Sunday, May 24, 2015

Bryony Gordon: How to survive Hay Festival

As she prepares to travel to Hay-on-Wye, Bryony Gordon shares her dos and don'ts for those attending the annual literary festival

Hay Festival: travel tips from Telegraph writers
Tintern Abbey, immortalised in verse and paint by Wordsworth and Turner, is about an hour’s drive from Hay-on-Wye. Its ruins offer an opportunity to find solitude away from the bustle on the lawn at the festival itself  
Until I turned 30, my experiences of festivals had predominantly been... well, grubby if I am honest. I was just eight when I went to my first one - Reading, as it happens - having been dragged along by my trendy uncle and cousins under the belief I was going to see some pixies. Imagine my surprise when I realised that actually, I was going to see a band called The Pixies. I was wearing a pony sanctuary jumper and a Laura Ashley floral skirt and a naked woman with a dog tied to a stick took one look at me and pronounced: “what the **** are you doing here?” She had a point, however crudely she had decided to make it, and I realise now that she was probably on drugs, but it scarred me for life festival-wise. I’ve never really been a fan.
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