Wigtown Book Festival Diary: How Lord Robertson's talk made the lights go out and the bonkers world of Wigtown

Undeterred by Storm Amy, I’ve been at a Sicilian themed dinner in the vast sitting room above the bookshop of well-known local bookseller Shaun Bythell - but not hosted by him - to promote an as-yet unmade film, Spaghetti Western and I’ve interviewed an award-winning Thai poet who works as an Elvis tribute performer.

I also spent some time this morning standing in a field at a somewhat eccentric photo call for author Louis D Hall, whose book, In Green, tells the story of his travels across Europe on a horse.

“The thing about Wigtown,” explains festival PR Matthew Shelley, “Is that you come up with a completely bonkers idea of having someone pose on a horse and you make a couple of phone calls and you have a horse.”

With Hall’s own horse, Sasha, unavailable for pictures as he is relaxing at the Hall family’s home in Fife after his 2,000 mile trek, the Wigtown horse obliged instead. And as an added bonus, his name was also Louie. Serendipitous.

When the lights went out

Yesterday’s somewhat depressing talk by Lord George Robertson, former Nato Secretary General, had already been moved from a marquee into the town’s parish church due to the apocalyptic weather.

Warning that the UK is “under prepared, under insured and under attack” in the face of adversaries such as Russia, Lord Robertson challenged the audience that more needed to be done at an individual level.

“We could leave it until the lights go out and the hospitals close and the data centres melt,” he said - about five minutes before the church lights all went out and we were plunged into darkness.

Perfect timing or perfect planning by Lord Robertson? We may never know.

The speaker at my next event, like Lord Robertson himself, who carried on regardless, would have been unfazed by the blackout. On a similar theme, Robert Twigger’s End of the World Survival Guide gave the audience huddled in a bunker at the back of Barclay’s Garage tips on how to survive the end of the world.

He showed off cupboards packed full of baked beans and gas masks, with the background music played on a large plastic Fisher Price wind up radio probably akin to the kind that Lord Robertson says we should all get in preparation for future attacks. He filtered water through a giant pair of stained white Y-fronts and challenged an audience member to suit up in less than three minutes in clothing he said would protect against a nuclear attack. He also issued tips on how to plan a chain of command in a bunker before the worst happens.

With acronyms like SHTF (shorthand for when the sh*t hits the fan) and FEC (fight, evade, cower), he explains how we can plan for “black swan events” (unique, unlikely apocalyptic scenarios) as well as “grey rhino events” (more likely).

Was it basically the world’s maddest Fringe show or was it real? I’m not sure even Twiggers himself knows.