Greenwich Book Festival: from the school-gates to the Old Royal Naval College

A new literary festival is coming to the Old Royal Naval College. It all started at the school gate, says co-director Patricia Nicol
Chapter and verse: Patricia Nicol, left, and Auriol Bishop will welcome top writers (Picture: Matt Writtle)
Matt Writtle
Patricia Nicol15 May 2015

Just over a year ago, at a publishing dinner, a senior publicist asked me: “So, what next?” I had just come to the end of a maternity cover stint on a newspaper’s books pages. Emboldened by wine, I told her of my dream to set up a book festival at Greenwich’s Old Royal Naval College (ORNC).

She didn’t scoff. Instead, she said: “You should talk to Auriol. She loves organising things.” At the school gate the next day, I approached Auriol Bishop, creative director of Hodder, then a passing acquaintance, now a woman I know to have a spreadsheet for every eventuality. Twelve months on, no one is more surprised than we are that a week today, the inaugural Greenwich Book Festival, hosted by the University of Greenwich at the ORNC, and part of the Royal Greenwich Festivals, will kick off. Over three days it will welcome 100 writers, including The Miniaturist author Jessie Burton, a double bill of Tracey Thorn and Viv Albertine, Wellcome book prize-winner Marion Coutts, Jon Ronson and Patrick Gale, to a weekend of author talks, debates, workshops and shows.

Making an appearance: actress-turned-writer Jessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist (Picture: Alexander James/Waterstones/PA Wire)
Alexander James/Waterstones/PA Wire

Many is the time in the past 12 months I have thought of Gill Hornby’s hit novel The Hive, set amid a network of mothers at a school gate. I know of west London state schools — St Mary Abbots on Kensington Church Street or Brook Green’s Larmenier & Sacred Heart, perhaps — where, at the morning drop-off, you can probably broker government policy, then decide who to put up for interview about it on the Today programme. Our school isn’t remotely like that — it’s in Charlton, for goodness sake. Yet among our parents we have Eleanor O’Sullivan, from the Royal Maritime Museums’ events department, Janet Denne, commercial manager at the ORNC, and Julia Marsen-Dyer, owner of local toy shop Ottie and the Bea. Though this festival will take place in and around a Unesco world heritage site, it still feels like a momentous grassroots community effort.

Wondering how one went about approaching the council for support, I remembered I’d once passed on some Mega Bloks to the children of a councillor living nearby. I Facebooked her. She directed me to the right channels. Next Saturday morning, Alexandra Heminsley, best-selling author of Running Like a Girl, will precede her festival event with a jog through Greenwich Park. Greenwich Runners is led by Ellie Brown, whose buggy-running classes I once enjoyed. My inbox is full of offers from local mothers to go leafleting.

Auriol met our co-programmer Alex Pheby, who leads the creative writing course at Greenwich University. She told him of our ambitions for a festival. He told her the university had been planning one, too. Early this year, he and his head of department, Zoë Pettit, gave us the go-ahead to book writers. The first I approached was south Londoner Jessie Burton. She said yes immediately. In fact, nobody really said no unless they were away.

Big name: Wellcome book prize-winner Marion Coutts will be at the festival (Picture: Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures)
Daniel Hambury

We wanted a festival that programmed ambitiously but felt welcoming and accessibly priced. Ours is both a book festival and an “open house” weekend, giving the public the chance to go behind the elegant façade of a listed building and see how it functions as a university. It is exciting to walk through common rooms, still called things like “Victory”, and to think that next Saturday there will be children in there making bubble-writing bunting. And it doesn’t matter if it rains: we could only afford the tech hardware for one marquee, so most venues are indoors. Which is lucky, as the ORNC lawns could cost hundreds to returf.

In the past weeks we’ve done things we never expected, little of it glamorous. Auriol is dreaming in spreadsheets — worse, the rest of us are dreaming in Auriol’s spreadsheets. Alex has had to labour over health and safety checklists. Now we’re at that terrifying “if you build it, will they come?” stage. Please do, but for goodness sake don’t wear high heels on the grass. I don’t think Alex could take the stress.

Greenwich Book Festival, Old Royal Naval College, SE10, May 22-24, greenwichbookfest.com, @GreenwichBFest

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