MERE LITERARY FESTIVAL 2019
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WELCOME TO THE MERE LITERARY FESTIVAL
The Mere Literary Festival is the The Link Scheme volunteers give their fundraising arm of the Mere & District time free of charge but petrol, vehicle Link Scheme (Registered Charity No. running costs, telephone charges and 1062328) which is a local voluntary administration costs have to be met. group based in Mere. Your support enables the scheme to provide this invaluable service to the local This scheme provides transport communities in the villages of Bourton, at times of need for hospital Zeals, Pertwood, Silton, Stourton with appointments, which are not covered Gasper, Kilmington, Maiden Bradley, by the local ambulance or Medicar Kingston Deverill, Monkton Deverill, services, as well as helping people with Mere, and West Knoyle. shopping and other visits to enhance an individual’s quality of life. If you need help with transport please call 01747 860096. If you would like Transport is also for appointments at to volunteer to help with this valuable local surgeries, dentists, opticians and community work, call 01747 860096 to enable people to visit sick relatives.
Thanks go to our advertisers – Compton Smith, Farnfields, Body Talk, The Spread Eagle, Clarkes Auctioneers, Hill Brush Company, HJ Chalke, Squeaky Clean, Howell Landscaping, Hayley’s Hair Design, Sprout & Flower, Mere
Osteopathy. The Mere Literary Festival also wishes to thank, Mere Lecture Hall Grant Committee, IT Ambulance, Stable Design Taunton, Charlie Allfrey, Eamon Ross, Lesley Traves.
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EVENTS | 7.10.19
Catherine Bailey in illuminating and devastating account of great personal sacrifice, of loss conversation with and, above all, of defiance. Jack Ozanne MONDAY Writers’ Workshop 7th October 2.00 pm with Keith Stuart – £9.00 per person Developing a Character The Grove Buildings Church Street MONDAY
7th October – 4.00 to 5.30pm Catherine Bailey is £10.00 per person the author of two Small Hall, Grove Buildings, bestselling works of Church Street, Mere twentieth-century
history Black The author and journalist Keith Stuart Diamonds in 2007 is hosting a Writers Workshop. He will and Secret Rooms 2012, she is also be sharing his skills and knowledge on an award winning television producer the theme of ‘developing a character’. and director. We are thrilled that Whether you’re a beginner looking to Catherine is coming to Mere this try out the basics, or a seasoned writer, year to talk about her newly released it will have something for everyone. book The Lost Boys. This is the true Keith’s heart warming debut novel, tale of two small boys who were taken A Boy Made of Blocks, was a Richard by force, from their parents, by the and Judy Book Club pick and a major Nazis. Moving from a palazzo in the bestseller. Keith is the games editor at heart of the Italian countryside to the the Guardian. He is married with horrors of Buchenwald, Catherine two sons and lives near Frome. Bailey tells an extraordinary story of Participants to bring a resistance at the heart of the Second LIMITED laptop or paper and pen. World War. The Lost Boys is an TO 20 PLACES 4 | mereliteraryfestival.com MERE LITERARY FESTIVAL 2019
Ruth Wilson in popular BBC Drama “Mrs. Wilson”, and the memoir on which the true story was conversation based - “Before and After” - has recently with Chloe Fox been published as a book. MONDAY Ruth, who has local family connections, 7th October 7.00 pm will be giving readings from the book £12.00 per person and will be talking with the journalist St. Michael’s Church, Mere Chloe Fox about the making of the drama and other aspects of her career. The award winning actress Please note some areas have limited Ruth Wilson (Luther, The viewing. Doors open at 6.15pm. Affair, Hedda Gabler, Jane Eyre) played her Tickets must be purchased in advance own grandmother in the No photography, no recording.
