Stratford International Festival of Literature, Mercure Shakespeare Hotel, Stratford, April 18-21
Literature fans were welcomed to the first Stratford Festival in the atmospheric setting of the Shakespeare Hotel’s ballroom.
Festival directors S
teve and Hilary Newman put on an interesting programme of authors talking about their latest work. It included Harry Potter star David Bradley reading his own ghost stories and other well known writers.
But I dropped in on a fascinating talk by an up and coming writer Greg Lewis, whose book Airman Missing was launched at the festival and tells the dramatic story of a bomber pilot shot down behind enemy lines during the Second World War.
Lewis, a Welsh journalist, seems to specialise in the experiences of war. His previous book Bullet Saved My Life focused on the stories of International Brigade volunteers who survived the Spanish Civil War.
Airman Missing is another story of survival featuring RAF pilot John Evans. His Halifax bomber was shot down over Belgium in May 1944. A Flemish family took him to the French Resistance who sheltered him.
John himself attended the book launch and paid tribute to the brave French and Belgian people who helped him. He said: “I would like this book to be for their memory. They sacrificed so much and risked their lives for the love of their country.” Peter Gawthorpe
q Airman Missing, £7.99 (paperback), Newman Books, Henley Street, Stratford.
Verdict: Good start for festival.
The full article contains 248 words and appears in Leamington Courier newspaper.
