Literary Festivals

I have just returned from a couple of days at ' Ways with Words' at Southwold in Suffolk. At the best of times Southwold is a delightful place to be. Add to it the joys of a literary festival and there is no better place to be. I listened, rapt, to Libby Purves, Polly Toynbee and Michael Buerk. Not at the same time you understand, although that might have been interesting.

I am reminded why I am a reader , not a writer and an introverted thinker and not a speaker. I was as happy in the audience as each of them appeared on stage.

The audiences were, roughly, 70/30 female to male ratio. The questions asked by the audience 95/5 male to female ratio. I am constantly reminded that men are talkers more than listeners and women otherwise inclined.

I didn't ask a question because I was too happy basking in the words I had just heard. I certainly had no thought that the speakers would have been interested in my mundane views of the subject they had studied and inhabited for many months , if not years, and yet many in the audience felt no such inhibitions. I admire such a trait in others but do not wish it for myself.

Nothing could have made me happier than I was in that small hall. And certainly not asking a question. I had been given more than enough to mull over. And so am I doing.