The Hay Festival has ended, but reports from this enormous festival do not. Here’s another dispatch from George Binning:
In 1977, having started a craze for second hand book shops and festivals in Hay on Wye, Richard Booth crowned himself King of Hay. He also appointed a chamber of hereditary peers in 2000 (a nice little earner), but in spite of his lifelong contribution to Hay’s cultural landscape, a large number of the locals think he is a wally. In fact one man tells me that there was a sort of revolution a few years ago where an angry mob ritually beheaded an effigy of Booth. He recently sold Hay Castle for around the two million mark and there are fears that the castle will be closed off and redecorated.
It very quickly struck me that King Booth would be a highly suitable character for one of Alexander McCall Smith’s novels.
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