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EVENTS | 8.10.19
those, including ChristopherR Wren, who The Mere HistoricalM formed thee Royal Society, becoming e Society Talk John Aubrey one of its first members. He was also – A C17th Wiltshire a pioneer in the early investigation Antiquary - Gerry Cook of ancient monuments and largely TUESDAY responsible for the popularisation of 8th October – 10.15 for 10.30pm Avebury when he escorted Charles II LITERARThe Grove Buildings, Y on his famous visit. Despite poverty in Church Street, Mere old age and a cat and mouse evasion of his creditors, he wrote extensively. At this meeting of the Mere Historical In particular, he was the first biographer Society, Gerry Cook will talk about John to include some of the details and Aubrey, one of the great characters scandals of his subjects’ lives which of the mid 17thC. Related to the would otherwise have been lost. At the FLytes of Lytes Cary and descendedSt end, a controversialiV figure who wasal both from one of thee judges at the trial of a light illuminating his period and an Mary Queen of Scots, he lived in this unreliable scandal monger. part of Wiltshire most of his life. He witnessed the Civil War, Cromwell’s Retiring Donations. Commonwealth and the restoration of a constitutional monarchy that followed. A lover of debate and a great networker, he knew many of the leading thinkers of this most interesting period. He collaborated with the rector of Kilmington in carrying out early, and possibly successful, attempts at blood transfusion and was later involved with Community Lunch
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R TUESDAY M A Life in Ambridge – e e8th October – 12 for 12.30pm with Julie Beckett £11.95 per person Community Lunch, The George Inn TUESDAY 8th October – 3.00 to 4.30 pm Join others for this annual informal £10.00 per person lunch. This year’s speaker is retired The Grove Buildings, LITERARY Church Street, Mere army officer, Philip Schofield, who will be sharing his experiences of Berlin in 1989 with his talk ‘The Night The Archers is the the Wall Came Down’. world’s longest running radio drama,
Call The George Inn direct on: starting in 1951 01747 860427 to book your place. and broadcasting continuously until the present day - Fe StiVal nearly 19,000 episodes to date. Julie Beckett was a Senior Producer with the programme for over twenty years, and has plenty of stories to share – for those who are familiar with Lakey Hill and the Bull, and for those who simply have an interest in the programme. THE ARCHERS Julie story lined, script edited and A LIFE IN AMRIDGE directed The Archers, and will be talking about the whole process, THE MERE then taking questions about life in Ambridge. HISTORICAL SOCIETY
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EVENTS | 8.10.19
Harriet Sandys – Beyond acute bacterial meningitis in a Kabul That Last Blue Mountain hospital. At the end of the first Gulf War she travelled with the Peshmerga TUESDAY in the newly-liberated Iraqi Kurdistan. 8th October – 7.00pm Then in 1994 she joined a group of £7.00 per person unemployed builders and decorators The Grove Buildings, driving convoys of food and aid from Church Street, Mere Croydon to the Muslim enclaves in Bosnia Herzegovina. Local author Harriet This is a tale about a young woman Sandys will speak from a sheltered and privileged about her extraordinary background travelling and working story. Just after the alone, in and around war zones, Soviet invasion of frequently with no financial or practical Afghanistan, Harriet support, at a time of increasing Islamic set off for Peshawar in Pakistan’s fundamentalism. north-west frontier to see for herself the plight of thousands of displaced Afghan refugees. Seeing their dire situation, Harriet set up a small silk weaving project “An extraordinary for illiterate Turkmen refugees, and journey by an was sent by UNESCO to Mazar-i-sharif extraordinary woman, to work with Afghanistan’s beautifully told last remaining silk ikat weavers. and bravely lived. During those years she was arrested Storytelling at its best”. by the KHAD, narrowly missed being blown up by a car bomb and survived Lyse Doucet, BBC Correspondent
