There is something enchanting about writers and politicians and academics and people from all walks of life meeting at a treeless clearing that has been dramatically pitched into a tented village at the foothills of the Black Mountains and especially if the place has a name like DAIRY MEADOWS. The surroundings are beautiful. The weather is warm, but I find the people a lot warmer.The historic rainy Hay weather took leave today. I decide to walk leisurely from the Bed & Breakfast I am staying to enjoy the teasing sun. The walk keeps my mind jogging. Yesterday my mother was admitted in hospital. I don’t know her condition. My phone is dead with all the numbers in it. It's not the battery. The site is a short 10 minute walk out of Hay.
Yellow signs point towards the Hay Festival site. From a distance the place is abuzz with people. Cars going in and out every minute. Site personnel wearing shiny tabards walk around. A bilingual sign greets me: CROESO/WELCOME. A big white banner confirms: theguardian HAY FESTIVAL. I walk into history.
In 1987, I was a young four year old boy pulling up my hand-me-down pants in a crammed township room somewhere in Zimbabwe. My world was my mother whose skirts I tagged for affection. In 1987 in the Welsh border town of Hay on Wye a small group of people were meeting to arrange the first edition of what has become this famous festival.
Today, 20 years later I have moved beyond the margins of my Zimbabwean township, left behind my mother's comforting presence, to discover the world. I live in Wales and things are still happening in Hay.
I am overwhelmed. People introduce me to people, a lot of them I didn’t know before I met them and then there are some people whose names I knew but whose faces have always been glossy cover images. It is the mixing and mingling that makes any festival experience memorably exciting.
The festival team is an enthusiastic lot, friendly, nice, happy. They warmly embrace me as part of the family. I have not been to any event. The time when you want to attend something you always end up doing something else because you are the only pair of hands available and have to get the work done.
The site is an amazingly laid out tent village. As I walk around I spot people enjoying the sun on deck chairs strategically placed around. Hay fever affects even the young. I see young children yapping towards the children's zone. The future is assured.
At night The Morriston Orpheus Male Voice Choir mesmerise the audience with their classic ballads. In between the music performance, Peter Florence and his mother Rhoda Lewis read some poetry. There’s a wild applause. I leave early. The first day has been exciting. Tomorrow is another day!
