ABOUT twice a year I bump into Pete Irvine, the events organiser and author of Scotland The Best, and inevitably the subject of Wigtown and the Stena Line Wigtown Book Festival comes up. This normally involves him rolling his eyes. "Who on earth ever thought of putting not just a book festival but Scotland's national Book Town down in Galloway?" is the gist of his complaint.
The last time this ritual exchange happened, I felt honour bound, as the festival's programmer, to try to set him right: "But we've got Janice Galloway, James Kelman, Bill Paterson, Douglas Dunn – and that's just a small part of the first Saturday. T
he countryside's lovely, and what's not to like about a town with more than a dozen bookshops?" To no avail. Irvine looked like a cosmopolitan Muscovite faced with the prospect of exile to some literary Siberian gulag.
Pete, I should add, hasn't been to the book festival. And he is by birth a Borderer, which means that his distrust of all things Gallovidian may be instinctive. But he does have half a point. The truth is that Wigtown, which celebrates its 10th anniversary as Scotland's national Book Town this year and its 10th annual festival, was always an unlikely candidate to become a literary Mecca.
For a start, it has little literary heritage. True, John Buchan set part of The 39 Steps here and Sir Herbert Maxwell and his grandson Gavin lived not far away. Edgar Alan Poe, strange to relate, stayed a while down the road in Newton Stewart. But the nearest the town has to a homegrown literary hero is John McNeillie, author of The Wigtown Ploughman. Published in 1929, that book remains a classic of gritty rural realism. So gritty that until recently, McNeillie's warts and all vision made him quite unpopular with many locals.
Nor does there seem to have been a great tradition of reading. The poet Alastair Reid, born in nearby Whithorn, denies ever having seen a book, apart from the Bible, in anyone's house as he grew up. Nearby Kirkcudbright attracted artists with the quality of its light to become the St Ives of Scotland. But, though equally beautiful – shadowed by the Galloway hills and fringed by rolling pasture land and rocky coast – the Machars peninsula on which Wigtown sits was less yielding to artsy outsiders. It encouraged doers, not dreamers.
All of which makes the success of the Book Town and the festival something of a miracle, as well as a huge credit to those who nursed both institutions through their early years. I first chanced on the festival six years ago, while staying in a holiday cottage nearby. There was no big marquee in those days and it poured (almost the only year the weather gods haven't obliged, touch wood). That didn't stop me being entranced at finding this oasis of culture quite literally on the road to nowhere – a special joy only serendipity provides.
So Wigtown became an annual thing. I was hooked, as much by the local colour as the talks themselves: late nights in the fuggy warmth of Bladnoch distillery, morning walks across the salt marshes.
I recall my surprise on first meeting the festival director, Finn McCreath, and finding that he combined his post with being an organic dairy farmer. One minute he'd be talking the talk with Magnus Magnusson or George Galloway, the next rushing off to rescue a heifer that had fallen in a burn. That doesn't happen at Cheltenham. Then there was the night I was invited to one of the booksellers' houses where a local farmer attempted to sell me a Belted Galloway cow. Protestations that the animal might not thrive in the garden of a Leith tenement went unheard.
A couple of years later I moved to Wigtown, and in 2007 the chance arose to programme the festival, working with Finn. I feel lucky that I was able to experience the festival as a punter before getting involved professionally. There is no better way to understand what makes Wigtown special. And in a country where every other town now has a literary bash, nurturing that sense of uniqueness is vital.
The figures tell their own story. When the Edinburgh International Book Festival started 25 years ago, there were just three others in the UK. Today that figure is closer to 300. Is that sustainable? I suspect not. There are only so many authors to go round. Unless somebody finds a way of cloning Sebastian Faulks (apparently a crack team of scientists at the Roslin Institute is working on it) something must change, because frankly we're in danger of entering an era when nobody will have time to write books any more. They'll be too busy traipsing the festival circuit.
It may be too gloomy to predict that the book festival bubble will burst. But it seems more than likely that (as property analysts say) there'll be a serious "readjustment". If so, it's not the youngest or smallest events that will die but those that don't understand what makes them distinctive.
That isn't a problem for Wigtown as the festival enters its second decade. It thrives because of, not in spite of, its edge-of-the-map location. Since most speakers spend at least one night and often two or more in town, Wigtown has a sense of festivity that's increasingly absent at many of the larger book events. Writers have time to talk, to drink, to spark unusual friendships, while the town's size – population 980 – makes visiting an intimate experience for festival-goers, too. There is something pleasingly surreal about encountering Jeremy Bowen in the local pub or AC Grayling trying to find the Co-op.
But perhaps the Wigtown Festival's most distinctive feature is a consequence of its origins. Both Book Town and festival began as a part of regeneration project, after the closure of the local creamery devastated the local economy. In a corner of rural Scotland routinely neglected by central Government, it matters desperately that these institutions succeed. This gives the festival a sense of common purpose few other events have. Although it seems odd to write this as a bibliophile, it's about more than "just" the books.
Whether any of the above will be enough to convince Pete Irvine, I don't know. But it would be nice if he shed his Wigtown-phobia and came down this year. Contrary to the rumours, you don't have to show your passport at the Galloway border. And I promise not to try to sell him a cow.v
• Adrian Turpin is programme director of the Stena Line Wigtown Book Festival which runs from September 26 to October 5, 01988 403222
www.wigtownbookfestival.comHIGHLIGHTS OF A BUMPER YEARALISTAIR REIDThe Wigtownshire native and one of Scotland's finest poets delivers the Magnus Magnusson lecture on how we use language and how language uses us.
September 28, 10.30am
MENZIES CAMPBELLThe former leader of the Lib Dems talks to Magnus Linklater about his life, from growing up in Glasgow to becoming a record-breaking athlete and eventually a leading figure in British politics.
September 28, 12pm
BILL PATERSONThe actor discusses his book, Tales From The Back Green, a nostalgic look at his 1950s post-war childhood in Glasgow's East End.
September 28, 6pm
HRH THE PRINCESS ROYALIn honour of the festival's 10th anniversary.
September 29, 4pm
SARA MAITLANDIs it possible to find total silence in today's chaotic world? Sarah Maitland has spent five years journeying from the desert to the remote Scottish isles in search of a bit of peace and quiet.
September 29, 10am
MICHAEL MORPURGOThe former Children's Laureate, who has written more than 100 books, talks about the secrets of his craft.
October 2, 2pm
JACK McCONNELLThe recently appointed British High Commissioner in Malawi and former First Minister Jack McConnell with director of the Royal African Society Richard Dowden, Kenyan-born Mukami McCrum, Sir David Steel, who grew up in Kenya, and journalist Trevor Grundy discuss Africa in the 21st century.
October 4, 3pm
The full article contains 1353 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
