mr Horowitz was the only author who replied.

Tobin Collier and Ethan Gillingham said they had never imagined he would come. Ethan said: "We were in the changing rooms after PE and we got a letter addressed to both of us. We opened it thinking it was going to be something bad, but it was him saying he had come. It was amazing. It kind of seems that it's not real."