Being 'Led by Donkeys' today

The Stroud Book Festival has been very busy for four days presenting a fine assembly of writers once again. I mentioned it to Pip M, one of my oldest friends (we met in the mid 1960s) who likes visiting Stroud which is an easy and delightful 30 mile drive from his home in Bristol. When we looked at the programme we both thought Will Hutton would be an interesting speaker but it wasn't convenient for either of us midweek. The other obvious choice for both of us was 'Led by Donkeys' who were promoting their book so I ordered tickets very quickly, fortuitously as it was an early sell-out.

Pip came up for coffee at 11am today and we had time to natter and catch up before going to town for the 1pm – 2pm slot. Helena was able to come with us which was really good as she hadn't seen Pip for nearly a year – she is such a busy bee. The Subscription Rooms were heaving with a lively audience, as the local community has a lot of time for the sort of direct actions that Led by Donkeys have become known for. Actually until very recently their names weren't known publicly and this book was part of their 'coming out' and revealing themselves.

Although I knew of them as a direct action group I wasn't aware of how much campaigning they had been responsible for until James Sadri and Ben Stewart revealed more about themselves, their work and how they began as a group. Two other members were unable to attend, one being ill, the other being in Sweden.

The whole session was fun and inspiring and everyone there seemed very supportive of them. Ben Stewart (on the left of the picture) revealed that he had been born and grown up in Stroud so the event was quite personal for him and his family who had come with him today. James brought his young family too and they were introduced. Jo Magee who is also on the stage is a local filmmaker and did a good job of facilitating the event and encouraging the many questions from the audience.

To introduce the event a short series of clips were show on the screen from various 'actions' which Led by Donkeys have delivered over the years. In particular there was a clip of the famous interruption of a Liz Truss pre-election meeting, which I'd only vaguely heard of which was funny. They also talked us through the action to expose the corrupt money making by Michelle Mone, whereby she and her husband made millions of pounds out of supplying poor quality PPE equipment during the CoVid crisis. They went to Spain and renamed their yacht, bought with the profits, the 'Pandemic Profiteer'! You can read about it here – 'Michelle Mone's yacht gets Led by Donkeys treatment'. There is also a short video to show what they did.

Later during their talk they mentioned that they had only just released a new 8 minute video about the very unhealthy relationship between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Late in the evening I managed to find and watch it, so I present it for your, here.

After the event we went home where I cooked a late lunch for us all before Pip and I went back to the Subscription Rooms in the evening. We'd got tickets for an evening of music and poetry. Clark Tracey, a jazz drummer brought his quartet and two actors to recreate the famous jazz album that his father Stan Tracey created decades ago called 'Under Milk Wood'.

Pip and I loved it.

The Book Festival Programme described it thus:
2024 marks the 70th anniversary of Dylan Thomas’s most marvellous verse drama, 'Under Milk Wood': in fact the first stage performance took place at the Théâtre de la Cour Saint-Pierre, Geneva in November 1954.
In 1965, jazz pianist Stan Tracey wrote and released “Jazz Suite Inspired by Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood”, played by the Stan Tracey Quartet.  It is often cited as one of the best jazz recordings ever made. 
So we are thrilled to welcome Stan’s son Clark, and his own Clark Tracey Quartet, to perform his father’s celebrated jazz suite. The music will be interspersed with readings from Dylan Thomas’s work by Sharon White and Ben Tracey (Stan Tracey’s grandson) and prefaced by a short in-conversation with Clark about his father’s creative relationship with poets and writers. 
Introduced by Adam Horovitz