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MERE LITERARY FESTIVAL 2019
EVENTS | 9.10.19
Paul Hooley – The during this time was when Frank single-handedly tracked down and Undercover Nazi Agent arrested the SS General ranked ‘fourth’ WEDNESDAY on the Allies ‘most wanted’ list – and 9th October – 2.00pm personally taking and transcribing the £7.00 per person Nazi’s general’s confession. St Michaels Church, Church St, Mere Victoria Hutchings – Following his hugely Messrs Hoare Bankers, popular talk last year, A History of the Paul Hooley returns Banking Dynasty to the Festival to tell us more about the WEDNESDAY life and work of 9th October – 4.00pm Wolfe Frank who spent his final years £7.00 per person living in Mere where he completed The Grove Buildings, Church St, Mere his memoirs, about his extraordinary life and times. Local writer Victoria After the war ended Frank Hutchings will be in became increasingly alarmed at conversation with the misinformation coming out of Audrey Hoare, who Germany so in 1949, backed by the grew up at Stourhead New York Herald Tribune, he risked and whose ancestors his life again by returning to the founded Hoare’s Bank and built country of his birth to make an Stourhead House. Hoare’s Bank is ‘undercover’ survey of the main the oldest private bank in the world facets of postwar German life still in family ownership and in 2022 and viewpoints. will celebrate its 350th anniversary. The most extraordinary undertaking Starting life as a goldsmith’s
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business in Cheapside in the City of Secateurs and garden centres, hybrid London it moved to premises in Fleet plants and herbaceous borders, Street in 1690. The business, now run lawnmowers and greenhouses - these by the 12th generation of the Hoare are things that we take for granted family, has continued to operate on now, but which were once radical new the same site ever since. ideas. Abigail Willis’s latest book “The In the early 18th century Henry Remarkable Case of Dr Ward and Other Hoare bought the Stourton estate Amazing Gardening Innovations” looks in Wiltshire and, following the fashion at the way we garden today through of the time, built a fine Palladian the prism of 50 innovations. Abigail mansion which his son, Henry the will talk about some of these inventions Magnificent, filled with treasures and and ideas, as well as how she came also created what some consider to to write the book. be the finest of all landscape gardens Abigail is an arts and gardening writer in England. In her book Victoria shows who lives and gardens in Somerset that the grottoes and pineapples were whose previous book “The London also the Bank’s capital and advertised, Garden Book A-Z”, has twice been in the days before credit ratings shortlisted for the Garden Media Guild’s and public accounts, that the Bank’s Inspirational Book of the Year award. partners were men of substance. “A rollicking potted history of horticulture from the Roman Empire Mere Gardening Club, to the inspired innovators of the 19th A Talk by Abigale Willis century” Amateur Gardening. - Community Event Retiring Donations WEDNESDAY 9th October – 7.30pm Retiring Donations The Grove Buildings, Church St, Mere
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12 | mereliteraryfestival.com Hayley’s Hair Design Salisbury Street, Mere. 01747 863471
Proud to be supporting Mere Literary Festival in 2019.
Feel free to call in to see one of our stylists for a welcoming and relaxing atmosphere. We offer a wide range of services from foil highlights, balayage techniques to perming. Catering for all age groups and needs. Professional brands used throughout the salon including Matrix color sync, so color beauty, color cult, Biolage RAW organic range and Moroccanoil. We look forward to welcoming you.
