This  year’s Bridport Literary Festival – our 17^th –attracted booklovers from across the West Country and from a greater distance and is generally agreed to have been one of our best ever.

Our efforts last year were blighted by Covid 19 but we were determined to go ’live’ in 2021 to ensure that our audiences could meet and engage once more with our writers on a variety of subjects.

The Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing this year went to Cumbrian farmer James Rebanks and he brought the festival to a conclusion talking about his masterpiece ENGLISH PASTORAL: An Inheritance and one that affects us all is we are to look after our land and see it flourish.

Other writers included local writer Dr. Jim Down whose book LIFE SUPPORT is a poignant memoir of an ICU doctor on the frontline of Covid 19 and ITV’s GP Dr. Hilary Jones who spoke on Remembrance Day about his fiction saga set against the ravages of WWI.

Mark Hix, Dorset born chef, foodwriter and restaurateur spoke of his rise and fall and rise again during the hazards of lockdown and Tim Marshall gave an illustrated talk on THE POWER OF GEOGRAPHY – ten maps that reveal the future of Our World

Peter Hain talked of his early life in his native South Africa  bedevilled by Apartheid and Marina Wheeler spoke of her Mother’s early life as a member of an eminent Sikh family divided by Partition.

The week prior to BridLit we welcomed Dominic Sandbrook into schools to talk about his Adventures in Time series of History books for children and young adults.  His enthusiasm and knowledge was infectious and it was a fun and informative event with some brilliant questions from the floor.

We would like to thank all our Sponsors and Advertisers and Supporters who have again made this year’s festival the success it has been – without their generosity, we would not be able to put together such a broad programme of events.  As a registered charity, we are very much dependent on their support.

Next year’s BridLit runs from Sunday 6 November  to Saturday 12 November and we hope that it will be as lively and diverse as this year’s.

We are already making plans!

Tanya Bruce-Lockhart

Festival Director