Knutsford Literature Festival

The 12th Knutsford Literature Festival was held from Friday 7th to Sunday 23rd October 2011.

Once again, we had a most enjoyable and successful Literature Festival and were delighted to welcome to our events both current friends and many new faces, quite a few of whom have joined the growing number of our Friends of the Festival.

This was the 12th Knutsford Literature Festival and, as regular Festival-goers know, it is always our aim to invite as wide a range of speakers as possible so that, hopefully, there will be "something for everybody" to enjoy! The feedback from our audience suggested that we have, once again, done just that.

All our speakers were, without exception, stimulating, thought-provoking, informative and entertaining. Mary Lovell got the Festival off to a splendid start with her excellent talk on the Churchills and, despite quite a serious car accident only days before, performed with her usual indomitable spirit in true Churchillian fashion.

Lovers of art, architecture and history all found plenty to enjoy. A packed audience gave an enthusiastic welcome to Clare Hartwell and Matthew Hyde. Their talk on the new edition of Pevsner's Cheshire was accompanied by excellent illustrations and gave a fascinating insight into the architectural gems right on our doorstep. Lovely slides also accompanied Fiona MacCarthy's delightful talk on Edward Burne-Jones and the audience were particularly appreciative of her inclusion of some fine examples of stained glass from Tabley Hall.

Allan Mallinson's very topical and well-informed talk on the History of the British Army attracted an appreciative and specialised audience and prompted some interesting and thought-provoking questions; Leo McKinstry got an enthusiastic welcome from a keen and very knowledgeable audience of cricket-lovers, as he reviewed the life of Jack Hobbs, and Adam Hart-Davis - well-known for his many TV series - had plenty of fun with the concept of Time.

This year we featured two first-time novelists - Felix Francis and Cressida Connolly – both of whom gave particularly engaging introductions to their first books, "Gamble" and "My Former Heart".

Drama is always popular with our festival-goers and Rohan McCullough gave a compelling performance as Clementine Churchill to a sell-out audience, while Bel Mooney, this year's Literary Lunch guest-speaker at Mere, shared warm and amusing insights into her life with a small dog and her role as an agony-aunt.

Poetry night at The Angel attracted a lot of interest this year and elicited some very impressive writing, while the Book Swap continues to be popular.

Finally, the Festival drew to a close with a flourish with Anne Sebba's talk on "That Woman". Based on a newly-found cache of letters, it was a fascinating and provocative reworking of the Wallis Simpson story, which clearly captivated and intrigued the audience.

We would like to thank all our festival-goers for, once again, helping to make this year's festival so successful. It was lovely to see so many of you again and to welcome newcomers. If you would like to become a Friend of the Festival, you will find all details on our Friends' page. Plans are now already under way for next year's Festival and we look forward to seeing you then.

We would also like to thank all our supporters, especially the Friends of the Festival and our sponsors, Waterstone's and Barrington Sports.