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EVENTS | 10.10.19
Book Club Event Christopher Hart is a journalist and contributes regularly to The Times, Lost Children by The Spectator and The Sunday Times. Christopher Hart with Jo Hall Clare Empson
THURSDAY in conversation 10th October – 2.30pm with Chloe Fox
£7.00 per person THURSDAY The Grove Buildings, Church St, Mere 10th October – 7.00pm - 8.00pm £7.00 per person This year we’ll be The Grove Buildings, Church St, Mere hosting a ‘Book Club’ event. This will give Mere resident author you a chance to discuss Clare Empson will be and debate with others, in conversation with the ethical questions Chloe Fox discussing that arise from the book - Lost her novel ‘Mine’. Clare Children. The novel has been reviewed is a journalist and has as – a thrilling, haunting and deeply covered everything from collapsing moving ‘tour-de-force’, Lost Chidren merchant banks to taking tea with the is an unforgettable story of privilege late Barbara Cartland. She currently and poverty, First World and Third, works as a freelance journalist for ideals and realities – and the longing The Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, of the lost child for a family. We hope the Daily Mail, and the Sunday you will read this book prior to the Express. Her second novel Mine is an event, either as an individual or as exploration of the fraught relationship part of a Book Club group. This between a birth mother and her discussion is definitely open to all. adopted son set against a backdrop
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of a passionate love affair in the 70s. Film Night. All Is True ‘Mine’ will be available in August 2019. Captivating, tense and heartbreaking. THURSDAY Rosie Walsh author of ‘The Man Who 10th October – 7.30pm Didn’t Call’ ‘Gripping…so emotionally £6.00 per person true’ Sophie Kinsella author of the The Lecture Hall, Mere Shopaholic series ‘Dark, addictive, heartbreaking’, Ruth Hogan author of Starring Judi Dench, Kenneth Branagh ‘The Keeper of Lost Things’ Addictive, and Ian McKellen, this is a quiet and elegant…Brideshead recalibrated by meditative portrait of Shakespeare way of Big Little Lies, Lex Coulton as a retiree, this lacks incident or high stakes but has an elegiac feeling of regret and reckoning that fits its subjects’ twilight years. Call 01747 861567 to reserve tickets or buy direct from Mere Library.
mereliteraryfestival.com | 15 WEEK AT A GLANCE
Monday 07.10.19 TIME EVENT VENUE PRICE
2.00pm Catherine Bailey-Lost Boys The Grove Building £9.00pp
4.00pm Writers’ Workshop The Grove Building £10.00pp with Keith Stuart
7.00pm Ruth Wilson-Before & After St Michaels Church £12.00pp
Tuesday 08.10.19
10.15am Mere Historical Society The Grove Building Retiring donations
12.00pm Community Lunch The George Inn £11.95pp
3.00pm Julie Beckett-A life The Grove Building £10.00pp in Ambridge
7.00pm Harriet Sandys-Beyond The Grove Building £7.00pp That Last Blue Mountain
Wednesday 09.10.19
2.00pm Paul Hooley- The Grove Building £7.00pp The Undercover Nazi Agent
4.00pm Victoria Hutchings-Messrs The Grove Building £7.00pp Hoare Bankers
7.30pm Mere Garden Club The Grove Building Retiring donations
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2.30pm Christopher Hart- The Grove Building £7.00pp Lost Children
7.00pm Clare Empson-Mine The Grove Building £7.00pp
7.30pm Film Night All Is True The Lecture Hall £6.00pp
Friday 11.10.19
10.00am Nick Perry-The Great Pretender The Lecture Hall £5.00pp
12.00pm Josie Goodbody-The Monte The Lecture Hall £7.00pp Carlo Collection
2.00pm Adrian Dangar-Life on The Lecture Hall £7.00pp The Edge
7.30pm The Moscow Drug Club Bourton Village Hall £20.00pp
Saturday 12.10.19
7.30pm Poetry in The Grove The Grove Building Free
Sunday 13.10.19
2.30pm Poetry Competition The Lecture Hall Free Prize Giving
mereliteraryfestival.com | 17 Andrew Walworth Portrait Commissions
I have been accepting Commissions of Fine Art Portraits in oils for many years and In 2013 I won the Williamsburg Art Painting Prize for a portrait of a labrador.
