Having it all

If you think all-eventing is just for horses, think again! The select but growing band of all-eventers at the annual festival at Charleston seek neither rosettes nor trophies, but pleasure, companionship and philosophy. Our rewards are many - although attending every single event at the festival may sometimes require the chutzpah of show-jumping, the discipline of dressage and the stamina of cross-country.

Charleston, near Lewes in East Sussex, was from 1916 the country home of the Bloomsbury group of artists, writers and thinkers. Regular visitors included Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes and E M Forster. My friends and I have been attending its amazing annual festival for a long time as Friends of Charleston, and for the past few years as all-eventers. The many joys of occasional events are not only multiplied but also synergized by coming to all of them. Every year artistic director Diana Reich tunes into the zeitgeist to put together an astonishing programme of which the whole is always much more than the sum of its many excellent parts. Its stellar speakers are bang on or ahead of the curve on the arts and current affairs across the globe. Creativity swirls around a few key themes which, while never too rigid, create a structure of feeling and thinking that enables much cross-fertilisation over the nine days. Last year’s highlights for me included Tom Keneally on nurses in World War I, Stephanie Flanders’ tour de force on economics, and Alex Jennings’ flawless readings from Auden to commemorate Benjamin Britten, whose music reverberated through the Sussex dusk – I’m sure the sheep enjoyed it.

Sometimes, though, it's  the festival sessions you fancy least that turn out the most exciting and take you down a new path. Surprising connections and echoes enrich most sessions, especially when speakers make explicit connections with Bloomsbury history and values. These run like a golden thread through the colourful Festival tapestry, not only in the presentations but also in the aesthetic appeal of the house, gardens, marquees and South Downs – not forgetting tea, cake and Harvey’s beer. Even the weather joins in. One year the garden will be in bud, the next in full bloom. You can begin the festival in a heat wave, lolling in the long grass under an apple tree with a glass of fizz, and end it wearing your wellies in a creaking tent that seems determined to shake free and fly over Firle Beacon, all-eventers clinging tightly to the guy ropes.

The camaraderie is another big draw. Many all-eventers come every year and become friends, greeting each other happily from our reserved seats. There’s always a talking point with your neighbour. Speakers and staff seem like friends too. Feeling part of the scenery, as well as the intimate scale of the festival, makes it easier to sidle up to an author and start a conversation. In fact we all-eventers provide a kind of social glue that probably helps with the huge challenges of feeding, watering, directing and pleasing the crowds.

There are practical advantages. Booking for the whole programme is better value, with those front-row seats, discounted tickets, reserved parking and a drinks reception. Above all, though, it’s an experience to be treasured on many different levels. It gives us soul and brain food for the whole year – not just in the pile of alluring books we buy, whose authors we heard and whose signatures adorn the flyleaf, but in memories, connections, knowledge and inspiration. Surely this is the Bloomsbury spirit at its best.

This is a revised version of my article in Canvas, Issue 39, Spring 2014, pp14-15

https://www.charleston.org.uk/event/charleston-festival-2018/