Scary …
… That’s the only word to describe doing a presentation on your new book at a literary festival. However many times they’ve done it, anyone who tells you different is either fibbing or foolish. You should know more about your subject than most people – after all, you’ve been studying it for years – so how embarrassing if you’re ambushed by someone in the room and found wanting.
It seemed even edgier at the Ilkley Literature Festival, because I was on Vernon Scannell’s home ground. His friends were in the audience. Two of his long term partners, who feature at length in the book, were watching me from the second row. And two newspaper stories that morning had shown that this wasn’t going to be a simple “wasn’t he wonderful” session:
Even with a reassuring pile of books on the table at the side of the room this was going to be a challenge.
Well, I’m exaggerating. Angela and Jo, Vernon’s long term partners, have helped me throughout the project, as have his wife – another Jo – his children, and his literary executors. They all know that I admire Scannell immensely, despite all that was in the newspapers – and by the end of the evening, I reckon the rest of the audience did too. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a terrible thing, even less understood in Scannell’s time than it is today – it’s a fair bet that there will be young men home from Afghanistan and their families going through much the same torture now as he did then.
So I think the evening went well. A few laughs, a number of questions and memories, and a lot of interest. The pile of books had gone by the time I left, which is always a good sign.