07855650964 | 01747 861 824 [email protected] www.andrewwalworth.co.uk instagram: adogportrait
EVENTS | 11.10.19
Nick Perry – scene (including a commission to fake a bronze sculpture with disastrous The Great Pretender consequences!), this is a hilarious and FRIDAY warm-hearted story of an astonishing 11th October – 10.00am and totally original approach to the £5.00 per person world of art. The Lecture Hall, Salisbury St, Mere Josie Goodbody Nick Perry has FRIDAY settled down to live 11th October – 12.00noon in Wiltshire, however £7.00 per person prior to this he led The Lecture Hall, Salisbury St, Mere a brilliantly varied life from running Local author Josie a hill farm in North Wales (as detailed Goodbody couldn’t be in his first book Peaks and Troughs) more passionate about and then moving his family to the jewellery. A life spent tiny Greek island of Ikaria (the subject with diamonds, and of his second, Escape to Ikaria). other precious gems His third book, The Great Pretender, her eagerness to share this knowledge was published in May 2019, and tells with the world, have paved the way for the unique tale of the period of his life a series of enthralling jewellery mystery devoted to creating some of the most novels, with her detective Jemima Fox. convincing replica antiques ever made. She will be talking about her latest book Beginning with netsukes on a market ‘The Monte Carlo Connection’ which stall at the Birmingham Rag Market, came out in June. In this novel, Jemima cutting deals with East End wide boys Fox, the diamond super sleuth, takes and accelerating upwards to reach us on a terrific crime caper, dashing in the rarefied circles of the London art Gina heels from the glitz of London’s
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Bond Street to the razzle-dazzle of by an epic motorbike ride from Cairo Monaco where a spate of jewellery to Cape Town, which led on to an heists are all too reminiscent of the extraordinary life spent surrounded work of the 1950’s Snow Leopard. by wildlife in Kenya. Life on the Edge Described as a sparkling, sexy tale is a story of compassion, conservation of high society and high jewellery, and, ultimately, tragedy. In the last as delightful and tempting as a glass two decades of his life, Voorspuy of champagne in the Riviera sun!” transformed an overgrazed and drought-blighted Sosian ranch in Adrian Dangar – Northern Kenya into a celebrated game Life on the Edge reserve, acclaimed tourist destination and successful cattle ranch. True to FRIDAY form, it was whilst defending this 11th October – 2.30pm - 4.00pm property that an unarmed Tristan was £7.00 per person gunned down and killed, a murder that The Lecture Hall, Salisbury St, Mere sent shockwaves around the world. In 2002 Adrian founded the bespoke Adrian Dangar will travel company, Wild & Exotic, be speaking about with Tristan Voorspuy’s help and his second book encouragement. Since then he has ‘Life on the Edge’, travelled extensively throughout Africa, the biography of North and South America, India and his great friend central Asia, frequently escorting clients Tristan Voorspuy. Once described by from the back of a horse. He enjoys the the actress, Joanna Lumley, as ‘the countryside and all fieldsports, and is man with no fear’, Tristan Voorspuy a regular contributor to Country Life, spent his whole life living up to that The Field Magazine, Trout & Salmon epithet. His early adult years in and Horse & Hound. Adrian lives in Northern Ireland and Germany with rural North Yorkshire . the Blues and Royals were followed
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EVENTS | 11.10.19
The Moscow France or Berlin Cabaret and brings an intoxicating blend of Gypsy Jazz Drug Club and Nuevo Tango. Combining their FRIDAY original material with songs by 11th October – 7.30 - 9.30pm the likes of Jaques Brel, Leornard £20.00 per person Cohen, Tom Waits and Bertolt Bourton Village Hall, 1 The Bushes, Brecht, Moscow Drug Club provide Bourton, SP8 5BJ an intoxicating and intimate musical experience.So bring friends, The Moscow Drug a picnic and wine for what is sure Club transports to be a memorable evening. Tables you back to a of 6 or 8 are available. 1930s hot Club de Doors open at 6.30 pm
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Timings Parking Parking is Talks usually last an hour and doors in Mere free in the will open 20 minutes before an event. centre of There are two free Mere. We endeavour to start all events on car parks (see maps time. Programmes and performers below), use the Castle maybe subject to change. We reserve Street car park for events in the right to substitute a speaker if The Grove Buildings and St Michael’s circumstances dictate. All information Church. For events in The Lecture Hall in this programme is correct at use the Salisbury Street car park. the time of going to press. Children under 16 must be accompanied by a responsible adult (over 18 years of age). We cannot accept responsibility Visit us @: for unaccompanied children, and adults mereliteraryfestival.com are expected to purchase a ticket. for updates and information.
