Ways With Words - Dartington

Diana Athill guided my choice of day to visit the Dartington Ways With Words Festival yesterday. I was pretty sure that this game, intelligent nonagenarian woman would give great value, which she duly did. Some quotes:
Of her childhood, "It was taken for granted that out of doors you rode and indoors you read."
I've long been aware of the dangers of writing to please one's mother, and on this: "I'm glad my mother is dead, because I'm sure she would have found my books deplorable ... I was writing about things one ought to have kept quiet about."
Writing for her, she told us, was initially therapy. She dealt with problems in her life by facing them in this way. When age and wisdom removed such problems she presumed her writing was ended, but then in her book about her editorial years with Andre Deutsch, Stet, she discovered writing for fun.
Of her editing, she sees her job in the same way as I see mine while teaching ... you don't want someone to write the book as you would write it, but to write the best book that they are trying to write. The switch in later life to being edited herself did not cause major problems: "To tell the truth, I've hardly been edited because I turn in a pretty good manuscript." Ian Jack made three suggestions for one book, asking for more at these points, and after some demurring she complied. "What came out as a result was good."
Penelope Lively was her interviewer. Jon Snow took a more proactive turn for his spell in that role, sharing centre stage with the human rights lawyer Phillipe Sands. Three sessions seemed enough for the day so we rounded the visit off with Jonathan Fenby giving an erudite and loaded talk on China. The plan was to have lunch and a walk along the River Dart in the hours in between. But not so, for danger lurked.
The festival attracts a fairly elderly crowd, a lot of walking sticks, and it was fine to be among such advanced engaging minds. Every question from the floor was good. And elderly as they were, I'm the one that came away from the occasion as a physical crock. You'd imagine strolling across a lawn at a literary fete was a safe thing to do.I now know better. Tripping over a tent's outstretched guy rope I fell headfirst and heavy onto a cobbled path. Such was my tumble an ambulance was called. Vision turned to stars, joints to aches, it's all good experience for future fiction I suppose.