A few weeks ago I received an email. Would you like to come to visit Cliveden House, meet the butler of 25 years who will tell you all about its history, have a tour and then tea courtesy of the Cliveden Literary Festival? It took me all of five seconds to hit the Yes Please button and so this week found me sipping tea and chatting with fellow Booktubers and bloggers and discussing all things Cliveden and literary.
We were given a copy of The Mistresses of Cliveden by Natalie Livingstone which I read last year. It is a truly fascinating story and just the kind of history I like - social rather than political - though the last chatelaine of Cliveden, Nancy Astor, was involved in both. She held salons of the great and good, not just literary though I gather George Bernard Shaw was a visitor, but also the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Churchill and even Ghandi came to tea (hope he wore something warm). The very first Cliveden LIterary Festival will, and I quote: "evoke the spirit of the great writers and potentates who stayed here and continue the tradition of the house as a sanctuary for lovers of literature".
The festival has a pretty stellar line up. Naturally. The name alone would attract anybody and I am pretty sure that acceptances were pretty quick in coming. If you want information then please do log onto their website http://clivedenliteraryfestival.org/programme/ and see those speaking.
As you can see with names like Lady Antonia Fraser, Robert Service, Amanda Foreman and Daisy Goodwin, the emphasis is very much on history and politics though there is an interview with Tina Brown who is about to publish her Vanity Fair diaries and Ruth Rogers talking about Thirty Years of the River Cafe so there is something of interest for everybody. I rather fancy the chat about the Russian Revolution and then spotted that it is on the same time as Lady Antonia Fraser - so what to choose I ask myself. I need one of those time thingies that Hermione had in Harry Potter which enabled her to do two things at once.....
Cliveden has a pretty mixed history and it was rather lowering to find out that I remembered the Profumo Scandal as it was called, very well. All other attendees at the tea when this was being discussed, were probably not even born when it happened. It does linger on so it would be rather good if when Cliveden is mentioned in future the first reaction is not Oh Yes that is where the scandal started, but rather oh don't they have a rather splendid literary festival there? Let us hope that this inaugural event is the first of many and brings that result.
Oh and in case you are wondering about the title of my post, during discussion at tea when I was becoming rather animated, as is my wont, I gesticulated with my knife with which I was attempting to deal with a cream scone and splodge, a dollop of clotted cream splattered onto my ipad. Seemed a rather nice mixture I thought and a good name for my post. You will have to forgive my whimsicality.
My grateful thanks to all involved in the wonderful day which I so enjoyed and the friendliness and courtesy of the staff at Cliveden who looked after us so well, particularly at the tea - I barely emptied my cup before it was ushered away and refilled before I could blink an eye. And oh the tea - just check out the pictures.
And of course, if anybody at the festival at Cliveden would like a blogger in residence for the weekend, well you know where to find me.....