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EVENTS | 12.10.19
Poetry in The Grove also, for the first time, those selected for the final round of judging in the SATURDAY Local Section. The senior and local 12th October – 7.30pm judge give their adjudications and Free Admission Programme £1 results on Sunday, but you can choose The Grove Buildings, Mere your winner this evening. Poems will be read by the author or a reader, and Poetry in performance – Reading of prizes awarded by audience the 2019 Open & Local Competition vote in a secret ballot. Mere’s own Shortlists This event showcases the poet, the late Peter Gillott, will be poems short-listed in the Open Section commemorated in the local prize. of the 2019 Poetry Competition and
EVENTS | 13.10.19
Festival award ceremony RESIDENTIAL of MERE The judges give their adjudications and announce and book fair the winners of the 2019 Open Poetry SUNDAY Competition and the Local Section. 13th October – 3.00pm Winners of the school competitions will Free Admission also receive their awards. ROSIE JACKSON The Lecture Hall, Mere is a widely published writer and prize- winning poet. Her successes include ADJUDICATION OF THE FESTIVAL’S the Bath Short Poem, Battered Moon, POETRY COMPETITION Berkshire Arts Festival and the Cookham Organised for MDLS by PennyBank Festival Stanley Spencer competitions. Writers (Mere & District Writers’ Group) Her collection, The Light Box, was and kindly supported by AMULET published by Culture Llama. ‘Vivid, rich
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EVENTS | 13.10.19
and fresh…a confident poet writing at the College, Cambridge in 1986 where she height of her powers.’ London Grip She carried out research into medieval books has taught at the University of East Anglia and was published. She has lived in and was a Hawthornden Fellow in 2017. Mere since retiring and is the curator of A member of the Poetry Society, she also the award-winning Mere Museum and runs the Frome Stanza Group. JENNY archivist to the Mere Historical Society WILDING (Local Section) began her career and Mere Drama Society. Book stalls in teaching before a world tour changed from 2.30p.m. Refreshments will be her perspective and she took a university available. degree in Canada. She moved to the USA and gained her Doctorate in 1982. She took up a Fellowship at Lucy Cavendish Retiring Collection
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BECOME A FESTIVAL FRIEND
The Friends of the Festival will l Advance notification of the festival programme. provide much needed support l Advance priority booking of to the organisers which will tickets, up to one week ahead help to attract writers and and a maximum of 2 tickets promote the festival. per person. Unlimited events. l Priority seating where applicable. l Invitation to attend the annual Friend’s Party. l The opportunity to become involved with the Mere Literary
The annual cost is £12.00 per adult Festival. or £20.00 per couple living at the same address.
Fill in the form opposite. Cut out and send the completed form to:
MereAdvantages Literary Festival, to being a Festival c/o Castleton House, Friend, are as follows: Castle Street, Mere, Wiltshire, BA12 6JE.
Any queries email: [email protected]
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Friends Membership Application Form 2019 !
FIRST NAME
SURNAME
FIRST NAME
SURNAME
HOME ADDRESS
CODE TEL NO.
l I enclose a cheque, payable to ‘Mere Literary Festival’ Single membership n Joint membership n (please tick appropriate box) l I would like to pay: Standing order n payable annually on 1 March l I have made a bank transfer with this reference: ……………………….. (please indicate)
MLF Bank details: Name: Lloyds Bank Sort code: 309345 A/C No: 00282562
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Single Membership £12 | Joint Membership £20 Please cut out and send the completed form to: Mere Literary Festival, c/o Castleton House, Castle Street, Mere, Wiltshire, BA12 6JE. Any queries email: [email protected]
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Map of venues
Accessibility The Grove Building has wheelchair access via the door in Barton Lane (opposite the Library). There are toilets in the Building. St Michael’s Church has wheelchair access via the West Door (beneath The Tower), toilet facilities are in The Grove Buildings. Mere Lecture Hall has wheelchair access via the door to the right of the main door. Toilet facilities are available.
Visit us@: mereliteraryfestival.com for updates and information.