BBC Arts Digital brought you three days of coverage of the festival’s greatest writers, thinkers and performers.
Salman Rushdie at the Hay Festival, 1992
Peter Florence
Director, Hay Festival
Quote MessageThis was May 1992, his first public appearance after the fatwa.
Image source, Hay FestivalSalman Rushdie at the Hay Festival in 1992
The director of the Hay Festival is speaking to our reporter Lindsey Chapman on Facebook.
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But most festival-goers aren't letting the rain dampen their spirits!
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Eklim Khan, Red Indigo restaurant
Image source, Hay FestivalEklim Khan stands in the Red Indigo restaurant in Hay-on-Wye
Quote MessageMe and my brother worked for my dad in Stourbridge, but I wanted to do something on my own. I knew Hay didn’t have an Indian restaurant, so we’d been looking at it for a while. The people in Hay are great. Everyone knows me, they say hello. You see their little ones grow up. And the town, look at it, it’s so picturesque. Compared to Birmingham, I mean. I’ve never been able to go to anything at the festival, these 10 days are so busy. Celebrities come up from the site though. Ralph Fiennes was the friendliest, he was so down to earth, a real gentleman.
Throughout the day, we will be telling the modern history of Hay-on-Wye through the words of the people who make it what it is.
Children's author Julia Donaldson brought songs from her children's books to the Hay Festival, including perennial favourite the Gruffalo. She was joined on stage by children from the audience, as well as her husband and guitarist Malcolm. Malcolm Donaldson entertained her young fans while they queued to meet her in the Festival Bookshop.
Image source, Hay FestivalJulia Donaldson and fans on stage at the Hay Festival
Image source, Hay FestivalJulia Donaldson and fans on stage at the Hay Festival
Image source, Hay FestivalA festival-goer asks Julia Donaldson a question at the Hay Festival.
Image source, Hay FestivalJulia Donaldson signs a book for a young fan at the Hay Festival
Image source, Hay FestivalMalcolm Donaldson entertains a fan while she waits to meet Julia Donaldson
Helen Fielding, winner of this year's Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction, met the pig that will bear the name of her winning book at the Hay Festival. The novelist does not get to keep the newly-named Bridget Jones's Baby, a Gloucestershire Old Spot, but perhaps the jeroboam of champagne will make up for it.
Image source, Roger BlaggHelen Fielding, a pig and a jeroboam of champagne at the Hay Festival
Penny Chantler, Hill Farm, Llanigon
Image source, Hay FestivalPenny Chantler and her dog sit on her doorstep at Hill Farm, Llanigon
Quote MessageI started farming in Kent; we rented land and had a flock of Romneys. My husband scanned sheep back then, and he had a client here, his first client in Wales, so that’s how we knew the area. We only had enough money for a house in Kent, but that amount of money could get us a four-bedroom house here and 72 acres, and we came looking for somewhere. When we came up the road, I looked over towards here, and just thought ‘that’s the one’. That was 21 years ago.
Throughout the day, we will be telling the modern history of Hay-on-Wye through the words of the people who make it what it is.
UK viewers can click the play icon above to watch David Mitchell talking about his translation of the new book by Naoki Higashida: Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight, a young man’s voice from the silence of autism. It’s part memoir, part critique of a world that sees disabilities instead of disabled people; and opens a window into the mind and world of an autistic, non-verbal young adult, as well as providing insights into autism in general.
Image source, Sam HardwickDavid Mitchell
Huw Thomas
Arts & media correspondent, BBC Wales
On Thursday night, Eddie Izzard returned to Hay after 20 years, but he is still to master the Welsh language...
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Bill Clinton, speaking at Hay in 2001
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Your suggestions are coming thick and fast for the final title in the #HAY30BOOKS list! Here's a brilliant review of Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body, by Greg Gee. See the rest of the list and add your own reviews using our interactive tool.
Our roving reporter Lindsey Chapman is live with BBC presenter and all-round science genius Helen Czerski right now on our Facebook page:
Juliet Noble, Shepherds Ice Cream.
Image source, Hay FestivalJuliet Noble sits outside Shepherds Ice Cream Parlour in Hay-on-Wye
Quote MessageWe bought the Cwm, a farm with 60 acres near Peterchurch, which was too small to live off just from the sheep. We started milking the sheep, and after a year we decided to make our own ice cream. That was 1987, thirty years ago, so it’s an anniversary for us too. Everyone thought we were crazy to open an ice cream parlour in Hay, but it worked right away. People buy ice cream when they’re on holiday, so that has always worked.
Hay Festival-goers queuing for ice cream outside the Shepherds stall on Friday
Throughout the day, we will be telling the modern history of Hay-on-Wye through the words of the people who make it what it is.
Bob Geldof at the Hay Festival, 1989
Peter Florence
Director, Hay Festival
Quote MessageAnother part of the impetus for the Festival was the effect of Live Aid, and the idea that politics could be explored through entertainment and events
Image source, Hay FestivalPeter Florence, brick phone and Bob Geldof (r) at the Hay Festival in 1989
If Nicholas's chat is whetting your appetite, his book was serialised recently on Radio 4's Book of the Week. Here's a great clip describing an incident while he was directing One Man Two Guvnors on Broadway:
James Corden's on-stage encounter with the future President
Speaking at The Cube with Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust
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Quote MessageI didn’t know how it was going to sound until – well, if I say “I heard a voice”, that will make me sound completely mad but – this first line, the first line of Wolf Hall, came to me: “So now, get up.” And I had the instant picture of the 15-year-old Thomas Cromwell lying on the ground in his own blood; his father is kicking hell out of him, and this is the incident that’s going to precipitate his running away.
Hilary Mantel, 2012
This excerpt was taken from Hay Festival Conversations, Thirty Conversations for Thirty Years. Read more extracts from the book in The Guardian, external.
Jeanette Barker, the Granary, Hay-on-Wye.
Image source, Hay FestivalJeanette Barker, proprietor of the Granary cafe
Quote MessageMy mum was Dutch, and was in a prisoner of war camp out east, in Indonesia. After she was liberated, she was on a boat back with all these British soldiers. My dad had been in Burma, so they met and he proposed on the ship. She came here in 1947. That was a freezing winter, and she was the only one making ice cream. She’d never seen so much snow. This place was bought by my grandfather, it was a warehouse, full of fleeces back then. It was my father’s vision to turn it into a tea shop.
Throughout the day, we will be telling the modern history of Hay-on-Wye through the words of the people who make it what it is.
Click the play icon above to watch Clemency Burton-Hill chatting to Nicholas Hytner about his book Balancing Acts: Behind the Scenes at London's National Theatre. It's a story of lunatic failures and spectacular successes, with a cast including the likes of Alan Bennett, Maggie Smith, Mike Leigh, Daniel Day-Lewis, Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren and, of course, William Shakespeare.
Nicholas Hytner
This evening at Hay, Stephen Fry will ask what the internet should become in this world of social media, hacking and global connectivity. Here is his sneak preview.
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