ImagesBrighton pictures of the week 1-6-2004

IMAGESBRIGHTON photography by david gray
	H A Y L I T E R A R Y F E S T I V A L
	P I C T U R E S O F T H E W E E K 1 - 6 - 2 0 0 4

Hay on Wye is an attractive old market town set in beautiful countryside in Wales. Back in 1961, a man called Richard Booth bought the town's ramshackle castle and set up a secondhand bookshop which, over the years, has been joined by no less than 38 others. Hay has become a "book town" and Mr Booth, a magnificent eccentric, now calls himself, with some justification but no strict legitimacy, the "King of Hay". The bookshops and the lovely location inspired an annual literary festival that has grown into a major date in the cultural calendar. Bill Clinton came in 2001 and described it as a "Woodstock of the mind", an apt phrase given the number of romances said to blossom at the event. Tickets have sold out for much of the programme, but you can still enjoy some of the atmosphere by looking at ten pictures from the first weekend of this year's Hay festival.

Richard Booth, the "King of Hay" and founding father of the town's book trade (image 2517-68)

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click here for a set of 90 pictures on the hay festival