WELL, I DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING… FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 17.55PM

Professor John Blair - Building Anglo-Saxon England

I’d kinda felt Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones would play to a good crowd (which he did); Chris Thorogood even better (frankly, you can’t go wrong with ‘weird’ in the title) but as for ‘Building Anglo-Saxon England’ with John Blair, I didn’t have a clue.
So shame on me - it was positively bursting. And Mr Blair eloquently introduced me to a kind of history I’d never really thought about: that of trying to build a picture of every day life when those who lived that life left little behind.
Why? Because homesteads back then were almost solely built of wood, meaning attempts to unravel the scale and complexity of these communities has proved more than a little tricky.
I don’t know about anybody else but I was most impressed/scared that instead of using a slim, sleek, sophisticated laser pointer to highlight his numerous illustrations, Mr Blair used instead a thick, long hefty pole (just a little less intimidating than an oar).
Proof then if it were needed, that this festival can still surprise and cheer in equal measure.