Midsummer Bath is gold in early sun and rain, as we climb aboard the minibus for the drive to Oxford. Edward Thomas insists that I say through Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, but it is, of course, the other way round on this road, with flowers, flowers all the way – dog roses, campion, buttercups, mallow, cowparsley and Jack-by-the-Hedge, blood-splashes of poppies.
Two down, 14 to go. This will, indeed, be the longest day. We relish each other’s company in anxious political times, but all took heart from Wales’s 3-0 win in France. Minibus games yesterday grew loud and raucous. Today we compared poetry and prose, the fine line with the elegant sentence, talked of how a line of prose can have a “tune”. I supplied “a short while ago in New York”, from Radio 4’s financial news. “A dance to the music of time”, “A Portrait of Dorian Grey”, “The Ballad of Bobby MacGee”, my fellow poets add, after minutes of silent thought.
Our journey is caught on video by Leena, who films flying hedges as we play Truth and Lies, talk, laugh and gossip. There is no time to stop for lunch. Leena records mini-interviews before we alight in Oxford for a noon gig in the bright, airy church of St Aldates, where Blackwell’s staff are setting out the books. Bernard O’Donoghue arrives, our guest poet, a long-time favourite. Buzz of another generous crowd, and we are good to go again with a trumpet “Hello!” from John Sampson, and a smiling audience. Again laughter, silent listening, a tear or two, applause. People are ready for poetry in these times. (I think I might have gone mad at home alone this week.)
We have two hours to check into the hotel: a grand old pile, a vast country house down a two-mile drive through its own woods. Despite its grandeur, and its Holiday Inn decor, the Austenesque house bears its history like a shadow.
An hour, a sandwich, and off in a taxi to St Mary’s Church in Chipping Norton, to find John setting out his instruments and sorting out the sound, the family of the Jaffe and Neale bookshop: Patrick, Polly, Joseph and Felix, preparing the bookstall, and another audience gathering. Here we share the stage with Jane Griffiths, poet and medievalist at Oxford University. Jane turns in a great reading. I think the rest of us are sharpening up. As for the audience, even at the heart of academia, and the reputedly posh Cotswolds, when divided by John into four teams, they show fierce competitive spirit, out-shouting the rest to support their star in the Elvis v Shakespeare v Picasso v Virginia Woolf game. Don’t ask! Just believe!
