County's literary history celebrated at festival

Broadcaster Mark Cummings, author of Glorious Gloucestershire, says the county is "awash" with literary history

Cheltenham Literature Festival's 75th chapter is being written as authors, politicians and chefs gather in the spa town for this year's event.

While famous faces and gripping titles draw crowds from across the country, the festival could not have a more fitting host town.

Gloucestershire's rich literary history sprawls from charming church doors in the Cotswolds, to what is now a McDonalds in Gloucester city centre, author Mark Cummings says.

John Moore, a co-founder of the festival, would be "immensely proud" of how the festival has grown, said Kirstie Bingham, heritage manager at the Tewkesbury museum dedicated to him.

The festival will be celebrating its 75th anniversary from 4 to 13 October.

Author, journalist and broadcaster Mr Moore was one of the festival's first directors, holding the post from its inception in 1949 until 1961, returning in 1963.

Mr Moore's "immense connections" in the literary world helped make the festival "such a big deal", Ms Bingham said.

"In a brochure in the early 1950s, he admitted in the introductions he didn't think this was going work when it first came about as an idea," she said.

"He didn't believe he would even fill half the town hall, let alone run for a whole week."

Kirstie Bingham said Mr Moore was "very charismatic and outgoing", which helped with the festival's success

Mark Cummings said the very first festival brought together the likes of poet Cecil Day Lewis and actor Ralph Richardson, in a county "awash" with literary connections.

"Just two miles from here in Charlton Kings, Lewis Carroll spent his summers with a family, and the daughter was called Alice," he said.

"At the top of the stairs is a looking glass that inspired Through the Looking-Glass [and What Alice Found There]."

Mr Cummings added Gloucester poet WE Henley is said to have inspired friend J.M. Barrie's character Long John Silver, after he had his leg amputated after contracting tuberculosis.

"Henley's daughter Margaret used to refer to J.M. Barrie as her “friendy”, and J.M. Barry picked up the name Wendy," he explained.

"So Wendy from Peter Pan, all from the gate streets of Gloucester."

'Wonderful Gloucester'

But Gloucester's fascinating literary history does not end there, as the McDonald's on Westgate Street was once home to the real-life Ebenezer Scrooge.

"The banker who used to live there many, many centuries ago, was a guy called Jemmy Wood," said Mr Cummings.

"Dickens loved Gloucester, he said it was a wonderful and misunderstood town.

"He based Scrooge on Jemmy Wood, who was a miser and a millionaire for the times, but he used to nip down to the docks at Gloucester and nick the coal from the barges.

"He was hated."

JK Rowling lived at Church Cottage, in Tutshill, close to the banks of the River Severn, when she was a teenager

Elsewhere in Gloucestershire, JK Rowling's days at Wyedean School provided her with much inspiration for the Harry Potter series.

Her chemistry teacher, John Nettleship, was aware that he was the inspiration for Professor Snape.

In 2020 the author secretly bought her childhood home, Church Cottage in Tutshill, close to the banks of the River Severn.

In the Cotswolds, J.R.R. Tolkien was a regular visitor to Stow-on-the-Wold, and is said to have taken inspiration for the Doors of Durin in the Lord of the Rings from the north porch of St. Edward's Church.

"We're awash with it right across the county," Mr Cummings said.

"I've been broadcasting here for 30 years and so many people still don't know all those links and when they hear about them, it just connects you so much, especially at an event like this."